Context

This line was written by the philosopher David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1748.

Keep your eyes peeled, Shmoopers. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume says that most human knowledge must come from direct observation of certain patterns in the outside world. This way of confirming our knowledge through observation is called empiricism and it's different from something like arithmetic. For example, 2+2 always equals four because it can't be any other way (unless you're bad at math).

For something like the sunrise, it makes just as much sense for us to say that the sun won't rise tomorrow as it does for us to say it will rise. In other words, both sentences make sense. The fact that we know the sun will rise tomorrow is a judgment we make based on the fact that we have always observed the sun rising every day (unless it's cloudy outside). It's always possible that the sun may not rise some day, but we think it will because we have to do the best we can with the evidence we've got.

Where you've heard it

The quote doesn't really feature in any famous movies or novels. But if you've ever heard it in everyday conversation, we're willing to bet that the person saying it was misunderstanding Hume's point and just being annoyingly skeptical. Just image yourself trying to argue for climate change and another person saying, "Yeah, well, who's to say the universe won't implode before that happens?" Thanks for that, pal.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

If you're concerned about sounding pretentious, then you probably already realize that the phrase "no less intelligible a proposition" is enough to send most people running. But if you're ever in a situation where you want to make a similar argument, try saying something more like, "We figure things out by watching the world around us and looking for patterns." Or how about, "Scientific knowledge ain't perfect, but it's the best we've got." Those will go over much better at your next shindig.