Reading Group: Hume's Of skepticism with regard to the senses
I've read Hume's Treatise of Human Nature Part I and I thought that this particular section was the best in the book, alongside his discussions of causality.
I think others might be interested in reading this chapter, and see what people make of it.
https://files.libertyfund.org/files/342/0213_Bk.pdf
The relevant section begins on pp.187 and ends on pp.217. I intended this to be less than 12 pages, but I think much will be left out. So I guess the best would be to read a few pages a day, 5 to 10 maybe, it shouldn't be too hard.
I am not a fan of putting too many rules in such threads but having already experienced what one of these threads can look like, I will ask for people who post here to read the actual text, instead of summaries or secondary sources.
If you don't read the text, or at least several pages, it would be better to start a different thread.
As for the rest, all views are welcome. One thing that I think might be useful, is to emphasize one phrase Hume says, which if ignored, could very much distort his discussion on the topic. Near the beginning of the chapter Hume says "...tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings".
Emphasis mine.
Other than that, enjoy the chapter. Looking forward to your opinions.
EDIT:
For people using other versions of the book, this can be found in: Book 1, part IV, section II, of A Treatise of Human Nature.
I think others might be interested in reading this chapter, and see what people make of it.
https://files.libertyfund.org/files/342/0213_Bk.pdf
The relevant section begins on pp.187 and ends on pp.217. I intended this to be less than 12 pages, but I think much will be left out. So I guess the best would be to read a few pages a day, 5 to 10 maybe, it shouldn't be too hard.
I am not a fan of putting too many rules in such threads but having already experienced what one of these threads can look like, I will ask for people who post here to read the actual text, instead of summaries or secondary sources.
If you don't read the text, or at least several pages, it would be better to start a different thread.
As for the rest, all views are welcome. One thing that I think might be useful, is to emphasize one phrase Hume says, which if ignored, could very much distort his discussion on the topic. Near the beginning of the chapter Hume says "...tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings".
Emphasis mine.
Other than that, enjoy the chapter. Looking forward to your opinions.
EDIT:
For people using other versions of the book, this can be found in: Book 1, part IV, section II, of A Treatise of Human Nature.
Comments (150)
Very interesting. I've read similar studies; it does however create an issue. If an infant can recognize an object, then it looks to me as if causality is already in play, that is the object is a stimulus for the infant, "absorbed" by the infant's intentionality. This can be debated.
What's outlined in this chapter, is perhaps too difficult to create an experiment on. Or maybe not, that's a good question for discussion.
A second point is that mind can be exhaustively described in terms of such perceptions and their relations (associations, resemblances, and the like).
Which is to say, the mind can be exhaustively described in terms of its states, by which we mean its 'internal' states, there being no others.
Is this plausible?
If a bee is perceiving a flower, isn't the most natural description of such a situation, that there is a relation, perception, that holds between bee and flower?
But Hume will take the bee to be in a perceiving state, full stop, rather than considering the bee as related to another object, the flower, in a particular way.
And the explanation for that move, from relation to state, must be found in Hume's account of the senses.
In so far as Hume is attempting to give a theoretical account of what's empirically available to us (according to his system), your conclusion does seem to follow from what he writes here. It would extend this discussion to add much, but he does say that "the essence of mind" is "unknown", so there may be other factors in play, which we cannot account for.
It becomes complicated, because he readily allows that "bodies" exist, which aren't internal to the mind, this is something we take for granted. The real problem is how to neatly distinguish between "inner" and "outter", when it comes to the mind.
If the bee has experience, then the situation for the bee would be that it relates to thing out there, which we call a flower. But it would likely have no account of the continued existence of the flower, it would merely go to it.
For us, the continued existence of objects, according to Hume, is due to the imagination.
Edit: Misread your last sentence. From relation to state... perhaps, though I suspect that something about our mental architecture plays a role, even if he likes to downplay this aspect.
I have lots of rereading to do, and thinking after that, so I don't have a full picture of the argument yet.
I think the idea is that an impression is something that occurs to us, becomes present to mind, involuntarily, as feelings do, but is otherwise distinguished from an idea only in being more vivid.
In particular, we are counseled not to think we can distinguish impressions from ideas by their source, one external, the other internal. So far as mind is concerned, we are told, they are the same.
If that's right, then indeed the state description is right and the relation description is speculative.
It might seem to be only a formal shift, at one level, from something like (a) stuck-in(arrow, target), a relation, a function from an ordered pair to {0, 1}, to (b) stuck-in-target(arrow), a function from a single object to {0, 1}.
But the 1-place function is just a partially applied 2-place function. The target is just baked in.
Hume seems to think he doesn't need it, that you can coherently say 'impression' and dodge the question, "Impression of what?"
The argument goes round, that the hypothesis of 'double existence' is insupportable, which would be true if impressions are the same as ideas. But is that claim based only on introspection? Or does it arise from a methodological choice not to consider the 'what' that impressions are of? (Here I really have to reread.)
In the latter case, the methodological choice would end up becoming a substantive position, no double existence. Because of course by the time the question is addressed, there's no other answer you can give.
Yeah, I think this is going to be fun, many of the issues you raise based on what he says is quite important, and obviously open to interpretation, as evidenced by all the literature there is on him.
Yes, impressions are a bit like breathing or digestion, we don't have a choice in having them. He does say elsewhere that we can't have a simple idea without a corresponding simple impression. It gets much murkier when we get to complex impressions.
Sticking to the topic you raised:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
As impressions, perhaps that's right (I'm no expert at all either), but we can have ideas of something, these being based originally on impressions.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is extremely difficult, and fascinating for that reason, in my opinion. Let's see, if ideas are merely weaker impressions, then the problem is completely insurmountable.
But let's say they're not. Let's say ideas and impressions are significantly different than what Hume says, is the problem solved?
Let's assume Hume's wrong, and let's look at a statue. We can say we got the idea of this specific statue by looking at it. We close our eyes, and some crumbs of marble, imperceptible to us, fall from the object. (We can't call strictly speaking consider this a statue at this specific point, it could have disappeared, but there is nothing there to "verify" that there is a statue, we are the ones who do that.) We open our eyes and see the same statue, we don't notice a difference, but that statue has changed.
If there was no statue there, we wouldn't have the idea of this specific statue (we may have ideas of other statues). Every instance, it seems to me we have a different perception, and strictly speaking (again) the statue is also changing.
It looks to me as if this situation is one of double existence, which is very strange.
Something like that, on first approximation.
Will have more later, but I wanted to add what seems like a very strong argument against double existence -- though again it leaves me a little confused which arguments have priority over which.
This is the argument based on his account of our judgments of cause and effect being derived from the experience of constant conjunction. He argues that the claim that some object causes our perceptions cannot be accepted because we never have the opportunity to observe the object, on the one hand, accompanied by the perception, on the other, much less constantly.
That's an awfully strong argument *if* his account of causality is correct.
But he does raise a point, which though you have not argued for or against, is very important to know in the context of the discussion of causation.
My paperback copy of Hume has perhaps too many highlights, so providing more coherent quotes would take a long time, nevertheless he says:
"...I explain only the manner in which objects affect the senses, without endeavouring to account for their real nature and operations.... my intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or explain the secret causes of their operations... I'm afraid such an enterprise is beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we can never pretend to know otherwise than by those external properties, which discover themselves to the senses."
pp.111-112 in the Penguin Edition of Humes Treatise
There are other quotes, but it would be a bit long to provide them here. The point is to state, that Hume did not think that all there was to causality is constant conjunction (this is frequently claimed, it's not true), it's that it's the only thing we can discover about it. We know not the "secret springs" of nature.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think this is the case with say, billiard balls hitting each other or a bullet flying off a barrel. But in the case of the examples he gives of the paper in front of him, and the chimney, he is constantly looking at the object, it's not an issue of it being seen very quickly.
So, on this reading, this would not be huge problem to the "two world account" he is critiquing. But, I could be wrong in my interpretation, for sure.
Good point about the secret springs of nature.
There is something I find fundamentally unnerving about Hume's arguments, that they're hard to categorize as 'empirical' or not.
That's significant (a great quote) and as you suggest regularly overlooked. Thanks for underscoring it.
Do people still look to Hume around the question of causation? Are we clearer or less clearer in the 21st century? I know there are are regularity theories, counterfactual theories, causal process theories, probabilistic theories, interventionist theories and others...
It's a modern imposition, perhaps influenced by Kant when he categorized philosophers before him as "dogmatists" and "skeptics". But Descartes and Leibniz were more scientific than Locke, Berkeley or Hume. Yet both "camps" used elements of both empiricism and rationalism. The main difference I find between them, is in how strong a power(s) they ascribe to the mind, Hume much less so than Descartes, for instance.
As for Hume, a little quote, that is very important, which shows he does not believe the mind is empty:
"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. "
That's in his Enquiry
Similar comments are found in his Treatise. He tries to downplay it by saying it just a mechanical instinct, but he can't really suppress it much. Also, his "missing shade of blue" is extraordinary, in that by accepting it, he should have realized his system was fatally injured, imo.
It's a good question, but in my experience, a good deal of the contemporary discussion on these topics aren't very interesting to me, too technical and narrow. So, I couldn't tell you.
Having said that, I believe Hume's problems of causation remains a big problem in philosophy, due to the amount of literature on the topic. One could argue that Kant's framework improved the way we should think about these issues.
But I think the problems remain, concerning causation and the reasons we have for believing in the continuity of external objects.
This is another point he makes repeatedly, that we only have these unique, ephemeral perceptions, among which, to be sure, there are resemblances, but that neither reason nor observation justify us explaining these resemblances by positing a constant object they are perceptions of.
One thing notable by its absence in the whole section is conceptualization. Hume allows that one perception resembles another, but shows little interest in, or anxiety about, the sorts of conceptualization we worry about a lot. Hume's system is, to this extent, somewhat more mechanical and less cognitive, than we are used to in these post-Kant, post-Frege days. But it may indeed mean he is closer to mainstream psychology than we usually are; this is a naturalist epistemology.
It seems to me that Hume's scepticism was mainly directed towards Rationalism. He is against 'innate ideas' that Descartes inherited from Plato. Rather, everything comes from the senses, and yet there is nothing in the sensory field that makes sense of the senses. Nevertheless, we do make sense of them through ideas like cause and effect, and object persistence, but this is not by a process of (deductive) reasoning, but by an act of imagination. One imagines a world beyond the senses in order to understand and make sense of sense-experience.
Reason is no longer king, and man has taken the first step towards a reconnection with Nature. Darwin will take the next step, and environmentalism the one after that. The Treatise on Human Nature is thus a work of philosophical psychology, and epistemology -what is man's place in the new world, and what are his fundamental properties? Not the Cartesian 'thinking thing', but the empirical, 'sensing thing'.
Very good post and you are quite right. In fact, assuming you don't already know this, Hume regarded his account to be an empirical theory, meaning scientific, motivated in no small part by Newton's achievement, he was trying to establish a "science of man", what we would today perhaps call a psychology, as you mention.
Your conclusion that Hume was a "sensual" philosopher is correct and is stated explicitly by the (apparently) first serious scholarly work on Hume by Norman Kemp Smith.
His views on the imagination are perhaps the most profound out of the classical figures, which gives him an extra unique factor worth exploring for those interested in the topic. Nevertheless, the imagination as well as his "missing shade of blue", and most of all, by far, his famous Appendix to the Treatise show that he faced insurmountable difficulties given the account of mind he assumed to be true.
Actually, the imagination could be argued about, in terms of its status in relation to innatism.
He does point it out a lot and I think he is factually correct about this, though carrying out experiments on conceptual posits might prove to be quite difficult.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
And this is a difficulty both as stated in this chapter given his assumptions, and also hard given rationalist or even Kantian assumptions.
The sense I get is that if you really think about it, it's an extremely complex problem to justify the continued existence of the object, because, as he says:
"When we have been accustomd to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found, that the perception of the sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon us after an absence or annihilation with like parts and in a like order, as at its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different, (which they really are) but on the contrary consider them as individually the same, upon account of their resemblance.
But as this interruption of their existence is contrary to their perfect identity, and [b]makes
us regard the first impression as annihilated, and the second as newly created, we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involvd in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty, we disguise, as much as possible, the interruption, or rather remove it entirely, by
Supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible[/b]."
Emphasis mine.
So he says this, which I think is correct, nevertheless we can't forget that he says, at the beginning of this chapter: "...tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings."
So - very very hard.
Good.
I think the warmup is done and now we ought to go right through and discuss the arguments as they arise. I've considered graphing them out, but it'll be more fun to make connections as we go.
I was going to start at the first proper argument, that continued and distinct existence are equivalent, but we should look first at the introductory bit, whence this quote comes, because there's some guidance there.
The sceptic, he says, "must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body ... Nature has not left this to his choice."
Belief in the existence of body is
(1) not supportable by the senses or by reason;
(2) not a matter of choice;
(3) imposed on us by nature;
(4) caused.
Section II, then, takes as given the phenomenon that we believe in body; what we're looking for is a causal explanation of this belief. It will not turn out that we do not so believe, or even that we could, if we chose, not so believe. We do. The only question Hume is addressing is why.
Before explaining some fact, we need to be sure we know what the fact is, and this Hume has already done in Part II Section VI, Of the idea of existence, and of external existence. He will refer to those results almost immediately.
There it is claimed, first, that since to conceive of any thing is to conceive of it as existing, existence is not a distinct idea at all, not a separable perception:
Specifically what Hume is saying here is that we can have no idea of existence, an idea that we might join to another idea, as a way of having the idea of something existing. It's about our conceptions, not logic, not language. Might Hume have taken another line? Might he, for instance, have said, that to imagine an object differs from imagining it as existing in that the latter is more vivid, or more complete, or something like this? There would still, I think, be no distinct conception of existence. Even if he were to say that conceiving an object as existing is the usual conceiving but accompanied by some particular feeling, that leaves the conception the same, and this is Hume's only point.
But to say that we have no separate conception of existence, which we might add to our conception of an object, is not quite to say that the only existence objects have is in being perceived (esse est percipi). We can form no conception of the existence of an object; that's a fact of psychology, of human nature, the subject of the book, not a metaphysical fact regarding objects and their mode of existence.
But Hume does want to say more, so we get a further argument, which begins:
This would all seem to turn on the meaning of the word 'present': I see the book here by me, but the book is not present with my mind, only the perception it occasions; the book remains forever 'out there' beyond the boundary of my mind. A cordon is drawn around my perceptions: within is mind, without is world. The question for Hume is not what's out there or what isn't, but how we may conceive what's 'out there', the psychological question, and perceptions offer him the solid ground of his psychology.
That is, when we try to conceive the 'external objects' that occasion our perceptions, we have nothing but perceptions to work with we have no other material with which to construct a conception of 'object', no material that would make such a conception a distinct sort of thing from a perception.
Or: try as you may to conceive, for once, of an external object, itself, you will only produce another idea, an idea derived from previous perceptions, impressions and ideas. It's all your mind can do; there is only one sort of object available to your mind, a perception, and any attempt to bring some other kind of object, whatever it may be, into your mind will fail utterly or substitute an idea of that other kind of object.
There is no claim that perceptions are the only kind of objects, or that all objects are really perceptions, but only that the only kind of object in our minds is perception.
And that's the pointer to our section, Part IV Section II, where he will refer back to this section:
Note the same language, 'specifically different', meaning some kind of object distinct from the kinds of objects that can be within our minds, perceptions, impressions, ideas.
So how good is Hume's case? Are we convinced by Part II Section VI that external existence is not even an idea?
The introductory bit in 4.2 says we can't raise the question of external objects because Nature but we can look for causes of the belief we're stuck with.
But didn't 2.6 say we have, and can have, no such conception of the external existence of objects?
Isn't that a flat contradiction?
There's an out because in 2.6 he says we don't, you know, really think of objects with external existence (since we can't) but that we do attribute 'different relations, connexions, and durations' to our perceptions.
