A Humean Conundrum

This paper is devoted to the nature and roles of sense impressions in Hume’s account of perception. At first sight Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, a book written within the frame of reference of the Lockean ‘way of ideas’, is mostly devoted to the examination of ideas: ideas of memory and ideas of the imagination, general ideas, the ideas of space and time, the idea of cause and effect, etc. And it is true that in p. 8 of the Treatise Hume declares sense impressions to be beyond the bounds of his discussion, and only goes back again to issues directly relative to sensory perception as a source of knowledge towards the end of Book 1, in the 30-page section devoted to what he calls the ‘scepticism with regard to the senses’. Yet the pages of this work are full of vivid references to sense impressions: patches of colour such as a missing shade of blue, the purple surface of Hume’s own table, red and blue points, a hand spread against the blue colour of the firmament, the colours reflected in the clouds, a spot of ink, black characters on the white pages of history books—visual images prevail, but there are also the taste of a pineapple, the sweetness of a fig and the bitterness of an olive, the creaking of a door, a succession of notes on a flute, the warmth of the fire and the coolness of water, etc. Sense impressions are major protagonists of Hume’s theory of knowledge.

European Journal of Philosophy

On its face, Hume’s account of mental representation involves at least two elements. On the one hand, Hume often seems to write as though the representational properties of an idea are fixed solely by what it is a copy or image of. But, on the other, Hume’s treatment of abstract ideas (and other similar cases) makes it clear that the representational properties of a Humean idea sometimes depend, not just on what it is copied from, but also on the manner in which the mind associates it with other ideas. Past interpretations of Hume have tended to focus on one of these elements of his account to the neglect of the other. But no interpretation of this sort is likely to capture the role that both copying and association play within Hume’s discussion. In what follows, I argue that the most plausible way of understanding Hume’s discussion involves attributing to him a unified account of mental representation in which both of these elements play a central role. I close by discussing the manner in which reading Hume in this way would alter our understanding of the relationship between Hume’s thought and contemporary philosophy of mind.

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 4, 2005, 197–207., 2005

Abstract. In Book I, Part I, Section VII of the Treatise, Hume sets out to settle, once and for all, the early modern controversy over abstract ideas. In order to do so, he tries to accomplish two tasks: (1) he attempts to defend an exemplar-based theory of general language and thought, and (2) he sets out to refute the rival abstraction-based account. This paper examines the successes and failures of these two projects. I argue that Hume manages to articulate a plausible theory of general ideas; indeed, a version of his account has defenders in contemporary cognitive science. But Hume fails to refute the abstraction-based account, and as a result, the early modern controversy ends in a stalemate, with both sides able to explain how we manage to speak and think in general terms. Although Hume fails to settle the controversy, he nevertheless advances it to a point from which we have yet to progress: the contemporary debate over abstract ideas in cognitive science has stalled on precisely this point.

In a recent paper Karl Schafer argues that Hume’s theory of mental representation has two distinct components, unified by their shared feature of having accuracy conditions. As Schafer sees it, simple and complex ideas represent the intrinsic imagistic features of their objects whereas abstract ideas represent the relations or structures in which multiple objects stand. This distinction, however, is untenable for at least two related reasons. Firstly, complex ideas represent the relations or structures in which the impressions that are the objects of their simple components stand. Secondly abstract ideas are themselves instances of complex ideas. I draw two important conclusions form these facts. Firstly, contra Schafer and Garret (to whom Schafer responds), the Copy Principle, properly emended, constitutes the entirety of Hume’s theory of mental representation. Secondly, whereas paradigm examples of complex ideas, e.g. ideas of spatial and temporal complexes, are structured by relations of contiguity, abstract ideas are those complex ideas instead structured by relations of resemblance. As such, they represent their objects not as spatially or temporally contiguous, but rather as resembling.

Belgrade Philosophical Annual, 2021

My aim is to look into the representational aspect of ideas, exploring not only to what Hume refers as adequate ideas, but also these cases where for a number of reasons an idea does not reach that standard. It has been suggested that the latter are fictions, but an in-depth examination of Hume texts reveals that there are several types of imperfections, such as incompleteness or imprecision that prevent an idea from being adequate. This leads to an analysis of the status of supposed or pretended ideas, and the possibility of there being terms with no ideas annexed to them.

