Book · 1739
A Treatise of Human Nature
by David Hume
Hume uses a billiard ball and a bundle of perceptions to dismantle causation and personal identity — r/askphilosophy is still linking the passages in 2026.
What does Reddit think of A Treatise of Human Nature?
r/philosophy contributes 3, all from 2019. The Treatise doesn't get praised or criticized in these threads — it gets cited. The billiard-ball causation passage shows up when someone asks why we can't prove cause and effect (↑43 links the Abstract directly). The is-ought gap from Book III Part I Section I appears when a thread conflates description with prescription (↑21 cites the Gutenberg text). The bundle-theory-of-self quote (↑28) gets reproduced verbatim — "I never can catch myself at any time without a perception" — because no paraphrase does the same work. One r/askphilosophy thread flags that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem creates the same problem as Hume on causality: consequences too devastating for rationalism to absorb comfortably. That comparison says something about the book's standing. Mention volume has grown since 2022 — 3, 4, 6 in successive years before dropping to 3 in 2025 and 4 in the first quarter of 2026. Neutral sentiment throughout both subs. Nobody argues about it; they quote it.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Causation as habit of mind rather than logical inference
- · Bundle theory of personal identity
- · The is-ought gap and the foundations of moral reasoning
- · Limits of empiricism and rational certainty
- · Hume's place in the analytic canon as source material
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy links the Abstract to the full text when threads need a primary source on causality — it functions as the canonical citation rather than a curiosity.
- + The bundle-theory passage (↑28) gets reproduced in full because the specific wording matters; r/askphilosophy treats paraphrase as inadequate.
- + The is-ought section from Book III appears across ethics threads as a corrective against conflating description with prescription.
- + Mention volume has grown since 2022, reaching 6 in 2024, which suggests active philosophical circulation rather than syllabus-only status.
Common criticism
- − r/askphilosophy warns that solo study in philosophy is genuinely hard (↑21 says so explicitly), and the Treatise sits at the difficult end of that range.
- − r/philosophy's 3 mentions, all from 2019, suggest the Treatise generates almost no organic discussion outside dedicated philosophy spaces.
- − No commenter in the dataset recommends it as a first read — it surfaces as a destination for specific questions, not as a starting point.
Who it's for
If you already know what the is-ought problem is and want Hume's own words, this is where you go. Philosophy students who've encountered the causation argument in secondary sources and feel the gap will find the billiard-ball passage worth tracking down. Casual readers who bounced off Descartes should start with the Abstract — r/askphilosophy links it constantly for a reason, and it's a short document Hume wrote himself. The ↑21 comment is clear: self-study without guidance is genuinely difficult, and the Treatise does not ease you in.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for A Treatise of Human Nature?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“>In 1915, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the philosopher and physicist Moritz Schlick, who had recently composed an article on the theory of relativity. Einstein praised it: ‘From the philosophical perspective, nothing nearly as clear seems to have been written on the topic.’ Then he went on to e…
“Determinism tends to require causality. Without causality it is difficult to get determinism. Recall Hume's observations about stories we tell about causality in An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature. The problem is where the 'cause and effect sto…
“> But many of the philosophers we've been reading in my course seem to try and build, from the ground up, entire theories explaining really broad phenomena, like their minds or reality itself, just based on their personal observation and reason. Descartes starts by skeptically analysing his senses,…
“>The Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel, made this abundantly clear in his Incompleteness Theorem of 1931, but few philosophers have paid much attention because its consequences, like those for David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, are too devastating for rational thought to contemplate seriously. …
“David Hume For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but th…
“I second this. But when we studied meditations, I would not get even half of it without the proffs guidance. OP, I suggest you to read and ask questions here or try to find it somewhere online. Studying philosophy yourself is really hard. Also, here is the list of what we studied: 1. Descartes, Me…
“An introduction to Hume’s moral philosophy outlined in volume three of the Treatise of Human Nature and the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Hume was a sentimentalist, naturalist, and empiricist when it came to ethics. He explores how our feelings shape our moral approbations. He was al…
“Hi. Another 19 year old here who got into philosophy because of JBP (back in 2016). If you want to start off and get some more general philosophy knowledge, I would recommend Hume's *Treatise of Human Nature* which covers a number of topics, largely ones that JBP doesn't go much into. However if y…
Convinced? Pick up A Treatise of Human Nature
What else does r/askphilosophy read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1781 attempt to settle the limits of human knowledge — the book that split philosophy in two and still hasn't been fully digested.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
A 1942 essay that opens with the question of whether life is worth living and ends by insisting Sisyphus is happy.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein built a numbered ladder from logical atomism to the inexpressible, then said the ladder had to be discarded once you climbed it.
Being and Time
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger's argument that human existence only gets its meaning from death — 162 Reddit mentions, mostly from people explaining why it's so hard to read.
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
Aristotle's 2,400-year-old argument that living well depends on virtue, leisure, and the company you keep — still the canonical text for the field.
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche dismantles the moral framework Western civilization built on, then refuses to tell you what to replace it with.
A Treatise of Human Nature — frequently asked
What does Reddit actually use A Treatise of Human Nature for?+
Primarily as a citation source. Of the 27 mentions across 7 years, 24 are in r/askphilosophy, where commenters link specific passages to anchor arguments in primary text. The billiard-ball section, the is-ought paragraph from Book III, and the bundle-theory-of-self quote dominate. It functions as infrastructure — not a book people recommend reading end to end.
Is A Treatise of Human Nature hard to read without a course?+
Yes. A ↑21 r/askphilosophy comment warns explicitly that self-study in philosophy is hard and suggests finding forums or guidance. No commenter in the dataset recommends the Treatise as a solo starting point. Hume wrote the Abstract himself as a condensed entry point — r/askphilosophy links it when a thread needs Hume's causation argument quickly.
Which parts of A Treatise of Human Nature come up most on Reddit?+
Three sections dominate: the billiard-ball causation passage (the ↑43 r/askphilosophy comment links the Abstract directly), the is-ought gap from Book III Part I Section I (↑21, linked to the Gutenberg text), and the bundle-theory-of-self passage (↑28, quoted in full). These are the three things r/askphilosophy reaches for when it needs primary-source Hume.
Has interest in A Treatise of Human Nature grown recently?+
Modestly. Mentions went from 1 each in 2020 and 2021 to 3 in 2022, 4 in 2023, 6 in 2024, and 3 in 2025, with 4 already in the first quarter of 2026. It's not trending; it's persisting.