4.2 is thus entirely about our perceptions, because Hume takes it he has already shown there's no point in trying to talk about anything else or at least that such talk can be no part of his psychology. Thus, whatever idea we have about objects that exist distinct from our mind and perceptions, will be an idea about perceptions that exist distinct from our perceptions. Big no there. Whatever idea we have about objects that continue to exist when they are not perceived by the senses, will be an idea about a perception that continues to exist when there is no perceiving. Another big no. This is the substance of point (1) above, that neither the senses nor reason take us any way toward the principle concerning the existence of body.
So this is what nature has forced on us, the idea we think of as the external existence of objects, the bizarre belief that some our perceptions continue over time distinct from us the perceivers, since we can only think perceptions not objects. Picturing the tree is picturing the tree existing; picturing the tree existing when no one's looking is picturing the tree. Picturing the tree without the tree being pictured, is not a thing. Picturing yourself picturing the tree for a bit and then stopping, is picturing your picture of the tree waiting for you to come back and resume picturing it. Whatever we may try to think about external objects, this is what we'll end up thinking.
That was a fantastic, fantastic post, much better than what I could muster myself. I think the arguments you present as your reading of Hume are correct. Which gives me very little to room to disagree so far. Let's see how to add or comment, and proceed:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes. And notice a difficulty here, nature has made this issue too important to leave it to us to decide if objects ("body") exist or no, this, we take "for granted". Yet the thing taken for granted is what paves the way for Hume to ask, essentially, well what reasons do we have to believe in the continued existence of these objects? It turns out that the reasons we have (or the ones he gives) are not nearly as good as we would like to have.
You seem to be more methodical than me, so I'll add what I think I can contribute to, by way of agreement or disagreement, and perhaps not mention a section which others might find crucial, if so, they can bring it up.
He goes on to mention (in part iv) that the perceptions we have of objects are actual perceptions. It makes no sense that we should say that the perception feels different from the object, whose impression gives us the idea of it.
Then, concerning external existence, Hume states:
"The paper, on which I write at present, is beyond my hand. The table is beyond the paper. The walls of the chamber beyond the table. And in casting my eye towards the window, I perceive a great extent of fields and buildings beyond my chamber. From all this it may be infer'd, that no other faculty is requir'd, beside the senses, to convince us of the external existence of body." (pp.190-191)
This is pretty clear and one would even say, a "naive realist" view of the world. But he is quick to point, we to take into account several important facts (three in total), of which I will mention only the first, as it looks to me the most important one:
"...properly speaking, tis not our body we perceive, when we regard our limbs and members but certain impressions, which enter by the senses." (p.191)
Which is true, and reminds me of Russell's comment that, strictly speaking, a neurologist is not looking at a brain when he studies it. He has a perception of something, which we call a brain, it's not as if the neurologist looking at a brain, is much different from us looking at our bodies, both are perceptions of "brains" and "bodies".
He points out that some of the things we attribute to external bodies, on minimal consideration, turn out to be internal affections, heat and sweetness and colours, etc. How far do we take this? It's not trivial, but we must at the very least allow the opportunity of contact with an object, to gain an impression, but for Hume, it's much more than this minimal consideration.
To end this post, he reiterates:
"[the senses] give us no notion of continud existence, because they cannot operate beyond the extent, in which they really Operate. They [the senses] as little produce the opinion of a distinct existence, because they neither can- offer it to the mind as represented, nor as original. To offer it as represented they [the senses] must present both an object and an image. To make it appear as original, they must convey a falshood ; and this falshood must lie in the relations and situation: In order to
which they must be able to compare the object with ourselves; and even in that case they do not, nor is it possible they shoud, deceive us" (pp.191-192)
As I understand it, if the senses represented "originals", objects as they are, we should be able to then compare these objects to ourselves, which would make them "external and independent" from us, as he says in p.190, 3rd paragraph.
Yes, and that's a pregnant suggestion, not really substantiated yet since I'm less than a page into the exegesis so far.
That last phrase referring to the results of Section I, Of scepticism with regard to reason. There he argues that even doing mathematics is, roughly, a matter of believing you've done it right, and checking your work or having others check it can only raise your confidence that you've done it right, never guarantee it.
Again, all about the psychology. It's not that mathematics can't be trusted absolutely, but that mathematicians can't be! And so it is for all sorts of reasoning. That's how we enter Section II, having established that the sceptic must reason even knowing that he reasons imperfectly. We even get a twin of the point made here:
If we go back through Part I, we may find some encomium to reason, but I'm not going to bother looking: I think we can just say 'Newton'. Hume may never bother saying in so many words what value to us reason has, because I think in 1739 he would consider the value, indeed the triumph, of mathematics and reason, for which reason nature would instill reason in us, to be perfectly obvious. We may, as he specifically argues, be unable to ground our reliance on reason in reason, but it's clear what we get by this reliance.
Not so for the external existence of objects. There has been nothing yet to explain why nature implanted this habit in us, why the belief in external objects is so necessary. What do we get out of this belief of such great importance that nature implanted it in us?
We will have to be on the lookout as we go through Section II for some clue if not explanation, as to what this belief does for us.
It is curious that he treats reasoning (with the principle example being mathematics) and the belief in distinct, persistent, external objects as separate questions, albeit giving them related answers. In the post-Frege world, we might naturally think these go together. We carve up the world into classifiable objects to make it safe for logic; conversely we analyze the world using the logic of predicates and classes because we have carved it up into distinct objects with properties in common. Logic and objects go together. Without distinct objects, there is nothing for the functions of logic (not the predicates, not the truth functions, quantifiers, or other operators) to be applied to.
One option may be one of the things I cited, which is simply, we do not know - it may be one of those "secret springs", which we cannot understand. Of course, this could well be accused of being a cop-out, which - may be.
But he offers an explanation, it is due to the powers of our imagination - arguments you will eventually get to in due time, I don't want to monopolize with the length of my posts.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
And I think this is an example in which empiricism simply fails, the account it gives of mathematics make little sense. It does not explain why every person on Earth can do basic arithmetic, if it be brought to the fore.
As for objects, yes, we postulate them, but we should be warry of treating them as platonic things. And here I think Hume is correct to point out the frequency in which our perceptions are new.
That really might be. I'm undecided.
Hume sets out to show that various beliefs we hold cannot be justified either by observation or by reason. But we do, nevertheless, hold these beliefs, and we hold them even once he has done as much as anyone can to demolish them.
Why we would hold reasonable beliefs needs no explanation; why we would give up unfounded beliefs needs no explanation; but why we would hold questionable beliefs and continue to hold them once shown to be groundless that requires some explanation.
Certainly this talk of nature deciding for us does that. Much of 4.2 is taken up with showing how exactly it works, to make it plausible that this is 'just how we think', willy-nilly.
So perhaps my wondering 'what we get out of it', why nature would so order things, is misplaced. That nature does so order our minds is all Hume is trying to show.
Plausible?
Once you get to the imagination, you may see something you find convincing, though he spends a good deal of time on it. Browsing it now, not in great detail, his appeal to the imagination is elegant, and perhaps right to an extent, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Maybe you're familiar with Donald Hoffman's recent work. Very, very briefly: we evolved for survival, not for discovering truths about the world. His analogy is that the objects we see are like desktop items, they're useful, but they're literally not what they seem, at bottom it's a bunch of code.
I don't find this too persuasive, but it has some merit.
It's not that they're groundless, our reasons, it's that they're not as good as we would like.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
In a way, taking Hume's phrase. But, if we admit his empiricism is false, not accepted today, then we need only a slight modification: that our minds so structure nature such that we postulate persisting objects. Of course, our minds are part of nature, but also separated from it by billions of years of evolution. But Hume's gist is quite plausible.
I should be clearer. I was only asking if my reading of Hume was plausible, not whether what he says was.
I do want to evaluate the arguments as we come to them, but only once we know what they are!
Ah. In that case, "what we get out of it" seems to me to be misplaced, yes. But certainly, that concern, is a very natural and immediate issue that arises when reading this chapter.
On the whole, I find your reading of him to be quite accurate, more accurate than me, given that I've read part I of the Treatise twice in a period of about 6 to 8 months.
I'm leaning on his actual words too much though.
I'm not absolutely certain I've gotten to the bottom of the arguments in 2.6
There's no optimal way to read, imo. We all have our biases, sympathies, ways of thinking. We may attempt to be as faithful as possible to what he's saying, but these are hard issues with no straight answers.
I can't get Strawson or Chomsky's comments out of my reading of Hume, that may be my fault, but that's what I see when I read him, and I've found that useful, maybe it's a distorting view, it's possible.
In any case, if you could point out to the specific page number, instead of the section, it would be easier for me to find what is giving you trouble.
2.6 is the section about existence, and it's only a couple pages. I quoted some bits.
One minor point maybe worth going back to is his use of the word 'specifically', also used in our section when recalling 2.6, when he denies that external existence can be taken as something 'specifically different' from our perceptions. I haven't checked, but I strongly suspect that word here means 'different in kind', 'specific' from 'species'. That's how I read his point, but I don't think I mentioned I was relying in part on this particular word.
So the argument begins
(1) Existence, external or not, is not something we have any separate conception of.
But then we get the other part:
(2) The notion of external existence cannot be taken as specifically different from perception.
That sounds like it's telling us what sort of thing something that doesn't exist is.
I think that means (1) is at least a little misleading as I've phrased it.
(2) is part of the larger claim that it's only perceptions in our mind, nothing else.
So if we have an idea of existence, it's that sort of thing, a perception; but (1) had already shown that existence itself is not a perception, but just something part of every perception, so in a way nothing.
(Some of the confusion here is just rhetorical. It's a pretty common move to say something doesn't exist, at least not as the kind of thing you think it is, not if we take it to be what you think it is, but it does exist, just as something completely different. We're keeping the name, but changing the meaning. Like that.)
But there is something else going on here, because Hume says our idea of external existence turns out to be different relations, connections, and durations that we *attribute* to perceptions.
So these are ideas *about* perceptions.
Thus instead of thinking some idea we have is of an object that we also think exists, we will have the perception or idea of the object and then *attribute* to that perception the properties that will be refuted in 4.2, distinct existence and continuity over time.
But attributing, like relating or associating -- these don't sound like perceptions but ways of handling or working with or acting upon perceptions. We can, in addition, have ideas about what we're doing when do this sort of thing, and Hume bundles some of these mental behaviors together and calls them our notion of external existence.
The status of these mental behaviors might be clearer if we look back at Part I where most of the basic machinery is laid out.
Just for fun and profit, here is Kant, who some where said that Hume's work 'awakened me from my slumbers', ripping off Hume big-style,
The Critique of Pure Reason, Section IV.
He doesn't really need the tyranny of Nature here, does he? The sceptic is not admitting anything of any consequence.
There's a bracketing problem here.
The idea of existence conjoined with the idea of any object makes no addition to it, but existence conjoined with the idea of any object adds everything to it. A unicorn is a horse with a horn, but the main difference between a horses and unicorns is not the horn, it's that horses exist. Nature bites.
On such subtitles, philosophies are built and crumble. 'Maps and territories' anyone?
Are you remaining within the chapter? I've been reading the section, but the exact quote you gave I found in another section of the book, concerning the self, with is several sections after this one. I may be reading too fast, which is why giving the page number is clearer.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, that's likely true. I think that some of this may be alleviated once you get to the part in which he discusses the imagination.
So far as I can see, he's still talking about our perceptions of the object, and then the problem is how do these perceptions tell us something about the existence and continuity of these objects ("body"), which "we must take for granted."
I don't think Hume is correct in these points. We can pull from the imagination, a completely imaginary conception of what it means to exist, or a completely imaginary conception of what it means to be an external body, without reference to sensation. This is what happens with so-called pure mathematics, mathematicians come up with completely imaginary ideas about objects, and orders, without referencing perceptions.
In reality, we generally do reference perceptions in order to validate these conceptions, but it's not necessary to the conceptions. So we really dream up imaginary conceptions independent from our perceptions, and then we relate them to each other, conceptions to perceptions, in an attempt to validate each other. But the validation is not just one way, in the sense that the conceptions must conform to the perceptions, because sometimes conceptions can prove the perceptions to be wrong. Therefore we cannot assume, as Hume seems to, that all conceptions are based in perception.
Yeah, except for going back to Part II Section VI for the existence stuff.
Quoting Manuel
Some of what?
Quoting Manuel
Two points:
1. Something else conspicuous by its absence is the word "representation"; when he covers this material in the Enquiry he uses phrases like "perception or representation", but there's no such suggestion here. The word might be in there somewhere, but there doesn't seem to be much use made of the idea; the whole flavor of the account is causal, mechanical. Whatever 'occasions' (Hume's word) our perceptions, they appear from mind's point-of-view as sui generis.
2. Even if there are principles connecting objects to each other 'out there', beyond our minds, those principles apply to objects, not to our perceptions of them thus we must have our own mental principles, which will apply to our perceptions, in order to conceive something like causality. Similarly, even if there are principles connecting the presentations of an external object to mind namely, the distinctness and continuity of the object it will do us no good: we need principles that will relate certain perceptions to each other.
Hume thinks we can analyze the principles governing the behavior of perceptions, but if there are analogous principles governing the behavior of external objects, we cannot know what they are and cannot analyze them. We might as well presume there are no such principles, it makes no difference.
Quoting Richard B
As the above makes clear, I don't think so. I think Hume's idea is that it's irrelevant what the source of our impressions is; however they come to mind, they are now mental phenomena, and whatever principles govern the relations among mental phenomena must be mental principles, not such principles as we imagine govern the behavior of external objects.
Quoting unenlightened
I'm still unclear on this. All I've come up with so far is that Hume believes he must provide some explanation for our universal assumption that there are distinct, continuing, external objects. Whether it's true is just not at issue; we have no reason to believe it (he says) but we do, so he believes he must explain why we hold this unjustified view.
Quoting unenlightened
I mean, it's clear that there's a difference between imagining there's a chocolate cake in the kitchen and believing there is. Hume has already dealt with that difference, earlier in the book. What else is there to say?
I've always thought the logical argument against existence being a predicate was convincing: an object existing and not existing must have the same properties, else existing is not what distinguishes them.
I'm not sure what good it is, but Hume's point that to imagine something is to imagine it existing that's pretty interesting. It actually sounds plausible, but of course you can't tell the difference! It's a strange thought that undermines itself.
The study of physics, energy, mass, space and time, is how we make prediction of the objects around us. Not the study of mental phenomena.
Of course you can disagree with Hume; but can you make a case against his view?
For instance, Hume's view as I'm presenting it (not sure I'm getting him right) could be tweaked to more closely resemble relatively mainstream psychology: to claim some physical law governs the behavior of external objects is to describe our expectations about their behavior, which will for us just be particular sensory experiences and that's what we're actually predicting.
There's (not coincidentally) a similar perspective flip in the subjective account of probability (and thus of statistics).
So what's the critique of such views beyond mere disagreement?
You're doubts about him depending on perceptions to speak about the continuity of external objects when not perceived. His gives a lot of role to the imagination.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes. I think he has in mind something like mechanical, but also something like an instinct, a phrase he doesn't appear to use in this chapter. Perceiving is like breathing or seeing, we can't not have perceptions.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is tricky. He's focusing here on our reasons for believing in them, but I keep going back to the "for granted" comment. The tension here, if there is one, is that there seems to be no connection, under these arguments from perceptions to those bodies we take for granted. But when he leaves philosophy and goes to "the vulgar system" (vulgar meant ordinary people, not an insult as it taken today), there are no problems about our recognizing and interacting with the world.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
VERY perceptive. This is one of the reasons he gives in the Appendix for, essentially stating that his system fails, or as he puts it "my hopes vanish". This is one of the things he cannot account for, how perceptions relate to each other. The other being that we really do perceive continuity in the objects. In other words, he has used these two principles: the uniting principle and the continuity principle (my terminology, not his), without being able to justify them, but he isn't able to renounce either of them.
That goes way beyond this chapter in terms of pages, but it's connected. Very, very interesting. And humbling too, to be able to say that about one's own system.
