Regarding Bertrand Russell (Nobel Laureate, 1950) in "The Problems of Philosophy" (1912), Bibliographical Note: The student who wishes to acquire an elementary knowledge of philosophy will find it both easier and more profitable to read some of the works of the great philosophers than to attempt to derive an all-round view from handbooks. The following are specially recommended: Plato: Republic, especially Books VI and VII. Descartes: Meditations. Spinoza: Ethics. Leibniz: The Monadology. Berkeley: Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Hume: Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Kant: Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics.About the Series "Elementary Knowledge of Philosophy": Volume 1PLATO: THE REPUBLIC / THE MEDITATIONS OF DESCARTESAnnotated by: THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell.Chapter I. APPEARANCE AND REALITY Chapter II. THE EXISTENCE OR MATTER Chapter III. THE NATURE OF MATTER Chapter IV. IDEALISM Chapter V. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE BY DESCRIPTION Volume 2SPINOZA: ETHICS / LEIBNIZ: THE MONADOLOGY. / BERKELEY: THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS.Annotated by: THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell.Chapter VI.ON INDUCTION Chapter VII.ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES Chapter VIII.HOW A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE IS POSSIBLE Chapter IX.THE WORLD OF UNIVERSALS Chapter X.ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF UNIVERSALS Volume. 3 HUME: ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING./ KANT: PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS.Annotated by: THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell.Chapter XI.ON INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE Chapter XII.TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD Chapter XIII.KNOWLEDGE, ERROR, AND PROBABLE OPINION Chapter XIV.THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE Chapter XV.THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY Volume 3"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739-40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber." The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature. The argument of the Enquiry proceeds by a series of incremental steps, separated into chapters which logically succeed one another. After expounding his epistemology, Hume explains how to apply his principles to specific topics."Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics" is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, published in 1783, two years after the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason. One of Kant's shorter works, it contains a summary of the Critique's main conclusions, sometimes by arguments Kant had not used in the Critique. Kant characterizes his more accessible approach here as an "analytic" one, as opposed to the Critique's "synthetic" examination of successive faculties of the mind and their principles.Kant declared that the Prolegomena are for the use of both learners and teachers as an heuristic way to discover a science of metaphysics. Unlike other sciences, metaphysics has not yet attained universal and permanent knowledge.