X-Nico

3 unusual facts about An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding


An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

These operations are compounding (or the addition of one idea onto another, such as a horn on a horse to create a unicorn); transposing (or the substitution of one part of a thing with the part from another, such as with the body of a man upon a horse to make a centaur); augmenting (as with the case of a giant, whose size has been augmented); and diminishing (as with Lilliputians, whose size has been diminished).

Gua-Le-Ni; or, The Horrendous Parade

By means of fantastic beasts of the same combinatorial nature as Hume’s Pegasus, Gua-Le-Ni; or, The Horrendous Parade asks the players to twist the creative capabilities described in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding on their heads and use them as game mechanics: impossible paper beasts will parade across the screen (the page of a fantastic bestiary) only to be recognized as combinations of parts of existing animals.

From a philosophical perspective, the concept of Gua-Le-Ni was inspired by David Hume’s philosophical understanding of what a ‘complex idea’ is, as well as by the very example he used to elucidate the concept in his 1748 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.



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