Quoting Manuel
I agree that he had instincts in mind. My interpretation of his thought: though to a far smaller (else, more generalized) extent than lesser animals, humans are nevertheless inescapably driven by instincts - including those of what youve termed the unifying principle and the continuity principle of perceptions, both to my mind being subsumed by reasoning in general.
To my reading he briefly addresses our faculties of reasoning being instinctive at the very end of a previous chapter, Part III Section XVI (Of the reason of animals), starting at the bottom of page 179 [boldface mine ... as well as any potential typos]:
Nothing shews more the force of habit in reconciling us to any phenomenon, than this, that men are not astonishd at the operations of their own reason, at the same time, that they admire the instinct of animals, and find a difficulty in explaining it, merely because it cannot be reducd to the very same principles. To consider the matter aright, reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them with particular qualities, according to their particular situations and relations. This instinct, tis true, arises from past observation and experience; but can any one give the ultimate reason, why past experience and observation produces such an effect, any more than why nature alone shoud produce it? Nature may certainly produce whatever can arise from habit: Nay, habit is nothing but one of the principles of nature, and derives all its force from that origin.
Very many humans are very off-put today when told that we humans are to significant extents instinctively driven - and this is well after our knowledge of evolution. I can easily envision that Hume didn't greatly dwell on this notion in his writings due to the audience of his time.
The critique is that this way of looking at things posits sensory experience as the cause of all mental ideas. Thinking, mind, ideas, and mental activity in general, is represented as being dependent on perception, therefore caused by perception. This perspective is strongly determinist, and does not allow for the reality of free will. Free will requires that ideas may come from a source independent from bodily influence (sense perception).
The offending part is this:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I haven't found where you've taken this quote, but I do not think you interpret it correctly. You represent the conceptions of external objects as being dependent on, or necessarily caused by, perceptions. This denies the possibility that a representation of external objects could be entirely fictitious, imaginary, created completely by the mind. But I do not think that Hume intends this, he seems to give imagination a very strong role.
To be fair to Hume now, he seems to be more inquisitive of this perspective, that perception plays a necessary role in the conception of external objects, rather than firmly attracted to it. That's why he starts with the premise that the continued existence of external objects, cannot be justified, it's something that we just take for granted. So he moves then, to ask what causes us to believe in continued and distinct existence, what causes us to take it for granted, rather than asking what causes continued and distinct existence itself. And this leads him toward imagination.
[quote=192]We may, therefore, conclude with
certainty, that the opinion of a continud and of a distinct
existence never arises from the senses[/quote]
It's a funny turn around, and a bit deceptive if we don't analyze and understand the position properly. If we truly took continued existence, (what I call temporal persistence) for granted, as a real thing, then we'd move to inquire into the cause of continued existence. But Hume is taking the skeptical position, saying the idea is not justified by our perceptions, and that it's an idea that we take it for granted even though we do not have proper justification for it. This inclines him to ask what causes us to believe in continued existence, rather than to ask what causes continued existence. And it is within this hidden premise, that a belief must have a cause, if we accept it, that Hume could actually lead us to negate free will, for the sake of determinism. That is, if we accept Hume's notion that the belief in continued existence must have a cause, rather than attributing this belief to free will, and accepting continued existence as real, something to be taken for granted, and searching for the cause of it.
It's best that you give proper context to "continu'd existence". This is what is expressed by Newton's first law, the law of inertia. In general terms, this law states that what has been, in the past, will continue to be in the very same way, into the future, unless caused to change. This is the temporal continuity of existence, inertia, or temporal persistence. This law states that staying the same as time passes is to be taken for granted, and it says that change requires a cause. Notice that the reversal of this law would take change for granted (process philosophy, Heraclitus), and state that staying the same (continued existence, or temporal persistence), requires a cause. Though Newton stated his first law in such a way as to take continued existence (temporal persistence, inertia) for granted, he is also known to have said that this law requires the Will of God for its truth. That is to say, that continued existence, or inertia, is caused by God's Will. So his first law, the law of inertia, takes the Will of God for granted, in order for it to be a valid "law", effectively denying God the capacity of free will to alter what we know as continued existence, setting up the grounds for determinist physics.
Yes, that's a great quote from his Treatise. That's exactly right, or at least, that's how it looks like to me as well. This is somewhat paradoxical, given his reputation and thrust of his thought, an argument for innate faculties, as he puts what you quoted in his Enquiry:
"...and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary..."
Italics mine.
He was speaking of animals in this quote, but it applies to us too. After all, Hume was a naturalist. And like you say, he had to be somewhat cautious in what he said at his time.
Not what I intended at all. I was, I thought, following Hume's usage in using the word 'perception' to cover both impressions and ideas; so a perception is something present to the mind, of whatever source, a perceiving that is done 'by the mind's eye' we might say.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Here's what I think Hume is saying.
As I watch the birds flitting about in my front yard, I have an impression of a bird first here, then there, then there, as it moves from tree to tree. On a naive view, we might say there is a body, some force is applied to that body, and thus the body is caused to move through the air. We can see in the bird's flight inertia, which carries it along a certain path (modified by gravity and drag) until it flaps its wings again, adding a new vector which modifies its course, and so on.
Now consider me watching this: I have an impression of the bird; that impression is replaced by a different one with the bird elsewhere. Did my impression of the bird move? Of course not; I'm sitting on my porch and all my impressions of the bird are in the same place. Did my impression of the bird acquire an inertial force carrying it from one place to another? Perforce, no: my impression did not move; my impression had no such force applied to it.
Whatever connects my impression of the bird in one place to my impression of the bird in another place cannot be the same sort of physical law (inertia) that connects the bird being first in one place to its a moment later being in another. Newton's laws may apply to external objects that occasion my impressions (if there be such things) but they clearly do not apply to my impressions themselves.
I think it's a line of thought something like this that lies behind Hume's arguments. Habit, custom, instinct, imagination, association, all these sorts of things will fill, within the mental realm, the role that Newton's laws fill in the physical realm, laws that connect one event to another.
And of course once started down this path, it'll become clear that even belief in the existence of distinct and persistent external bodies is also down to the operation of such mental laws. Hume recognizes that it is the science of human nature that must underwrite all the other sciences, including Newton's physics.
Quoting Manuel
Ive found another supporting quote from within the chapter (Part IV Section II, page 214). This is in introduction to the notion of double existence: to roughly paraphrase, here he articulates the opinion that our instinctive awareness of resembling perceptions being continued, identical, and independent is indicative of the external existence of objects in the world whereas our reasoned awareness that our perceptions are all dependent, interrupted, and different is indicative of our minds internal existence. (Emphasis on the former external existence being inferred by us on account of what our instinctive awareness informs us of this in contrast to our internal existence which is inferred from reasoning regarding our perceptions.)
There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind. [ ] Thus tho we clearly perceive the dependence and interruption of our perceptions, we stop short in our career, and never upon that account reject the notion of an independent and continud existence. [ ]
boldface mine.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, maybe. Still, what Ive read about Hume is often quite different than what I gathered from directly reading Hume. For one example, to me, Kant borrowed from Hume rather than debunking him. Hence, imo, Kants categories are a subset of Humes natural impulses (instincts) which Kant worked out to far greater extents - and to which Hume's epistemology of causation still applies. Likewise, Kants noumena are Humes objects of external existence which, again to paraphrase Hume, resemble internal perceptions due only to fancy but not due to any reason to so infer. (see page 216, for example). Had to throw this in. :smile:
Yes, and that's part of what makes this so fascinating and frustrating, we have indications of the existence of external objects, and plainly we take them as a given in our "vulgar reasoning", but we can't find proof for something that should be so obvious. So, it isn't as obvious as we think it is.
It's very hard for me to sustain his though experiment, that once we stop perceiving an object, we don't have many good reasons (although something must be there, in the world) to suppose it continues to exist. For as he says (I know I'm re-quoting him, but, he articulates it so well):
"...we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involvd in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty... by supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible."
Italics mine.
Quoting javra
I think so too on Kant. He improved some of the framework, but did not solve the problems Hume raised. They're too difficult, in my opinion. You are a good reader, had I not read Strawson's work before Hume himself, I might have gotten the impression that causality is just constant conjunction, I can't be sure. But it is very, very clear, that Hume was what is now called a "mysterian", which should be the common- sense view that we are natural creatures, and hence some things are beyond our capacities, as some things are beyond the capacities of dogs or birds.
Quoting Manuel
For whatever reason, his allusions to instincts always resonated with me and quenched the otherwise potential difficulty in not having conscious reasons for an external world. Myself, I can fall back to the notion of the moon being there when no one is looking precisely on grounds of causal reasoning (riptides and such), and believe this can be extended to all external objects. But yes, Hume presented more problems than he resolved.
As to the title of "mysterian," I agree. From what I recall, maybe most notably, he was a kind of mysterian compatibalist who upheld both metaphysical free will and causal determinacy co-occurring; a very different species of compatibalism than what we have today wherein the notion of "freedom" is modified in any number of ways so as to suit a fixed stance on causal determinism (determinism being a term that wasn't coined yet in his day).
Do we?
I think it is true that, broadly, we take beliefs, our individual beliefs and the beliefs of others, as indicative of how things are, but we know that we cannot deduce P from anyone's belief that P. We can take a middle course and count the beliefs of others as evidence, but such a procedure is rarely available when considering your own beliefs. There are very specific circumstances where that's reasonable, but in general there's something illicit in counting your own beliefs as evidence of their truth.
What Hume says quite definitely is that we do embrace the principle of the existence of body. Can we count that as evidence of the truth of this principle? Hume presents arguments that the principle cannot be supported either by our senses or by reason. Does that mean he leaves open the possibility of an 'argument from instinct' or some such thing?
He says that:
"The imagination tells us, that our resembIing perceptions have a continud and uninterrupted existence, and are not annihilated by their absence. Reflection tells us, that even our resembling perceptions are interrupted in their existence, and different from each other. The contradiction betwixt these opinions we elude by a new fiction, which is conformable to the hypotheses both of reflection and fancy, by ascribing these contrary qualities to different existences; the interruption to perceptions, and the continuance to objects."
[b]Nature is obstinate, and will not quit the field, however strongly attackd by reason ; and at
the same time reason is so clear in the point, that there is no possibility of disguising her[/b], Not being able to reconcile these two enemies, we endeavour to set ourselves at ease as much as possible, by succesively granting to each whatever it demands, and by feigning a double existence, where each may find something, that has, all the conditions, it desires." (p.215)
He ends this section pretty much in a skeptical crisis, or close to it. The only thing I can read into all his very penetrating critiques that could offer a way out, is the highlighted portions I show above. We grant to each what it desires (nature and reason), but it is something we do,we don't have a choice. That pretty much sounds like an instinct to me, you can also look at javra's posts, which he has been nice enough to quote some of Hume's comments on instinct.
I am starting to realize that, even though one could read this chapter in isolation, it is by going to other parts of Hume's work, that one could find potential, reliefs as solutions seem to be wanting.
I think towards the end of this thread, I'll post here the Appendix, and only focus on like 2 pages, literally, that shows that he is not satisfied with his system, I think it shows that this problem is a bit too hard for us to solve.
OK, my mistake then, but I tend to think that "perceive" and "perception" are most often used to refer to what the mind apprehends through the medium of sensation. When the mind creates something which is not the result of sensation we normally would use "imagination", or even "conception".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't think this is quite right. What Hume seems to be asking, on behave of the skeptic, is why do you believe that you have an impression of a distinct and continuous object which you call "the bird" in the first place. You seem to have a continuous visual image, but it is full of motion and change, so why do you believe that there is a continuous, distinct object as part of that changing scenario, which is the bird?
All the following ideas, inertia and Newton's laws follow from this idea, that there are objects which have continued and distinct existence. We take it for granted that there are such objects, bodies, like the bird, because it appears like we have no choice in the matter. But if we have no choice in this matter, then there must be a cause of us taking this for granted. And if there is a cause of us taking the continued and distinct existence of objects for granted, we ought to be able to determine that cause.
So he proceeds to show that the cause is not sensation, or the senses. The reason why we believe in the continued and distinct existence of objects is not because that is the way sensation presents the world to us. Now we might be led toward something in the mind, like imagination, as the source of this belief in continued and distinct existence, but we still need to determine what causes us to have this idea.
Quoting Manuel
This is the key issue, saying "we don't have a choice". If we do not have a choice, then this is determined by fate or something, so there must be a cause of this belief. Where is that cause? It's not from sense nor from reason. Furthermore, the skeptic says that we do have a choice in this matter, and even that our belief in such objects is unfounded and therefore a bad choice. So skepticism affords us the capacity to believe what you say we have no choice but not to believe. And to validate this statement "we don't have a choice", we need to determine the cause which produces this as a necessary effect.
As far as I can see, he doesn't present it a choice, postulating an enduring object is kind of like breathing or perceiving. It's not that it's a bad choice, as he says, (and pardon my over-repetition of quotes, but I think they matter):
"tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings."
The issue is that the reasons the (mitigated) skeptic (he's no Pyrrhonian) teases out, turn out to be much weaker than what we would like, particularly when we look at the world through "common sense" - what he calls "the vulgar system".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think that for this, I'll need to introduce the Appendix to the Treatise, there he admits of his failure to provide what you ask for, it's very interesting and also very short, the relevant pages are like 2 at most.
Reading between the lines, it seems to me an inscrutable fact about how we experience the world. We strongly believe in the continuity of objects, but they change all the time. As do our perceptions.
We postulate a continuity we are not sensitive of, and hand wave it away by ignoring that each perception is new, and that in the intervals between experiences of the object it continues to exist as we perceived it, which creates the famous two-objects argument.
So, I see where you are coming from, and it is a very sensible question. But textually, I see no easy answer. In my own opinion, putting Hume aside, it's not evident what this necessary effect would be.
The problem though, is that "continuity of objects", and "they change all the time", is inherently self-contradictory. So the proposition that "we strongly believe" in this, cannot be properly supported. If an object has continuous existence, it must continue to be the object which it is, or it becomes something else. That's what change does, it annihilates the object as being what it was, to be something else. So change negates the continuity of an object, by always making it something other than it was.
Hume's mistake in the outset, is to class "continued" and "distinct" together, and try to analyze them as both the same type of property. There is a fundamental inconsistency between "continuous" and "discrete", which makes classing these two together impossible. So his analysis of sensation is a bit off, because he presumes sense perceptions to exist as individual occurrences, rather than as a continuous experience. Since we continually sense through a duration of time, the perception itself is actually changing. Each and every sense perception occurs over a duration of time, so it contains change within it. Then if we try to break up a continuous perception into distinct perceptions we can never remove the activity from the sense perception. Notice page 192, where Hume attributes motion to sensation.
So what Hume refers to as a "single" or "distinct" perception cannot really be applied logically to sense perception, because the single perception would involve activity, hence an object being in more than one place at the same time. That is because motion, and the continuity of activity inhere within sensation. Therefore, there is a logical inconsistency between Hume's "single", or "distinct" perception, and a true description of sense perception. The true description would say that sense perception consists of a duration of time, and each act of sensation could logically be broken down into a multitude of distinct frames. This implies that the double existence, and resemblance relation referred to, is already inherent within any supposed "single" sense perception itself.
In reality, what we ought to conclude from this, is that there is an incompatibility between "continued existence" (what the senses provide us with the appearance of), and "distinct existence", (what reason tells us that a sense perception must consists of). While sensation provides us with a continuity of activity, without a division, or individualization of distinct parts, or objects, reason wants to break this down into individualized parts, or distinct parts, for comparison, and analysis of different rates of change occurring to the different objects within the continuous sense perception.
So the idea of distinct objects is assumed by Hume to be derived from imagination. And, when we take this idea of distinct objects, and apply it toward our sense perceptions, sensations, we assign to the sensations, objects with a continued existence, to match up with, or to be consistent with, the "continued existence" which sensation gives us.
He describes the role of memory in this imaginary creation of an object at 196. When the sound of the door is so similar to his past experience of the sound of the door, that it could not be anything else other than the sound of the door, he concludes that it would be contradiction to say it is not the sound of the door. Therefore, he has created in his imagination, an object, "the door", and the object thus entitled must have continued existence, to account for numerous appearances.