The Cambridge Companion to Hume

By the time Hume started to work on his Treatise, the notion of an idea as the primary, most general sort of mental item dominated European philosophy. Although Descartes noted that, strictly speaking, only those "thoughts that are as it were images of things" were appropriately described as ideas, in practice he used "the word 'idea' to refer to whatever is immediately perceived by the mind." 1 Not only do we have ideas of trees and the sun, but we also have ideas of our own activities of thinking and willing. Locke characterizes 'idea' as "being that Term, which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding when a Man thinks." Locke also thinks that we not only have ideas that derive from things or objects in the world (ideas of sensation), but also of the activities and operations of our own minds (ideas of reflection). Ideas of sensation are acquired through the operation of external objects on our sense organs, while ideas of reflection come from introspection, from thinking about what happens within our own minds. He also thinks that these ideas of reflection are of two basic sorts of mental activity, perception and willing, that correspond to two faculties of mind: the understanding (or the power of thinking) and the will (or the power of volition). 2 Hume introduced important innovations concerning the theory of ideas. The two most important are the distinction between impressions and ideas, and the use he made of the principles of association in explaining mental phenomena. Hume divided the perceptions of the mind into two classes. The members of one class, impressions, he held to have a greater degree of force and vivacity than the members of the other class, ideas. He also supposed that ideas are causally dependent copies of impressions. And, unlike Locke and others, Hume makes positive use of the principle of association, both of the association of 80 ideas, and, in a more limited way, of the association of impressions. Such associations are central to his explanations of causal reasoning, belief, the indirect passions (pride and humility, love and hatred), and sympathy. These views about impressions and ideas and the principles of association form the core of Hume's science of human nature. Relying on them, he attempts a rigorously empirical investigation of human nature. The resulting system is a remarkable but complex achievement. I. IMPRESSIONS AND IDEAS Hume begins Book 1 of the Treatise, "Of the Understanding," by saying: "All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS" (T 1.1.1.1, SBN 1). In his later Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (hereafter Enquiry) he says much the same thing, but adds an example: "Every one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory the sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination" (EHU 2.1, SBN 17). In neither work does he make an attempt to explain what he means by the phrase, "perceptions of the mind," but it would have been obvious to any eighteenthcentury reader that he is using that expression much as Descartes and Locke had used the term "idea": for anything that mind is aware of or experiences. As he put it later in the Treatise: "To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive" (T 1.2.6.7, SBN 67). Hume's initial step in the Treatise is to show that perceptions of the mind may divided into "two distinct kinds," impressions and ideas. These two kinds commonly differ, he says, "in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind." Among our impressions, those perceptions with the most "force and vivacity," are sensations (including those of pain and pleasure) and the passions and emotions. Ideas are described as "the faint images" of impressions that are found "in

Philosophy, 2002

number of passages in his later work, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (e.g., Section XII, 15 [154-155]). For the empiricist Hume, who adheres to a nominalist gnoseology, there are no abstract, universal concepts or ideas (the abstract universal ideas or concepts of the moderate realists). Only names or words are universal, not ideas or concepts. "Hume maintains that we find a resemblance between objects and apply the same name to them; then, after a 'custom' of this kind has been established, the name revives the 'idea,' and the imagination conceives the object represented by the 'idea'" 1 Bittle points out Hume's sensist reductionism of ideas to images, writing that "according to Hume, the total content of the mind consists of perceptions. Perceptions are of two kinds: 'impressions' and 'ideas' or 'thoughts.' Impressions are those perceptions which are more lively and forceful, and they include sensations and emotions. The faint images of these impressions Hume terms ideas or thoughts. Impressions (sensations and emotions) are experienced; ideas or thoughts (faint images of sensations and emotions) are revived in imagination and memory…Hume's explanation of ideas as faint images of senseimpressions is totally inadequate. Since both are of a sensory character, they are concrete and individualized. Our ideas, however, are abstract and universal. There is a radical difference between 'sensations' and 'images' on the one hand and 'intellectual ideas' on the other. To ignore or deny these differences is a serious error." 2 Describing Hume's sensist nominalism concerning abstract, general ideas, James Daniel Collins writes: "In dealing with abstract, general ideas, Hume professes to be following Berkeley but, in fact, he comes closer to Hobbes's position. An abstract idea is one that is particular in its own nature, but general in its representation. 3 It acquires generality not from containing a universal meaning but from its connection with a general term. A term is called general in virtue of a twofold association that is built up in the mind by usage: first, between the term and the habit of the mind that evokes a particular idea; second, between the evoked idea and the other particular ideas with which customary bonds have been established. Upon presentation of the term, imagination not only calls forth the particular idea, associated with the term, but also places itself in a state of readiness to recall the remaining ideas in the associative group. The generality of abstract ideas resides in this readiness for associative recall of images." 4 In his A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume writes: "A great philosopher (Berkeley) has asserted that all general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals, which are similar to them. As I look upon this to be one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries which has been made of late in the republic of letters I shall here endeavour to confirm it by some arguments, which I hope will put it beyond all doubt and controversy." 5 Hume also writes in his later work, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "There is no such thing as abstract or general ideas, properly speaking; but all general ideas are, in reality, particular ones, that resemble in certain circumstances the idea present to the mind." 6 In his description of Hume's sensist, nominalist views on abstract, general ideas, Thonnard observes: "The existence of universal ideas in man is an undeniable fact. Hume, with his customary empiricism, reduces all the content of ideas to an incomplete, sensible image, designating but one individual in reality. How, then, does one explain the universal usage which we make of this concrete representation by giving it a common name enabling it to designate an indefinite number of similar individuals? "One must have recourse, for an explanation of this fact, to habit, the source of the law of association. Once we have seen by numerous experiences that a concrete image, properly prepared, as the one which stands for this particular man, can be used to designate another, similar individual, we designate the image by a word. We then habitually associate any sort of similar individual with the word. "This habit, once set within us, has a double property. a) It becomes an evocative tendency, so that the common name is applied to any individual whatsoever, and is ready to pass to all of those associated with the preceding experience; at the same time, it does not always 2

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2020

I offer a novel two-stage reconstruction of Hume's general-point-of-view account, modeled in part on his qualified-judges account in 'Of the Standard of Taste.' In particular, I argue that the general point of view needs to be jointly constructed by spectators who have sympathized with (at least some of) the agents in (at least some of) the actor's circles of influence. The upshot of the account is twofold. First, Hume's later thought developed in such a way that it can rectify the problems inherent in his Treatise account of the general point of view. Second, the proposed account provides the grounds for an adequate and well-motivated modest ideal observer theory of the standard of virtue.