However, in criticism of Hume, notice that the claim of an object is dependent on something else, it's dependent on the memory, and this dependence makes the assumption of a "distinct" object imaginary, created by the mind to account for the similarity between instances of memory. That the object is "distinct" is fictional, imaginary, because that claim is a product of a need to account for similarity in instances of memory. Therefore, that the object is continuous is supported logically, but that the object is distinct is not. This is the consequence of him trying to make the assumption of "object" (as a distinct individual) consistent with sense perception which is continuous. The object loses its status of being a real distinct individual, because it requires the dual status, of two separate instances, and memory to relate them. And the separate instances are similar rather than the same.
At this point, p199, he proceeds to replace "distinct" with "coherent", such that the defining features of an "object" would be "continuous and coherent", and he says that "distinct" might be assigned later, perhaps as an after thought. The use of "coherent" instead of "distinct" allows for changes to the object between one appearance to the mind, and another, so long as the changes can be reasonably accounted for as coherent. Otherwise, each appearance of the supposed object, to the mind, would be distinct from any other, due to accidental differences. And then we'd have to say that these were distinct objects.
Quoting Manuel
The "necessary effect" is the assumption itself, the assumption of a body, or an object. If we have no choice in this matter, as Hume says, then this assumption must be taken as necessary. Whatever is necessary must be caused, as the effect of that cause. Therefore there must be a cause which necessitates this effect (the assumption of bodies and objects) giving it the status of necessary.
I don't see how this follows. I mean, one can use the example of the Ship of Thesus: we replace one part of the boat with new wood and discard the old parts, it's literally not the same object - as it has new pieces in it, but we still recognize it as the same ship.
Likewise, if we are looking at a flower, miniscule parts of the flower are blown off by the wind, so it's literally not the exact same object one moment to the next, but we still recognize it as the same object. You can think of it as flower at T1 and flower at T2.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There is this difficulty, of thinking about distinct existences, I agree. Nevertheless, it looks to me as if there is something about a given object that makes us recognize it as that specific object, otherwise, it seems to me that we would have no way to distinguish on object from another. But it is problematic, no problem granting that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But we have cases, which aren't that rare, in which we imagine objects to exist, when they do not: mirages, dreams, hallucinations, mistaken perceptions and so on. So an object is not, strictly speaking necessary, even if in most of the cases of perception, this is what we assume to be the case.
There is an issue around the individuation of perceptions.
There's that passage where Hume claims perceptions are exactly what they appear to consciousness as, etc etc, so he's basically claiming they are self-individuating.
* Here it is, p. 190
It's easy to pass over that bit as just the usual empiricist sense-data talk, but without it he has no basis for claiming that our perceptions are interrupted.
Well, The Ship of Theseus is usually presented as an example of how complex and difficult the subject of identity really is, not as evidence that identity is something simple as you seem to imply here. However, I would agree with you, that the law of identity allows that a thing might remain 'the same as itself' despite undergoing many changes, thus maintaining its identity as the thing which it is despite changing. But this idea of identity presents us with a stack of logical problems.
First, we would not be able to associate identity with any type of description of the thing, because we are wanting to say that the thing remains the same thing and continues to be the same thing, despite changing and therefore requiring a different description. Furthermore, we would not be able to associate identity with any type of determination as to "what" the thing is, meaning a specified type of thing. This is because by allowing that a thing can change, and still maintain its identity by always being the same as itself, we'd have to allow that the thing could even change type, and still remain its status as the same thing. And even if we tried to establish a boundary between types, and tried to enforce a rule whereby the thing if it crossed that boundary would stop being itself, the thing that it was, to become something different, a new thing, then we'd need some principle to create this boundary. And what sense would it make to say that the thing stopped being itself, to become something different from itself.
To get back to the text, we need to pay close attention to what Hume says about "identtiy" from page 200 onward. Hume does not interpret the law of identity in the same way that you and I do. We accept that a thing changes yet continues to be itself, thus the same thing that it was, thereby maintaining its identity despite changing. Hume thinks that a thing must remain exactly the same, perfectly unchanged, to maintain its identity, by the law of identity. He attributes "identity" to invariableness:
[quote=p201] We cannot, in any propriety of speech, say,
that an object is the same with itself, unless we mean, that
the object existent at one time is the same with itself existent
at another. By this means we make a. difference, betwixt
the idea meant by the word, object, and that meant by ifself
without going the length of number, and at the same time
without restraining ourselves to a strict and absolute unity. [/quote]
So you see he interprets the law of identity in a way completely different from you and I by associating "identity" with invariableness, remaining unchanged. Furthermore, this must have a profound effect on how he understands continued existence. If, to have continued existence, and maintain its identity as the thing which it is, a thing must remain unchanged from one time to another time. This is completely different from how you and I understand continued existence, which presumes that a thing continues to be the thing which it is, despite changing.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The problem I have with this, is that I do not see the basis for claiming that individuation is something carried out by the senses, therefore inherent within the sense perception, rather than something produced by the mind which is apprehending the sensations. The problem again is in the ambiguity of "perception". If "perception" refers to what is created by the mind, then there is no need for any sense input, like what Manuel describes above. But when we say "sense perception", then a necessity for sense input is implied. However, in the case of sense perception, the part which is created by the mind is not distinguished from the part input by the senses. So even if we say perceptions are self-individuating we don't know for sure how much of this is done by the senses, and how much is done by the mind. So we still do not get at the source of individuation
But Hume explicitly doesn't care.
Same page is where he says all these mental phenomena (perceptions, feelings, ideas, what have you) are 'on the same footing.' And he assumes they are presented to the mind as discrete, already individuated packets.
He is absolutely *not* going to say they are shaped by the mind, because that suggests there is something to be shaped, something that already has a distinct existence outside the mind. But he explicitly wants only to look at perceptions etc. insofar as they are dependent on the mind: for Hume they exist at the moment we are conscious of them, and that's it.
Yeah, this will be interesting to discuss, I'll get back to you sometime tomorrow, there's a lot to say here.
Here's another way: there can be, I think Hume thinks, nothing in the perception itself that would tip off the mind as to its origin or nature. Thus we have no surefire way of distinguishing veridical observations from hallucinations or dreams or optical illusions. Hume accepts the usual argument as a step toward considering perceptions only, however they appear to the mind.
Actually things are the opposite of what you say here, he explicitly does care about this matter. He is asking about "distinct existence", and this requires that the individual, the person or self, is separated from the rest of the world. It's a sort of inverse way of looking at things, but this is why he mentions the subject of personal identity. Then he explicitly concludes that the senses themselves cannot produce this separation. The senses don't distinguish what is part of yourself, and what is not.
So we cannot say that he assumes that the senses provide discrete individuated packages. He actually seems to say the exact opposite, that the senses cannot perform such a feat of individuation. This is why the senses cannot produce a dual existence.
It may be the case that he believes that perceptions exist only at the moment we are conscious of them, but he has very clearly stated that he is interested in causation, and this implies what is prior to that moment. His enquiry is into the causes of our belief in the existence of body:
If he does not separate that which is derived from the senses from that which is created by the mind, he is left with the appearance of one cause, rather than "causes".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think you are hiding behind the ambiguity of "perception". Haven't you already said that "perception" includes all things apparent to the mind. So a belief must be a perception, and he has distinctly stated that he is enquiring into the causes of a particular belief, therefore a particular perception. So he cannot be considering perceptions only, because this would imply an infinite regress or circular reasoning, where only perceptions cause other perceptions. Rather, he is considering the causes of perceptions. In the enquiry concerning the causes of what appears to the mind, we have to have some way to get outside "what appears to the mind", or else what appears to the mind is caused by the mind itself, and all reality becomes hallucinations and dreams.
So we take the existence of "body" for granted, as something outside the mind, and we say that it has causal effect within the mind. But if we did not assign causation to body, then we are just left with the mind doing all the causing, hence creating the illusion of "body", and we would still be in the same place, unable to justify the existence of anything outside the mind. So, we must determine that body has real causal efficacy to escape the skeptic's trap. Though it is true that only perceptions, within the mind, appear to the mind, it is also true that through the concept of "causation", we might be able to conclude the existence of something outside the mind. This would get us past skepticism.
Here are what I consider the key points. First, the "broken perceptions". Sensation is often interrupted, (for whatever reason is unimportant), so that we sense the environment at one time, and then again at a later time. Through memory we compare, and observe "resemblance". But resemblance is not the same as "perfect identity", and this inclines us to believe that the object of the past impression was annihilated and replaced by a new object. Therefore, the principal task for justifying the continued existence of an object is to establish consistency between "resemblance" and "identity", what he refers to under "Secondly" at the beginning of page 200.
Ok, now I can reply. There are many aspects one can choose to focus on in this chapter, so it can be interpreted in several ways, I want to single out a brief passage, prior to you quote of "We cannot in any property of speech...", he speaks about how time implies succession, and then says that:
"This fiction of the imagination almost universally takes place; and tis by means of it, that a single object, placd before us, and surveyd for any time without our discovering in it any interruption or variation, is able to give us a notion of identity." (pp.200-201)
I think it is important to point out, that in Hume's use of the term, "fiction", does not mean what we mean by it today, something not being "real", or belonging to mythical tale or a novel. It simply means "more than is warranted by the empirically available evidence." It is real, in the sense that we do experience the identity of objects, but when we look at the evidence, it turns out to be weaker than we would like.
He says, on p.203:
"When we fix our thought on any object, and suppose it to continue the same for some time; 'tis evident
we suppose the change to lie only in the time, and never exert ourselves to produce any new image or idea of the object. "
That speaks of your concerns that each perception is different, and it is by resemblance that we posit continuity. True. Now he says, on p. 204:
"I survey the furniture of my chamber; I shut my eyes, and afterwards open them; and find the new perceptions to resemble perfectly those, which formerly struck my senses. This resemblance is observd in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions
by the strongest relation and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another. "
Italics mine. Each perception is new, and he does not want to distinguish between objects and perceptions. Yet he still speaks of "my chamber", if he didn't have a notion of identity, he couldn't speak like this, because he would have no way to separate his chamber from anything else.
An important, passage, I think, is this:
"We may begin with observing, that the difficulty in the present case is not concerning the matter of fact, or whether the mind forms such a conclusion concerning the continu'd existence of its perceptions, but only concerning the manner in which the conclusion is forrn'd, and principies from which it is deriv'd."(p.206)
Italics and bold mine. So, I don't think there is a tension is speaking about identity as we do, in regard to the The Ship of Theseus, only that Hume goes deeper and presents us with problems that go beyond, or are deeper in a sense, than the example of the ship.
As I said, one can pick out many quotes here, supporting different views, so one should keep this in mind. What I quoted here is what I think makes sense from a holistic perspective, but this can be debated.
Quoting Manuel
Indeed. It's why I was thinking we'd need to graph out the arguments, because they are sometimes presented in terms that other arguments will undermine.
I haven't spotted a similarly straightforward example in the Treatise, but there's this in the Enquiry:
[quote=Section XII, Part I]This table ... preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent beings, who perceive or contemplate it.
But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object. The table, which we see, seems to diminish, as we remove farther from it: but the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration: it was, therefore, nothing but its image, which was present to the mind.[/quote]
How does this argument work? Hume demonstrates that only perceptions are present to the mind, not objects, by showing that perceptions change when objects don't; but then he will later use the fact that only perceptions are present to the mind to argue that the hypothesis of double existence is insupportable, that we have no grounds for a belief in an object separate from our perceptions as their cause. But then where does that leave this argument which originally established that only perceptions not objects are present to the mind? If we can't contrast the apparent extension of the table with its 'real' extension, then we have no argument at all. We have something vaguely of the form P ? Q ? ~P. Yikes.
And it happens all over the place, his description of his chamber being another example, and his simple reliance on his own identity.
Hume was not an idiot. He was certainly aware of sensory boundaries such that when one hits the nail into the wall with the hammer, it does not hurt whereas when one hits the fingernail, it does. Or that one can see and move ones hand, whereas one can see, but not move another's hand. What he was arguing against was the Cartesian theorised absolute self, devoid of, ie prior to, sensation and perception. Descartes constructs his doubt of the senses so as to produce an immaterial mind. Hume by contrast says that this doubt is in fact impossible, and is a fabrication of philosophers. The mind goes beyond the senses to 'make sense' of them in ways that reason cannot justify, but simply has to accept. There is no proof of existence of anything, self or world, but what is evident needs no proof.
[quote=Hume]For as to the notion of external existence, when taken for something specifically different from our perceptions, we have already shewn its absurdity.[/quote] P188.
This makes Hume a direct realist, in contrast to Kant, who puts back a separate external existence as the unfathomable, (and to Hume, absurd) Noumenon.
[quote]The subject, then, of our present enquiry is concerning the causes which induce us to believe in the existence of body : And my reasonings on this head I shall begin with a distinction, which at first sight may seem superfluous, but which will contribute very much to the perfect understanding of what follows. We ought to examine apart those two questions, which are commonly confounded together, vizi. Why we attribute a CONTINUD existence to objects, even when they are not present to the senses ; and why we - suppose them to have an existence DISTINCT from the mind and perception.[quote]
The search is for a ground, a bedrock for knowledge. For Descartes, reason, for Hume, perception. Thus he (Hume) looks for causes of belief not reasons for belief. And as we know from elsewhere, he also argues that causes are unfounded ideas, that arise from but are not present in perception, along with continued existence and distinct existence.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Just so. Because he is arguing against rationalism. Rationalism is the belief that one can reason from first principles to the world. Descartes shut himself in a darkened room and tried to argue his way out of it. Hume says you cannot argue your way out of a paper bag, but fortunately you don't have to, because the world is already present and available to be made sense of.
Except it's not a world of objects but of perceptions; objects are mere prejudice. Empiricism slides into idealism.
That first quote you gave of Hume is indeed beautiful and I think, spot on. I didn't post it because I don't want to hammer home the "mysterian" angle, but it's there in the text.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, I agree that this is quite a problem for him, because if objects and perceptions were identical in all respects, there would be no way to distinguish the table or chamber because each perception is new and then what reference point would we have between my perception of the table at t1 and my perception of the table at t2?
One wouldn't even be able at t2, to call our perception "a table" at t1, it's a new object. We have to postulate a temporal space (a second, fractions of a second?) to t1 so a resemblance can arise which relates it at t2.
I think a key passage to make this less confusing is when he says:
"The only conclusion we can draw from the existence of one thing to that of another, is by means of the relation of cause and effect, which shews, that there is a connexion betwixt them, and that the existence of one is dependent on that of the other, The idea of this relation is derivd from past experience, by which we find, that two beings are constantly conjoind together, and are always present at once to the mind." (Italics mine) (p.212)
But then he goes on to say: "But as no beings are ever present to the mind but perceptions; it follows that we may observe a conjunction or a relation of cause and effect between different perceptions, but can never observe. it between perceptions and objects." (p.212)
I think this last quote is problematic, a stimulus is needed.
To end this post, he does say:
"There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind." (p.214) (again, italics mine).
So clearly a "natural impulse" is quite important in our ordinary image of the world.
"...external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion." (p.67)
"...tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from- ideas and impressions." (p.67)
"The farthest we can go towards a conception of external objects, when supposd specifically different from our perceptions, is to form a relative idea of them, without pretending to comprehend the related objects." (p.68)
He does call the idea "absurd" in the chapter we are discussing, but what I take him to be saying in these quotes, is that we cannot conceive of them other than by our perceptions.
I'll later share some of Strawson's observations here, in which I think he argues, persuasively, that Hume can readily allow for these types of metaphysical issues to arise, but we cannot make a conclusion one way or the other about them.
This is the point I've been trying to make that Hume recognizes the need for laws that govern the relations between perceptions, as Newton gave laws governing the relations between objects. That is, I think he conceived the project this way, to do for thoughts what Newton did for bodies.
I think so too, he even states something similar in the introduction to the Treatise, with the whole "science of man" comment.
As Strawson concludes in The Evident Connection, the failure of Hume's empiricism, admitted by Hume in the Appendix, is that he is actually using more resources of the mind than what his philosophy will allow. But this will force him to explicitly acknowledge a complex mental framework, instead of this notion of a series of perceptions.
I do think in some ways the question is, how complex? The ongoing debate in linguistics is between those who think some specialized faculty is necessary, and those who think quite general faculties get you language.
I've quoted Herbert Simon's suggestion before, that our mental lives are complex not because our minds are complex *in themselves*, in their machinery, but because our environments are complex, and culture only increases that complexity.
The other major issue seems to be something like this: we know that we are creatures embedded in an environment, all of our science begins with that understanding; but just as surely, we know that *from the point of view* of such a creature, there is only mind. On this, broadly, Hume, Kant, the Tractatus, and modern psychology are agreed. It is not so, but it *must* appear so, from the point of view of the organism.
That's interesting. And Hume was on the right track, broadly, in thinking that what you can learn from this recognition is not what's in the world -- whether there be objects, for insurance -- but something about how minds work.
I think both in themselves and by environment are extremely complex. We aren't even aware of how we produce the sentences that we do at the moment we are writing them and also assuming that what I am saying right now, will resonate with you, as they resonate with me. Even how I move a finger is inscrutable to me.
Nature may find the simplest way of making things work, mind included, but look at fractals, or termite mounds or even the barest of all environmental formations, end up with spectacularly complex and beautiful constructions on the basis of quite simple "tools": rocks, dirt, perhaps rules in the case of the mind, such as recursion.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That's exactly right and should not be controversial in the least.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Correct. One may disagree with his "bundle view" or his account of self, but he is right on many things, including the fact that what we see is our perception of things, not something distinct from them.
The key exemplar of course is evolution by natural selection, a relatively simple mechanism which yields 'endless forms most beautiful'.
It is not impossible that some mechanism just as simple yields the complexity of mind, something like Friston's free energy principle, maybe.
On the inevitability of 'idealism from the inside', I left out the other bit, which Hume doesn't, which is that the organism will believe there are external objects and all that, just as we would studying such a creature in its environment, but the idealism comes in at the explanation stage: that, strangely, in analyzing the behavior of organism, we are driven to imagine that it must behave as if there were only mind, even if, as with our own case, we refuse to believe any such thing. Objects fairly hurl themselves against the mind, but to the mind it's just impressions, from somewhere beyond the Markov blanket.
Perhaps it's that we believe in objects, but our minds do not!
Sure. When studies are done on human beings concluding the efficacy of medicine, they assume the patients they choose will count for all people. Likewise with animals. Internalism (which is a kind of idealism) is a given, though not explicitly articulated coherently with enough frequency.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I believe in objects, I don't separate the mind from myself, these I take "for granted". But when I analyze the reasons, as given by Hume, I see that my belief is weaker than I thought, by quite a bit. Stand in front a strobe light that goes on and off very rapidly and examine an object or person moving, you'll quickly see how fallible our reasons for certain beliefs can be, in my experience.
Another way to put what I'm saying: makes no difference to your mind what the source of the perception is. All, as Hume says, are 'on equal footing'.
Here's a choice line from Part II Section VI:
This is not a unique situation: logic is concerned with the validity of arguments; whether they be sound is someone else's problem.
It may be there is no purely mental difference between a veridical seeing and an optical illusion: the same predictions of your future states are generated. The difference is out in the future, when your expectation is confirmed or must be revised.
As logic is incomplete without some means for determining the truth of premises, so beliefs (expectations, inferences, whatever you like there) would be incomplete without some means of testing and revising them -- so, action.
I suspect that this is the case in many instances of hallucinations or erroneous perceptions (visual tricks and the like). Then again, Hume does say "No simple idea without a corresponding simple impression." This is for simple ideas: red, bitter and so on. With complex ideas, it is more difficult.
I think what you say is true, provided we have had first the initial stimulus for us to recognize an object. After then we can say that optical illusions and veridical perceptions are in essence the same.
No. it's not the objects that he denies, it's the reasoning. Of course there are objects; of course they aren't in the mind, and of course they are not the product of reason. When you follow strict reasoning you end up with 'Yikes!'. Natural impulses are a better guide.
[quote=P190.]To begin with the question concerning external existence,
it may perhaps be said, that setting aside the metaphysical question of the identity of a thinking substance, our own body evidently belongs to us; and as several impressions appear exterior to the body, we suppose them also exterior to ourselves.
[Snip]
But to prevent this inference, we need only weigh the three following considerations. First, That, properly speaking, tis not our body we perceive, when we regard our limbs and members, regard to but certain impressions, which enter by the senses ; so that the ascribing a real and corporeal existence to these impressions, or to their objects, is an act of the mind as difficult to explain, as that which we examine at present. Secondly... [/quote]
These days, we talk about climate models rather than images or imaginings. We know they are made up because we tweak them see how robust the predictions are. The model is not the climate, but the climate is real.
Let me assure you, Hume is using "fiction" in a way which is very customary to us. It means something created solely by the mind, and not representative of reality, non-factual. Of course the fictitious is not warranted by the empirically available evidence, as you say, but it is more than just this, it is also a fabrication. And, if the fiction is believed to be, or presented as, a true representation of reality, it is an error, and a source for deception.
[quote=201] This fiction of the
imagination almost universally takes place ; and tis by
means of it, that a single object, placd before us, and
surveyd for any time without our discovering in it any
interruption or variation, is able to give us a notion of identity.[/quote]
Quoting Manuel
This is an example of what Hume calls the "error" of identity at page 202. The error is caused by believing that the fiction, is true reality. Fiction misleads us into error.
[quote=202]To enter, therefore, upon the question concerning the
source of the error and deception with regard to identity,
when we attribute it to our resembling perceptions, notwithstanding their interruption ; I must here recall an observation, which I have already prov'd and explain'd.[/quote]
The error he describes, is when the mind associates one idea with another, easily passing form the one to the other, because of some relation between them, such as resemblance, causing us to judge them as the same. This disposition, to judge them as the same causes the error of identity. They are not the same. He explains this on 203. The ideas, or perceptions are not the same, they are distinct, yet they cause a similar "disposition" of mind within us, causing us to judge them as the same.
So we have here exposed by Hume, our error of identity. This error is a form of self-deception which further inclines the mind to create a fiction of the continued existence of an object. We readily associate distinct impressions with each other, and we have a disposition to judge them as the same. This judgement of same is an error, and this error causes us to believe in the continued existence of an object.
Yes, he uses "my chamber" to refer to an object with continued existence, in the "vulgar" manner, because this is the only way that we have of speaking, but he is explaining why this is an error. The general population, being unphilosophical, are misled by that error, but philosophers see through it to the reality.
[quote=202]That I may avoid all ambiguity and confusion
on this head, I shall observe, that I here account for the
opinions and belief of the vulgar with regard to the existence
of body; and therefore must entirely conform myself to their
manner of thinking and of expressing themselves. [/quote]
[quote=205]The persons, who entertain this opinion concerning the.
identity of our resembling perceptions, are in general all the
unthinking and unphilosophical part of mankind, (that is, all
of us, at one time or other) and consequently such as suppose
their perceptions to be their only objects, and never think of
a double existence internal and external, representing and
represented. The very image, which is present to the senses,
is with us the real body; and tis to these interrupted images
we ascribe a perfect identity. But as the interruption of the
appearance seems contrary to the identity, and naturally
leads us to regard these resembling perceptions as different
from each other, we here find ourselves at a loss how to
reconcile such opposite ,opinions. The smooth passage of
the imagination along the ideas of the resembling perceptions
makes us ascribe to them a perfect identity. The interrupted
manner of their appearance makes us consider them as
so many resembling, but still distinct beings, which appear
after certain intervals. The perplexity arising from this
contradiction produces a propension to unite these broken
appearances by the fiction of a continud existence, which is
the third part of that hypothesis I proposd to explain. [/quote]
Quoting unenlightened
Notice, what Srap says, it is a world of perceptions only. It is when we attempt to talk about something which is beyond the perceptions, something external, that the error described above, occurs. We erroneously judge distinct perceptions which resemble each other as the same (btw, this is a central part of Wittgenstein's private language argument, the question of how we can judge two distinct sensations as the same), and then we create a fictitious temporal continuity between these perceptions which have been erroneously judged as the same. We create this fictitious continuity because that's what the judgement of "the same" requires in this case of temporally separated instances, uninterruptedness. Then we assign the "uninterruptedness" to a supposed external object. So this error forms the basis of our assumption of a distinct, external object, with continuous existence.
You're absolutely partly right.
Of course, he does not deny that there are objects, because he claims that we cannot. I'm happy with the word 'prejudice' there.
On the other hand, he makes no 'argument from instinct' that I can see. He might have, but he doesn't.
And you're right that the intellectual context matters, as you noted before. Descartes does give something like an argument from irremediable prejudice: that which we cannot doubt must be true. Hume (and Kant after) seems to me unmoved by this argument. Why could there not be some falsehood we cannot help but believe?
There are optical illusions like this, that work even when you know they're illusions (the Ames window, the checkerboard illusion and other color constancy shenanigans), because they depend on deepish features of our visual processing. Empiricists love their optical illusions, so Hume, were he aware of these examples, would no doubt consider such things slam-dunk counterexample to any proposed 'argument from instinct'.
No, he is not using the word "fiction" as is used today. A fiction can be useful, some more useful than others. The self is a fiction, yet we don't treat it as we do Harry Potter or something, much of our laws are based on the notion of morality which we attach to a person, also a fiction. Hume talks about his furniture and his chamber, true these are fictions, but very useful ones at that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is why I provided in the OP, the following, to which I will add the whole quote:
"We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings." (p.187)
What he is discussing here is not the existence of these objects, it's that the reasons we give for our belief in their continued existence to be far weaker than what we ordinarily suppose. But he does not believe that we are deluded or fooling ourselves when we conclude that there are bodies.
I've talked a lot about the Appendix, I will now quote his famous passage where he argues that he cannot renounce his belief in the existence of external objects, a passage of supreme importance in all of philosophy, in my opinion:
"But all my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head.
"In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding." (635-636) (Italics mine)
That's his own conclusion and although he says "I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutely insuperable. Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflections, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions." (636), his conclusion remains true to this day.
And a final argument against such a view of denying such objects is when he says, also in the Appendix:
"As long as we confine our speculations to the appearances of objects to our senses, without entering into disquisitions concerning their real nature and operations, we are safe from all difficulties, and can never be embarrassed by any question." (638)
Italics his. Bold mine.
Note that everything in the above paragraph in the third and fourth sentence is imaginary. But Hume will have been familiar with rainbows, and I think familiar enough with optics to have some understanding of the phenomenon ... "no one takes a rainbow for a persistent extended object," I seem to hear him say, "and that's why it's a safe place for the wee folk to hide their gold, and for the gods to cross into Asgard."
sentiment, the former, which is, in a manner, its necessary consequence, has been peculiar to a few extravagant sceptics; who after all maintaind that opinion in words only, and were never able to bring themselves sincerely to believe it. There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind." (p.214)
It's a nice thought, but demonstrably false.
Here's another video (a bit tech-bro, but that's what you get) about illusions related to color constancy, mostly done with real-life models.
I'm still going back through the section on and off, but we end up with three 'theories', right?
There's (1) the instinctive view that we directly see objects. Then there's (2) the sceptical, philosophical view that only perceptions can be present to the mind, and perceptions don't have the key properties of being distinct from us and constant over time. Then imagination gives us (3) the 'double existence' theory, which posits a constant object of which we have changing perceptions, giving both instinct and reflection whatever they want, without actually justifying this move.
Is that the overall structure as you see it?
On 1 and 2, yes, absolutely.
On 3, let's see... I'd only add or stress that the constant object we posit is identical (it looks to me) to the one we have in our perceptions, and it eases our contradictions with reason and reflection. But, yes, agree here too.
Right, that part is brilliant. Not only is there a double existence, but the perceptions an object occasions exactly resemble it, and of course vice versa. Why? No reason at all. No conceivable reason. It's just the sort of assumption we typically make, with no justification whatsoever. That bit is pretty humbling.
It is a total mind-f*ck. Also that we are, strictly speaking, looking at a new object every time we open our eyes.
Makes no sense at all, but it's what we have.
It did in 1738.
but it's what we have.[/quote]
Its what we had.
Nothing against Hume, he . perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all sceptical philosophers
I mean, I think it does make sense to postulate something "behind" the objects as it were, and you can say that we take object X to be X, in virtue of us: we that recognize it (object X) as having the necessary properties found in all objects of X type, it has these properties and we recognize them as such, because of the type of cognition we have.
Still doesn't solve the issue of the perception being new, nor knowing virtually anything about whatever may be the cause of the object, it remains a postulate only, imo, though it is very reasonable, and I agree with it, on the whole.
Unless you had something else in mind.
Youre agreeing with Humes philosophy on human understanding, then?
No. I'm a Chomskyian,
This is a thread trying to explain what Hume believes, I haven't said too much of what I think. In such threads, I think it makes sense to bring out what makes them special or important historical figures.
I think his idea of our minds being like an "empty theatre" and also a bundle of perceptions, to be extremely wrong, heck, Descartes had a more sensible theory of mind than Hume.
What I think Hume gets correct is concerns the nature of perception, how it works phenomenologically, it's as I experience it.
Cool.
Important historical figures, yes.
Yes, "far weaker" indeed. He explicitly describes the reasons for our belief in continued existence as an error, and deception. You can rationalize this however you please.
Quoting Manuel
What you quoted clearly supports what I've said. Hume believes perceptions to be distinct from each other, therefore not of a continuously existing body.
Quoting Manuel
Yes, this is the point here. Most philosophers except that there is not continuity to our sense perceptions. The necessary consequence of this is that the idea of continuous existence ought to be rejected altogether. However, philosophers, except some skeptics (such as Hume) are reluctant to reject this idea of continuous existence.
The conclusion that continued existence is an erroneous assumption is not completely inconsistent with the assumption of body. It just means that body does not exist in the way that we commonly think that it does. In mysticism and some religions we find the idea that the whole world, every single body uniquely., must be recreated at each moment of passing time. We are led toward this idea because of the reality of change, and the reality of the free will. This constant recreation, which is done in a way that produces the appearance of continuity to us (consider the analogy of a succession of still frames producing a film), is attributed to the Will of God. It is necessary that God acts at every passing moment to maintain the appearance of continuity, the continuance of order, which is known to us as the laws of nature.
We are speaking about different things. The quoted passage is about the reasons surrounding our belief, not about the belief itself.
And even then, he admits that his "hopes vanish", he could not get himself out of his own arguments.
One deals with everyday life, "vulgar reasoning", in which we take for granted and cannot dispute the existence of objects, what you are emphasizing, are the reasons for the belief, not the belief itself, because, as Hume says:
"There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind." (p.214)
You are focusing on his "profound reflections", while minimizing what "we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse".
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This must be true.
Nature, in deeming the question of the existence of bodies too important to be determinable by the skeptic, who cant trust his reason by means of reason anyway, forces the skeptic to grant the principles which in turn make necessary the existence of bodies.
If his reason cannot be trusted with respect to determining the existence of bodies, why would it be trusted to reasonably ask for the causes by which his believing that the existence of bodies is to be taken for granted? Furthermore, why would we be induced to believe, when the principle which grants the existence of bodies has been given to us, insofar as Nature has .not left this to his choice .?
On the one hand there is no mistaking the existence of bodies, but on the other, the skeptic may actually doubt how it is possible the existence of bodies is given, for the simple reason he has no philosophical system by which it is proved. Which means, in effect, he rejects that Nature has forced him to accept it. So .the section on skepticism of the senses apparently begins with a disguised antinomy.
It almost looks like Hume is chastising skeptical philosophers, but if that is true, it begs the question, why would Kant call him, . perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all skeptical philosophers , if not to say if one is to be a skeptical philosopher, he should be better at it than anyone else.
All this to show you guys have progressed but Im still stuck on the first page.
Well I'd need to see that demonstration. But anyways, back to Hume, your fun video actually uses the term 'imaginary' to describe the colour constancy and lighting compensation that happens. Which scores a stupendous predictive hit for Hume, even if I got it wrong.
Yes, I think that's right. The gist of the color constancy effect is that your brain prepares an interpretation of your visual environment and part of that is that objects have distinct and continuous colors (just along Humean lines) and it is this idealization of the objects in your environment that you are conscious of, not a faithful recreation of the color patches that make up your putative visual field.
Because, of course, one is not normally interested in colour patches in one's visual field, but the latest dresses and trainers in the material world that material girls live in.
Sure, that's what Hume has explicitly said is the subject of this section of the book. The section is not really concerned with the vulgar beliefs themselves, it focuses on the causes of these beliefs. And, when it is found that a principal cause of one such belief is an error, this presents us with a problem.
Quoting Mww
I believe that this is exactly the unresolvable inconsistency which Hume finds himself up against. Overly simplified, it's reasonable to take the existence of bodies for granted, But it's also reasonable not too. What I think this indicates is that we ought not claim certainty about the existence of bodies.
Absolutely, and when he says
. And as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation .
.in which it is easy to see the obvious inconsistency. It may well be the case that the science of man underpins all the other sciences, but to treat of that science by using the same conditions as the other sciences, it cannot then be the ground for them.
Still, consider the times. In the treatise, Hume mentions God four times. Count em. Four. In however-many-hundreds of pages. This goes great lengths to show the separation from the philosophical standard of the time he is making, and for which he is, as says, definitely of historical importance. Cant really blame the guy for not getting the finer points out in the open, when he was the first to seriously open the box out of which his successors would step.
And if historical precedent is any indicator, it stands to reason the current philosophical paradigm will be shown its own inconsistencies, sooner or later.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
From Humes point of view, from the Treatise, you mean? Id agree with his premise, or principle, that our reason is insufficient for grounding the certainty for the existence of bodies. But it isnt reason by which that certainty arises anyway, so his claim with respect to reason does nothing to prohibit some other means by which the certainty of the existence of things is given.
You know ..its awful hard to maintain the conceptual schemes of outdated philosophies. One has to keep in mind what the original author knew about, and from which his terminology derives, even if he himself alters its meaning. For instance, perception. Perception now means something very different than how Hume wanted it to be understood with respect to his new philosophical approach. The concept of mind itself was still taken to be one half of the entirety of human nature, while in later times it became merely an apex placeholder, having no exacting import of its own, at all.
It was a time when human beings were stepping away from God as an explanation for what is natural. This was opening up the field of natural philosophy allowing speculation into other causes as to the existence of natural things (previously attributed to God). This was relatively early in the study of natural philosophy, so the fundamental principles were still being established.
Quoting Mww
The issue is not so much certainty about "the existence of bodies", as such, because we take that for granted, with great certainty. But the uncertainty arises when we question what does this mean. What does it mean to be a body, and to exist. Then we find great uncertainty. And this is why we have the contrariety. There is extremely little certainty concerning the meaning of a phrase which we accept with great certainty.
Here is a brief exegesis of the next section (p205-208):
After determining that the idea of continued existence is a fiction, he proceeds to question why we produce such an idea. So he considers the following contradiction:
[quote=p205]The smooth passage of
the imagination along the ideas of the resembling perceptions
makes us ascribe to them a perfect identity. The interrupted
manner of their appearance makes us consider them as
so many resembling, but still distinct beings, which appear
after certain intervals. [/quote]
This contradiction causes an "uneasiness" within us, and begs to be resolved. One or the other, of these contrary principles must be sacrificed. The notion of identity supports smooth passage of our thoughts, so we are very reluctant to give up that idea in favour of each perception existing as a distinct being. So we turn to that side, the idea that our perceptions are not interrupted. However, the interruption can be so extensive that we are forced to consider that the perceptions may have existence independent from the mind.
Now there are two questions raised (p207) relating back to the stated contradiction. How can a perception be absent from the mind without ceasing to exist, and how can it become present to the mind without creation, or become present again to the mind without some form of recreation. So he proposes that a mind is nothing more than a unity of perceptions, united by relations, allowing that any particular relation may be broken and outside the mind, thus allowing the separation of a perception from a mind, thereby apparently resolving both of these two questions.
The problem I see with this proposal is that he does not ascribe a cause to these relations. The mind exists as a unity of perceptions, such that we have a "connected mass of perceptions, which constitute a. thinking being". But "thinking" is an activity, and he has posited no real cause to account for his proposal of a unity of perceptions in the act of thinking. There is no cause given for a perception to establish a relation and become part of the unity, and no cause given for a perception to break its relation and become independent from the mind.
Because of this problem. the assumption of continued existence is said to be a "feigning" (208). If we could identify the cause of perceptions coming into the unity (which is the mind) and going out of the unity, then we would have the reason for this, and we would not have to resort to invoking a feigning to account for this. So the issue here is that thinking is an activity, and thoughts or perceptions come into and go out of the thinking mind, but we have no identified cause of this activity.
If we had an identified cause, we could accurately, and truthfully say (without feigning) whether the perceptions are recreated each time they come into the mind, and annihilated when they leave it, or whether they are passed off whole into an independent space, and later come back from that independent place.
Because the cause is not identified, Hume is left saying that we "feign" continued existence. He then proceeds to analyze why we have a propensity toward believing this idea which has been feigned.
Quoting Mww
I try to maintain a chronological order to my understanding of philosophy. It is always good to put a philosopher's writing into a temporal context. This is why I believe it is imperative toward understanding philosophy, to have a good training in ancient philosophy. This allows one to conceive of ancient ideas, how things were understood in those times, and grasp how different ideas evolve over the course of time through different influences.
Well, someone else replied to you, which takes a task off of me, not in that I don't mind exchanging ideas with you - truth is the opposite, but I also don't want to be overwhelmingly the only person talking here.
There are many directions to go and one's own inclination will also determine, to an extent, what one finds useful or surprising or revealing. You may be of the opinion that Hume may not be too interesting. Nevertheless, one thing I'll say:
It does not necessarily follow that because he can't find convincing reasons for our belief in the continuity of external objects, that he should also "... ask for the causes by which his believing that the existence of bodies is to be taken for granted."
For him, it is too hard a question to ask. We have reason, which for Hume is "...nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls..." (p.179) Book 1, Part III, Chapter XVI
An instinct is something that cannot be explained, it is given. It is also something we just do, like perceiving or talking. One can analyze the given, but not explain it. As he says: "Nothing is more suitable to that philosophy, than a modest scepticism to a certain degree, and a fair confession of ignorance in subjects, that exceed all human capacity." (Last sentence of the Appendix.)
A worthy exposition of the issue, I must say. The solution .of a sort ..must await the transcendental unity of apperception for its sufficient analysis. But, being nonetheless a metaphysical analysis, however logically coherent it may be, it is still a kind of feigning, insofar as it remains a speculative causality. The unity of apperception is, of course, represented by the concept of consciousness, which in its turn, we can say truthfully is the source of recreation of impressions/ideas from thought after annihilation from perception, and, even more importantly, maintains an impressions successive identity. Hume did actually touch on this condition, but didnt give to the conception of consciousness itself, enough systemic power.
But all that aside, youre right, I think, in that Hume didnt identify a sufficient cause for continued existence of our impressions. And I think there is a very good reason why he didnt carry his theory further, re: he mistakes that all perceptions of the mind, which are only one of either impressions or ideas, can only be derived from experience and observation, and that impressions and ideas are necessarily connected to each other.
The times. Always the times.
Two ways to look at this. (1) When Hume say 'Nature' deemed this matter, the belief in body, so important that it did not leave it up to our fallible reasoning, he might well have said 'God' but didn't. So that's a pretty daring step, and we have to remember he's writing more than a hundred years before Wallace and Darwin, though 'anticipating' them here and there in the Treatise. (2) On the other hand, you could say that the structure of the argument is the same, just substituting 'Nature' for 'God', so it's not such an advance as it might seem.
*
Hume is quite clear that the belief in body does not arise either from the senses or from reason, but from a sort of instinct, and much of this chapter is in some ways a description of how we adapt ourselves to having this instinct thus the 'double existence' theory.
But more than that, the senses alone or reason acting upon the deliverances of the senses, would seem to support the opposite conclusion, that there are no bodies distinct from us and continuous over time. The senses and reason are not just unable to deliver the belief in body; they support disbelief in body.
If we want to say, as @unenlightened suggests, that Nature is trustworthy here, that there are bodies, then not only is looking for reasonable grounds for that belief a mistake, because it won't deliver them, but the use of reason will actually lead us astray, so far as it is able. Hume is just as clear that reason is impotent to overcome the instinctive belief in body, but it is trying.
That ought to bother us. The short chapter before this, on scepticism with regard to reason, was all about our failings as reasoners in fact, our simple fallibility. But here, someone is lying to us. If it's Nature, and there's nothing we can do about it, that's troubling. If Nature tells us truly that there is body, but our senses and reason tell us there isn't, then our senses and our reason are mistaken.
What we don't have from Hume not to my memory, maybe someone else who's been in the Treatise more than I lately could say is an extended discussion of how the senses or reason subtly go wrong in this matter (or in any of the others in the Treatise, for the matter, such as causality). We might have. If he thought Nature had gotten everything right for us beforehand, then he would assume, I think, that the reflections which lead to the opposite conclusion must have a flaw somewhere, and we would have hundreds of pages devoted to finding those quite subtle flaws. This would not be a matter of reason and experience grounding the belief in body, say, but of them at least not kicking against it. Then, at least, while there would remain important beliefs beyond the reach of reason and experience, we could continue to trust them regarding such beliefs as they do ground.
As it is, Hume of course accepts that our senses can deceive us, but he's very specific: our senses tell us that the table grows smaller as we withdraw from it, though it does not; but our senses are completely honest and trustworthy about the table appearing to grow smaller. They may lie about the objects that occasion them, but not about themselves. In the end, he will not lay this charge of deception at their feet, because the senses are not responsible for our belief in the table as an external object in the first place! That belief is implanted in us by nature. (But not by being implanted in the senses or in our reason.) But if nature has done right by us, the senses deceive us by their very nature, by providing the mind with changing and interrupted perceptions rather than the distinct and continuous bodies that we should be perceiving. But if that is the nature of our senses, and they are blameless in doing only what they can do, then it must be down to reason to find the necessary connections among those scattered perceptions and assemble them into the proper wholes nature has rightly told us there are; but reason cannot do so. Instead we must feign such unity in our perceptions, using not reason but fancy.
Our senses, then, lie, by telling the only truth they can; our reason lies by preserving only such truth as it is given by the senses; and imagination tells the truth by lying to us ('double existence') about the incompatibility of our instinctive beliefs with the beliefs we derive from experience by reason.
Ehhhhhh .its your tread, so youve the onus for responding to everyone writing to you, so youre potentially the most talkative anyway, assuming folks dont just talk among themselves. Which is sorta disrespectful, I should think.
It isnt that we cant find reasons. Its that our reason, the faculty, cant be trusted. But Hume had to have trusted his reason in order to claim experience and observation is all we can trust.
Do you think, given this ..
We may here take occasion to observe a very remarkable error, which being frequently inculcated in the schools, has become a kind of establishd maxim, and is universally received by all logicians. This error consists in the vulgar division of the acts of the understanding, into CONCEPTION, JUDGMENT and REASONING, and in the definitions we give of them.
(1., 3., VII ..page number unavailable, sorry)
.that Hume didnt even consider reason to be a dedicated faculty of its own? If not, I could see why he would consider it untrustworthy, insofar as the quote implies other influences on it, or, it is dependent on or conjoined necessarily with, other aspects of understanding. E.C.H.U. probably answers that, but were not there, so ..
We may not trust our reasons, but we have no choice but to trust reason itself. It is what makes us human, after all, along with morality.
Fair enough.
My reading of Hume is that he does take reason to be a faculty on its own, but he consistently tries to show how weak it is - weaker than we would like to believe. I'd have to enter the moral domain to give a full account of Hume, but I'm not too interested with moral philosophy.
Whether reason is or is not, as strong as we would like is an open question. One can say, that the state of the world we're in certainly shows reason is not our strongest trait. Yet we know many, many instances in which reason shines quite brightly. So, it's not clear to me either way.
According to the generally acknowledged first serious scholarly work on Hume, by Norman Kemp Smith, whom you no doubt know, says that Hume is a philosopher of "passion", if I remember the exact word correctly.
Quoting Mww
I don't understand what you are saying here. What does "trusting reason itself" imply? I mean, reason told us for thousands of years that we were the center of the universe, which is not at all a silly view due to the evidence available at the time.
So I'm unclear on what you are saying here.
"Shoud it here be askd me, whether I sincerely assent to this argument, which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, and whether I be really one of those, sceptics, who hold that all is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possest of any measures of truth and falshood ; I shoud , reply, that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I, nor any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determind us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunshine. Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, and endeavourd by arguments to establish a faculty, which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and renderd unavoidable." (p.183)
Book 1, Part 4, Section 1
Hmmmm. 1., 3., sec XIV intimates Hume considers them as quite different, even if one follows from the other.
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Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Id have to examine deeper, to affirm adaptation to instinct suffices for a cause. I can see where he denies senses and reason as being sufficient cause of belief, but not that some kind of instinct, is.
But your comment is quite beautiful in itself. Ill work on incorporating as much of it as I can justify.
Ahhhh .cool. Thanks. There are places where he seems to give that impression, but doesnt come right out and say it.
Quoting Manuel
Yep. Judgement parsed the evidence, reason found no contradictions. POOF!! Knowledge.
Later, judgement parsed new evidence, reason found no contradictions: new knowledge.
Evidence, judgement and knowledge changed over time, reason did not.
The reason we trust is reason the human condition, not reason the cognitive faculty. The former is a logical system, the latter is an aspect of the system. Thats what I meant to say, but I strayed from a thread concerned with a philosophy that doesnt have this as a precept. My bad.
Ah, I see, sure in this sense we are talking about then, "instinct" is rather similar to "the human condition". In both cases, funnily enough, these are innate considerations not drawn from, nor extracted by, experience.
Agreed, neither drawn from, nor extracted by, experience, and both innate conditions. I might add that the animal has instinct moreso than reason, while the human animal has reason moreso than instinct. He became civilized, donchaknow. Instinct no longer serves as well as reason.
Like Hume ..diminuating degrees regarding instinct, but accumulating degrees regarding judgement, kinda like the argument in your 1. 4. 1.
Yes, exactly.
That's how it seems to me too.
I think I am beginning to see things your way, more and more. Hume seems to rely here on two important premises, or principles. The first one is stated clearly and explicitly, that we cannot doubt the existence of body, that to do so would be unreasonable. The second premise appears to be a bit more obscure, but it has to do with what is present to the mind. Simply stated, the principle seems to be that the only thing present to a mind, is perceptions. This is made very evident from his description of mind as a simple unity of perceptions.
Because of this second premise, only perceptions are given real causal efficacy within the mind. So as a case in point, identity is seen as a mistaken idea because it is demonstrated to be impossible that identity has been derived from perception. However, to maintain this conclusion, it is necessary that identity could not have been truthfully, accurately, or reasonably derived from a source other than perception. That the idea of continued identity has a valid cause which is other than perception would make it more than just an imaginary and erroneous fiction.
Now, when we look at the tradition involved with the law of identity, it was proposed by Aristotle as a way to account for the reality of what was demonstrated by Socrates and Plato, that our conceptions of the way that things are, is often wrong, i.e not consistent with how things actually are. So Aristotle proposed a separation between how we perceive and conceive things, as abstract forms, and how things really are in themselves, as particular material forms. The identity of a thing is the latter, the thing itself, as a material form.
Since this principle, the law of identity, implies that individual, particular things are actually different from the way that we perceive them, our perceptions of them, it is necessary that the law of identity is derived from something other than perceptions. We cannot conclude directly from our perceptions that things are not as we perceive them to be.
And, we can also understand that a human being having itself a body has access toward understanding the nature of body, or in Hume's perspective, the human being has causes which influence one's understanding of body, which are other than perceptions. We have a vast array of emotions, desires, and intentions, which influence the judgements made by our minds, which do not appear to the mind in the form of perceptions.
Here we can turn to the Platonic tradition of "the good". For Plato the good is the source of, and cause of all true understanding. But the good is not properly apprehended by the mind, like a perception would be. Also, Aristotle proposed intuition as the source of knowledge and intuition as a cause of judgement, does not appear as a perception either.
Quoting Manuel
I believe "instinct falls into the category of things I mentioned above, intuition, intention, and the good. These things have a great causal efficacy over our idea formation, yet they do not necessarily exist within the mind as perceptions. So Hume, by narrowing the field of things which are present to the mind to perceptions only, wrongfully excludes the influence these other things have within the mind. Then, when he considers identity, and continued existence, and finds these not to be supported by perceptions, he wrongfully concludes continuous identity to be imaginary, fictitious, even erroneous. But this is only because he doesn't consider the other category of influences in the mind, the causes which come directly from one's own body, instinct, intuition, desire, intention, and the good. Therefore if we allow that we can derive valid information about "body" directly from one's own body, without the medium of perception, these ideas about the nature of body, identity, and continuous existence, may be supported that way.
"Unreasonable" cannot be the right word here.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
There's no "seems to be" about it. He says it in so many words. I quoted him saying it on page 1 of the thread.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I think your disagreement is with Book I Part I Section I, where Hume claims that all our ideas are derived from impressions. Thus, no innate ideas.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
[quote=The very first words of the book (after the Introduction)]All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call Impressions and Ideas. The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only, those which arise from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion.[/quote]
So, no, Hume is not ignoring other causes that arise from within your own body: they are all impressions.
I think it's a fair word, because he states in the very first sentence of the section, that the skeptic concerning the existence of body, "cannot defend his reason by reason". Therefore we can conclude that this is unreasonable.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
OK, so the premise is clearly stated at that part of the book. Now we ought to dismiss this premise as false, mistaken,for the reasons discussed.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This cannot be true. He describes the perceptions (or "impressions" if you prefer) as having "relations" with each other. Relations are different, distinct from the things which are related. Yet the relations are necessarily present within the mind, and are part of the mind. Therefore it is false to claim that the mind consists only of impressions, or perceptions. It is becoming very clear that this is Hume's mistaken premise. Look at his description of mind at 207 for example:
[quote=207]As to the first question ; we may observe, that what we
call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection of different
perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supposd,
tho falsely, to be endowd with a perfect simplicity and
identity.[/quote]
The problem is, that Hume's former premise, that the mind consists only of perceptions, or impressions, is what is actually proven to be false here. The concept of identity is not proven to be false. This scenario, of perceptions passing in and out of the mind, while maintaining continued, independent and distinct existence, is supposed to be the falsity, the error, which he exposes. But if this were really the case, of how the mind exists, then what constitutes being in the mind, is having "certain relations". Now, in this scenario, where perceptions have identity, "relations" are what is essential to being in the mind, not perceptions, as the perceptions maintain their identity in a continuous manner, even while outside the mind.
If it is the case that having relations with other perceptions is what constitutes being within the mind, as this is what is necessary to justify the belief in independent objects, then we need to account for what having a relation is, because this is now the essential aspect of the mind. The perceptions are allowed to exist independently, so perceptions by this description can no longer be considered to be the essential aspect of mind. The mind now must be understood as this activity which produces these relations between perceptions. So we have Hume implying that having "certain relations" is what is essential to being within the mind when he tries to justify independent existence from the premise that the only thing present to the mind is perceptions.
So he starts with that premise, that the only thing present to the mind is impressions, or perceptions, and then he tries to justify our belief in continued distinct (independent) existence of body, from this premise. The attempt to justify this belief in body fails, and he is inclined to say that the belief in independent continuous existence is an error of judgement. However, he has really demonstrated that this premise is wrong because it is inconsistent with his other premise, the belief in independent bodies, which he says we cannot deny. In other words he has taken two incompatible premises. The premise, that mere perceptions are the only thing present within the mind, is not consistent with the belief in independent bodies. To establish consistency with the belief in independent existence, he must reformulate the premise, so that the mind now consists of relations between perceptions, and these relations are what is essential to being within the mind, rather than simply perceptions themselves.
Kinda-sorta. What he says first about the existence of bodies, is, it is in vain to ask whether there be body or not. , which is a weak euphemism for, dont expect an answer if you do ask. It isnt so much unreasonable to ask, as it is unreasonable to expect an answer.
This section regards skepticism with respect to the senses, which follows the section on skepticism regarding reason, so the beginning of this section carries over from it, in which it is reiterated that, so the sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts, that he cannot defend his reason by reason . It appears then, that Hume, after tacitly relegating reason to an indefensible power, yet acknowledging that it is reason itself that allows one to ask about the existence of objects, the implication is that it is in vain to ask an indefensible power, pretty much anything at all. The skeptic continues to reason and believe, but simply cannot justify his reasoning and believing with the very tool he used to acquire to them.
I agree Hume intends it to be the case we cannot doubt the existence of bodies, insofar as he explicitly states, but it is in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings. . So yes, we take for granted that there are bodies, but under one and only one condition, which is as long as we dont reason or believe. Which still leaves us to prove what weve merely taken for granted. And how do we prove anything, without the trust of reason, for which we have been rightly shown we should be skeptical.
Do perceptions of the mind, re: impressions and/or ideas, count as reasonings? If they do, then bodies are granted. If they are not, bodies are not necessarily granted. Hume says, . Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions: and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul . Apparently, then, impressions are not reasonings, from which follows the existence of bodies is not granted to impressions.
Ideas, on the other hand, he says, . By ideas I mean the faint images of these (impressions) in thinking and reasoning .. Here it appears bodies are to be granted, insofar as in all our reasonings is the condition necessary for taking bodies for granted.
Now we got a problem, caused by, it sometimes happens, that our impressions are so faint and low, that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas..., and, . impressions are the causes of our ideas, not our ideas of our impressions .
Holy Crap, Batman!!! We cannot grant the existence of bodies to sensations, where it belongs as a seemingly first appearance, because impressions are not reasonings, but the existence of bodies is granted to ideas, because it is reasoning, but impressions cause those ideas, so .sensation of an object cannot be so low as to be the same as its idea, impression of an object causes our reasoning to an idea of that object the very reasoning of which we have already been shown we should be skeptical of.
Weve been granted the very thing weve no warrant to trust. The skeptic cannot defend his reason by reason, so how does he defend it, or does he not bother defending the very thing by which he acquires his ideas?
Disclaimer: It must be in the in all our reasonings by which this apparent absurdity arises, to which I admit. I hope you notice that by quoting Hume verbatim I am making a concerted effort to suppress my Kantian prejudices.
Where did I go wrong? And if I didnt, or not enough to bother, then is it any wonder that dogmatic slumbers awoke?
Well he doesn't have Schopenhauer's dual aspect view: of being an object and a subject simultaneously, at least not nearly as strongly developed.
But he does say that when we look at our bodies, we are looking at impressions, not the actual body itself. Yes, I do think a Humean mind is not tenable, he is missing out on some important categories and powers - as he more or less recognizes in the Appendix.
But if you take perception as he does, which one can do, while still knowing the mind has more capacities than Hume allows, the problems he points out are still serious problems for perception. So he can be wrong about the powers of the mind, yet correct in observation, at least as I see it.
I think this is exactly the point of difficulty. I know I'm going to have trouble explaining it, because I can't quite see it clearly myself, but here goes.
I think these relations are, let's say, of the mind, but not present to mind; that distinction belongs exclusively to perceptions, and the relations among perceptions are not themselves perceptions.
What are they then? I think they are something like laws. You do not directly observe the law of gravity, you do not observe the force of gravity causing the tree limb to fall onto your car, you only observe the limb first there and then here, your car first fine and then smashed. Something, we believe, caused this passage from one state of affairs to another, but what it was is not something we can observe, but only postulate. (The passing itself, the atomist Hume might even say, we do not observe, but only the limb first attached to the tree, then at many points between the tree and your car, then on your car. I'd have to go back to see whether Hume thinks we actually observe motion.)
The laws of nature are there in somewhat the same way the laws of inference are in an argument. We have our premises, we pass from one formula to another, reaching a conclusion, but if we rely on modus ponens or conjunction elimination, they are not there in the argument as premises, but as the laws that carry us from one formula to the next. We're used now to axiomatic deduction systems in which the rules of inference are explicitly chosen and thus part of the system though part of no argument but in olden times, modus ponens would be present only implicitly, and perhaps postulated, or discovered, as a legitimate way of getting from some claims to others.
With those analogies in mind and I think they're close to Hume's intentions and world-view most of the book is an exploration of the mechanisms by which we pass from certain perceptions, be they impressions or ideas, to other perceptions, generally (but not always) to new ideas. He says something like this on almost every page of the book we pass smoothly from this one perception to this other one because of the resemblance between them, that sort of stuff. It's everywhere, because it's the whole point of the book. But those resemblances, for instance, they're something we can reflect on and have ideas about, as he has done, but they are not themselves perceptions present to the mind. (There's a regress argument here, but I'm not sure it's Humean. It's the same problem you would have if you had nothing with the status of an inference rule, and had to take modus ponens as a premise. That doesn't work.)
Our subject here, the belief in body, I believe is something like one of these laws of thought, not an idea we have but how we pass from the lamp impression to the lamp object belief, from the book impression to the book object belief, and so on. The double existence theory is an idea we have about this habitual passage from one perception to another, something like our ideas about causality, an attempt to justify to reason our expectation that one perception will follow another because it has in the past. (A rule of inference in psychology is more naturally seen as a habit or custom of inference.)
But aren't I loading up the mind with stuff, when Hume says it's simple? I don't think so, but I'd have to look closely at the text. Certainly the spirit of the thing is as I've said: he's looking to understand how we pass from one perception to another, so he's going to postulate laws of the mind somewhat as Newton postulated laws of the physical universe. The insight which captivated and shook him, is that those laws don't look much like reason.
No no, I mean, it's a great post and quite methodical, I'm not quite an authority on Hume but have interests in some of things he discusses, so keep that in mind. I quoted him in the Appendix, which I will share again, this time more extensively, in which we have something very rare happening, a major philosopher admitting that his project has failed:
"But having thus loosen'd all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connexion, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective, and that nothing but the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings cou'd have induc'd me to receive it. If perceptions are distinct existences, they form a whole only by being connected together. But no connexions among distinct existences are ever discoverable by human understanding. We only feel a connexion or determination of the thought, to pass from one object to another....
But all my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head.
In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding."
Italics mine.
So yes, his account of the way we acquire ideas is false, though somewhat intuitive. What I think he is right on, is on his phenomenological observations about objects and us not being able to find a connection of them in thought, although it must obviously exist. Also, each perception is new - it might be an empirical issue which could tell us how long a perception lasts, though maybe it is too difficult to measure.
The way it looks to me, is that he has presented us some rather big problems, which are hard to even think about for too long, it's like he says, an instinct gets us off this train of thinking.
A different approach might help us, here you can bring in Kant or others, and although the framework is improved as I believe it is, I think the problems aren't solved, they're stated in a better manner.
Addressing your question with the presumption it addresses (non-Cartesian) skeptics in general:
Unless the skeptic is Pyrrhonian - whom I so far gather would claim to suspend all reasoning (though I am very dubious of this being actualizable in practice) - I take the skeptic to not be capable of finding any rational alternative to so trusting. And, due to this reason alone, the skeptic thereby trusts. Despite the mistakes we can on occasion make in our reasoning.
In Humes case, the very faculty of reason is again ascribed to natural impulses, instincts; such that it is as inescapable (and Ill add, a-rational) as is the natural impulse to breath: A toddler does not reason that one breaths in order to live and thereby breaths; nor does it reason that it is using its faculties of reason to develop its reasoning skills in order to better live; yet it inevitably engages in both activities a-rationally - this, the argument would then go, just as much as we adult humans do.
But this issue isnt one confined to the particular worldview(s) of skeptics. The provision of a reason for the trustworthiness of reason squarely lands one into Agrippas trilemma: circularity or reasons (a is so because a; as in: reason's trustworthiness is so because x, y, z, etc ... all of which are to be deemed valid because reason is trustworthy), ad infinitum regression or reasons (which never provides a foundational reason), or axiomatic dogma (which would here translate into it is so because I/you/they so state). None of which are deemed rationally satisfactory by most. And, despite this irking a good deal of rationalists among others, no human in the history of mankind has been able to envision any alternative than the three just provided.
But one can abductively infer that reason of itself is a natural impulse in us whose trustability as impulse can neither be rationally supported not rationally renounced.
In reference to the first quoted paragraph of yours, Im not claiming to not find problems in Humes arguments. But I so far do agree with Humes general perspectives on this point, as I so far best interpret them, and as they would likely stand in relation to your question regarding trust: our trust of reason as a faculty can of itself only be instinctive and in this means unavoidable. And to this Ill add foundationally a-rational (i.e., neither rational nor irrational).
While I cant support all of the just stated by Humes writings, nothing in Humes writings regarding reason being an instinct will to my mind contradict this affirmed stance being one that a skeptic can take. To re-quote this, one such writing is from Part III Section XVI of the Treatise:
To consider the matter aright, reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls,
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As an afterthought: One cannot rationally doubt the faculty of reasoning without trust in the very faculty of reasoning one claims to doubt. Which to me only further evidences the claim I've intended to make.
Thanks for the added information. However, what you've provided, I think, only confuses the issue more. It's been a long time since I picked up that book, and I never read it in completion. I suppose I was unimpressed by Hume's perspective.
I do not like the idea of classing all things which appear to the mind, together as perceptions. Clearly a sense perception has a completely different type of existence from an emotion. How can we say that an emotional feeling such as anger, for example has the same type of existence and effect on the mind as a visual image? Aren't emotions affections, implying that the mind has already been affected by the time that the emotion exists. The emotion seems to have an inner source, and is directed outward toward something external, while the sense perception seems to have an external source making an impression on the internal.
And I really think we need clarity on what Hume means by "reasoning". Where does reasoning fit in to this structure? It is clearly not the same as sensing. But if sensing is the means by which the mind creates sense perceptions, what does reasoning create? Is there a different type of perception created by reasoning, or does reasoning just do things with preexisting perceptions?
Quoting Mww
Here's the thing. By what means can we say that ideas are acquired by reasoning? Without a separation between the different types of things which are present to the mind, we have no basis for saying that some perceptions are produced from the senses, and some are produced by reasoning. This comes back to the issue of the difference between sensing and dreaming. If we cannot make any separation between the things within the mind which are directly derived through sensation, and the things which are directly created by the mind itself, then we will be hopelessly lost when approaching skepticism. Since there is always elements of uncertainty in anything we do, the only way to get beyond skepticism is to set up some divisions, some categories to properly classify the different types of things which are present to the mind, thereby attempting to isolate the uncertainty. Without this, the uncertainty will appear to be everywhere.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If only perceptions are in the mind, and relations are not perceptions, then where are the relations? Does this mean that they have separate, independent existence? But this doesn't seem right, because when we say that something is bigger than another thing, this is a judgement made in the mind. Now we could say that this relation, "bigger than" is an idea in the mind, but since this idea relates perceptions, one to another, it must be something other than a perception. This is why we need to allow distinct categories of the different types of things which exist in the mind.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is where the issue gets very tricky, and difficult, I believe. Relations such as the one mentioned above, "bigger than", can be described as laws, like you propose. However, these laws are universals, the same law is applicable to the relations between many different individual perceptions. But when we assume that perceptions are particulars, individuals with a unique identity, as Hume does, then applying the universal laws reveals the uniqueness of each individual's particular relations with others. This we know as measurement. So in a sense then, we assume universal laws as a means for determining each individual's unique relations. This means that the relations are of the particular, the thing being measured, not of the law, which is the thing being applied in measurement.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is why it is important for us to determine exactly what Hume means by "reasoning", if there is any understanding to be found here at all. We do not really follow laws in reasoning, the laws are just stated in attempts at formalizing reasoning, describing what reasoning consists of. So for example, if I say all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal, I draw this conclusion without following any rules or laws. I just know somehow, that if everything in this class is mortal, and Socrates is in this class, then Socrates is mortal. It's because it makes sense to me, it is reasonable to me and everyone else, that it becomes a rule. It is not reasonable because it is a rule. We can see this more clearly with something like the law of noncontradiction. Contradiction does not make any sense, it is unreasonable, and so it was unacceptable long before anyone formulated the law of noncontradiction. So reasoning doesn't follow laws, the laws follow from the reasoning.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This does not seem like a good way of describing reasoning, the act of passing from one perception to another. It does not account for the creative aspect of reasoning. Reasoning creates ideas. Consider the example above, All men are mortal, Socrates is a man. What is created by this reasoning process is the idea that Socrates is mortal. So we start with a universal law, and make a conclusion about a particular. And of course there are other forms of reasoning, like inductive, where we take particulars and create a universal.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Th problem though is that Hume gives an account which is incoherent. So we must ask why, determine where his mistakes lie, which render the subject as incoherent.
Quoting Manuel
I think that this is the key to the issue, the concept of unity. Thinking, or reasoning, is not a simple matter of successive perceptions. There is a unity of perceptions created, through categorization, or logic or other means. So when Hume talks about recognizing resemblance relations, this is only a part of the operation. Such relations allow us to categorize things as being of "the same" type, thereby creating a unity of different things that are the same type. But we do not believe that the things classed as the same type, and being part of that unity, are the very same thing, in the sense of perfect identity. So reasoning concerns itself with creating unities out of distinct parts, and it really has no interest in whether the distinct parts have a proper. or "perfect\" identity within themselves. Reasoning is only concerned with the identity assigned to the distinct parts, as member of such and such categories, the part's position in the unity.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The times. Always the times. It was difficult for Hume and everyone else of those times, for none of them gave space and time, for the missing principle of simple inherence, and matter and form, for the principle of common connection, the re-consideration required to construct the foundation of a new and sufficiently explanatory theory.
Still, neither of those hypotheticals would work if the mind was not relieved of its being the seat of perceptions. Once perception became the purview of sensibility, the physical apparatus alone, then it became possible to separate cognitive functionalities, and at the same time connect them all together into a system.
And you know as well as I, that unless the power and absolute necessity of a priori reasoning denied by Hume and continental empiricists in general, became part and parcel of the rational human condition, there wouldnt be a sufficiently explanatory theory, ever.
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Quoting Manuel
Exactly right: he presented the problems better than anyone else, in which his true claim to fame resides, but realized his inability to solve them. Highly commendable, I should think.
Overall, a well-thought post. Nothing in it to counter-argue conclusively. That being said, it might be worthwhile to consider the different between reason the faculty, which the infant hasnt developed, and reason the innate human condition, by which development of the faculty is possible.
The infant human brain is sufficiently complex to imbue an autonomous nervous system, which is itself sufficient causality for the infant to breath without either reason or instinct.
That an infant doesnt reason to the development or use of his faculty of reason, makes explicit something by which such development and use is possible to begin with. It becomes, then, perfectly logical for there to be an innate human condition, not itself a faculty but that which is antecedent to the faculty such that the faculty is possible. Such must be the case, for otherwise all humans would be born with immediate empirical knowledge, immediate language use, and the immediate ability for abstract constructs. They are not so born, which makes necessary nothing but the possibility for all that stuff they eventually do accomplish.
On the other hand, instinct, supposed as that by which an action is prescribed, but without any judgement whatsoever. Instinct says .do this, do this this way and do this now. No negotiations, no explanations, no if-ands-or-buts.
With these notions in mind, it is clear reason the innate human condition, and instinct the innate human capacity, are very different. Or, if not very different, then different enough such that it is unintelligible to interchange them. Like .cant use a baseball bat to tell you what time it is kinda thing.
Which gets us inevitably to Hume, in that, being an empiricist relying exclusively on experience and observation for his philosophical precepts, says while it is not perfectly legitimate to use a baseball bat to tell him what time it is, he doesnt have much choice because he doesnt have a clock.
Anyway ..Hume came so close to consider the matter aright . Reason is wonderful and unintelligible in itself, but it is not so much an instinct in our souls, as a necessary condition of our humanity. Reason the faculty, then, reduces to merely a necessary condition of our intelligence, our humanity being presupposed.
Neither do I, and nowadays, most people dont. But in 1738
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Absolutely, and they were duly distinguished beginning in Germany, mid-1700s, not long after Humes Treatise. In fact, emotions ..for better or worse ..were removed from empirical cognitions entirely. Ramification here being the post-Renaissance reinstatement of an intrinsic human dualistic nature. Anathema to the then up-and-coming scientific/industrial revolution, indeed.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, my question as well, as relayed to . He says what we get from it, re: ideas, but doesnt go very far in describing what it is. Nowadays, we understand the missing exposition of reasoning in Hume, simply from the texts not having a theory specifying a system capable of it. Hes content to say this happens because of that, but not how this happens.
It is remarkable, that Hume often says stuff like .no one in his right mind can argue with me here .but thats exactly what his successors did. Nevertheless, it is impossible to tell whether his successors argued because Hume was so obviously misguided, or because arguing is just what humans do.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not only a separation in things presented to the mind, but separation in the ways the mind treats those things. Senses present to the mind nothing but empirical data; the mind presents to itself everything except empirical data. We know both of those kinds of things happen, so the account for them must accord with the differences, from which arises the internal/external, subjective/objective dichotomies.
And were off to the races ..
If you are willing, I will proceed further with the reading of the presented section. I believe I broke off at page 208 where he is in the midst of supporting the claim that continuous identity is an erroneous, fictitious principle.
He continues on with this argument, proposing the possibility of assuming an external object, independent from the perception. Such a 'dual existence' could resolve the contradiction, allowing that perceptions are interrupted, and the independent object maintains identity as a continuously existing object. This, assuming an external object independent from perception, is what he called "feigning a continud being". He says that this is done to support "identity". We have perceptions from one time to another, which appear to be perfectly identical, so we want "identity" despite the interruptedness of perception, and so we assume an independent object to support "identity".
This feigning of continued being is attributed to the "vivacity of the idea". (We ought to have proper respect for the fact that "vivacity" implies activity, change.) The vivacity involves a smooth passage from the present impression (I assume this is a strong sense perception) to the idea. But this description is rather convoluted, as it involves smooth passage between numerous impressions, and also the "propensity of the imagination". So the vivacity of the idea is really a very complex concept, involving numerous impressions, memory, and imagination. In any case, the vivacity of the idea is what leads to, or causes the feigning of a continued being, identity.
Simply put, we have impressions which through the use of memory appear to be perfect resemblances, but interrupted in time. The interruptions are caused by us (lack of attention etc.). And so we ascribe continued existence to independent objects.
So we have the foundation here for dual existence. The perceptions, separated by time, though providing the appearance of perfect resemblance, are known not to be perfect resemblances. |Perfect resemblance" of these impressions is a falsity. So they do not provide a reasonable approach to identity (209). However, the resemblance is very strong, vivid, producing the propensity for the idea of "identity". Thus philosophers have assumed "identity", and independent objects, to account for what is believed to be a deficiency in perception. Perception is incapable of providing the reason for an independent object, but the false principle "identity" provides a philosophical remedy to this deficiency.
Now he proceeds with descriptions of experiments which demonstrate that perceptions themselves do not have any independent existence. They are dependent on the organs of the body. So philosophers adopt a separation between perception and the object. This is a principle Hume calls "palliative", as a supposed remedy for the senses' inability to provide us with true identity, a vivid idea which we have a propensity toward due to the resemblance of perceptions.
So again we have the sort of paradox exposed (211). We start with the assumption that our only objects are our perceptions. We are led from the appearance of perfect resemblance amongst the impressions, toward believing in a continuous identity. But the perceptions are also known to not actually give a perfect resemblance. But resemblance itself produces a propensity to believe in identity, so we assume independent objects to support identity. But this negates the starting point, that our only objects are our perceptions. (A sort of Hegelian dialectics here.)
So at this point (212) we have two contrary positions, the vulgar, that our only objects are our perceptions, and the dual existence proposed by philosophers, that there are independent objects, distinct from our perceptions. The stumbling point between these two is "identity", and the supposed continuous existence which is the only support for this principle..
Yes, that sounds accurate to me. A few comments:
One part of the paradox, which he states but does not expand on, is the topic of the duration of these perceptions. Although not in the section you are discussing now, he uses examples of closing his eyes or turning his head and then states that these perceptions are new.
I think that's true, but then it also seems to me evident that even if we don't close our eyes or turn our heads, there is only so long we look at an object before we claim that we are currently having a new perception.
And, also, strictly speaking, we have a new object, say a chamber, which is extremely similar to the previous chamber, but not literally the same one, the wind might have blown a curtain to the side, particles of rock or leather have deteriorated and so on.
We are insensible of these changes, but they nonetheless occur. It is curious that reason itself can present us with such a problem, when at first glance it seems evident, we are looking at the real object in real time, but then Hume has a point with his idea of "double existence", which look quite unreasonable the more you examine it.
It is useful to note in this quote, the following:
"Whoever woud explain the origin of the common opinion concerning the continud and distinct existence of body, must take the mind in its cummon situation, and must proceed upon the
supposition, that our perceptions are our only objects, and continue to exist even when they are not perceivd. Tho this opinion be false, tis the most natural of any, and has alone any primary recommendation to the fancy." (p.213)
(Bold mine)
For some reason, which is not easy to discern, these we are content with these paradoxes in "vulgar reasoning", because it is "the most natural of any" and produces the least amount of trouble to postulate.
I agree that these explicit a-priori conditions are missing from Hume, aside from the very broad label of "instinct". But even if you take say, Descartes, Cudworth or Kant, and add all these innate mechanisms and architecture, we can say, roughly, that the "inner side", of identity is present to us.
It is still very curious that each perception is new, and that IN our reasoning, we cannot connect our perceptions, though we can postulate an internal cognitive power, which does such binding for us. The problem of the connection of perceptions pointed out by Hume remains, or so it looks like to me, in terms of it being fiendishly difficult to focus on each perception and looking for the connection of perception of object O at T1, T2 and so on.
As to your comments on my post, thanks. It can happen now and then. :smile:
Words can be ambiguous. So as to clarify what I had intended: by faculty of reason I intended ability or capacity to reason rather than reasoning skills equating the former to what youve termed reason the innate human condition. It then was this capacity to reason / reason the innate human condition which was claimed to be a natural impulse or instinct in my last post. If its warranted, my bad for lack of clarity in the expression.
But to address an overarching theme in Hume the empiricist that was previously addressed: Take the nonrealistic hypothetical of a human who is completely deprived of all present and past impressions as Hume terms them; be these what we moderners term perceptions, memories, the experience of physical pain, or anything other which could quality. I for instance disagree with Humes definition of ideas as faint images of impression instead understanding ideas to be concepts and, thereby, abstractions which are a) abstracted from impressions and b) are of themselves perfectly devoid of imagery in so being concepts/abstractions. E.g., the idea/concept of animal does not have a faint image and to ascribe an image to this concept (e.g., the image of a cat) is to at the same time exclude a plethora of other possible images that the concept encapsulates (dogs, whales, insects, etc). Neither does the concept of cat, for for one example to see the faint image of a white cat is to exclude all the different colors which cats can take. Yet, be this as it may, a question for the non-empiricist:
In the absence of all present and past impressions, what reasoning might such a hypothetical human yet engage in? And this via what content?
More concretely, in Kantian terms, to paraphrase, we innately endow our perceptions with time and space. Yet, in the complete absence of all present and past perceptions, is it to be assumed that wed yet hold the ideas of time as space as contents to reasoning?
(BTW, so its said, I personally neither agree with empiricists nor rationalists, instead viewing both experience and reasoning as essential to epistemological content. But Im here addressing the issue in what I take to be Humes favor: where it's argued that reasoning is brought about by impressions - such that there can be no reasoning in the complete absence of impressions and of that which is derived from impressions.)
Im currently more interested in your point of view regarding these questions than to engage in debate.
You know what they say: careful what you wish for.
Quoting javra
Id probably go with the notion there wouldnt be any reasoning going on at all. Or, maybe, given how it is with us normally, Id say if there was reasoning going on absent past and present impressions, it would be utterly unintelligible to us. I dont see how I could think, if there was nothing to think about, which is what impressions give us. And I dont think Id understand a thing, if it were possible to think stuff like ideas, if those ideas never were presented with an object given from an impression Ill never have.
The second part of your question, then ..
Quoting javra
.becomes moot, insofar as if reasoning is not possible it may be because it lacks content, or if it is unintelligible, its content would be just as unintelligible as the reasoning to which it belongs.
Quoting javra
In Kantian terms, space and time are not the contents of reasoning. They are nothing but the necessary conditions for the possibility of reasoning. And even thats not quite right, but close enough to what youre trying to say. But to answer directly, I might say we might well hold the pure intuitions of space and time in abeyance until there is an impression given to us, which would extend to if even if that never happens. But then, itd be pretty hard to call ourselves .or that hypothetical human ..human at all. Be a different kind of intellect, no doubt.
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Quoting javra
Thats just it. While it may be the case no reasoning is possible in the complete absence of impressions, reasoning is still very possible without an impression being given that represents the reasoning. We know what a beautiful thing would be upon perception of it, because we already have a sense of what it is to be beautiful. We can conceive infinity but never be impressed with a thing that is infinite. And, above all that, we dream things weve never done.
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Quoting javra
I also view both empiricism and rationalism equally essential for empirical knowledge, or knowledge of the empirical content of our cognitions. But I think we have just as much capacity for pure rational thought in the form of logical relations, which have no empirical content. But, if I want to prove that logical relation, I must subject it to empirical conditions, let Mother Nature be the judge.
Thats my story and Im sticking to it.
No regrets so far. Thanks for the reply.
Quoting Mww
For what its worth, here we differ a little. What you term "pure rational thought" I would understand as (very) abstract thought ... which, as abstraction, is abstracted by us from experience (of the world, of our thoughts' workings, and so forth). As one example, our modern knowledge of formal logic(s) is, to my mind, then governed by a long history of axiomatic stances which more or less correlate with our experience and which, for the most part, have been improved with time; axioms that would themselves not be conceivable in the hypothetical absence of, again, what Hume terms "impressions". Nevertheless, I concur (it at least so far seems) with the idea that at least the most basic aspects of logic of which our reasoning makes use of are not empirically - nor for that matter evolutionarily - developed in us. Instead being, for lack of better phrasing, existentially fixed aspects of the world; existentially fixed aspects we have biologically evolved to make much better use of, via our far more abstract understanding, then any other species of living being known to us.
I know. Lots to potentially disagree with in this point of view. But I'll leave this in even though its not paramount to the discussion. Thanks again for the previous post.
The subject of duration in relation to sensation is very intriguing, and actually quite difficult. Suppose we take your example, the chamber, and you observe it in a way one would describe as continuously. Now when you think about it, you are only ever actually perceiving the chamber at any given moment of time, at the present. The rest of your supposed continuous observation is in the past. So you always have a moment of perception, now, and memories of past perceptions, and this constitutes your continuous observation.
If I ask you to describe what you see, you might be inclined to describe a static scenario, walls windows, chairs, desk, etc.. It is this idea of a perception, that a perception is of a static thing, or static array of things, which produces the problem of identity which Hume describes. This is because you would also refer to past static descriptions, a few moments ago, as perceptions, and there would be some slight changes to your perceptions, as you say.
But what if you described activity instead? The curtain is moving in the wind, a dog is running outside the window, someone has walked into the chamber and is now moving a chair. Isn't this really the way that we describe what we are seeing at any given time? We sense activity, and this is very clear with hearing. And when we describe what we are sensing, these are observations of activity..
The issue here is that perception is not ever at an instant in time which is the moment of the present. We tend to assume that there is a moment at the present, which constitutes the instant that sense perception is taking place, but in reality sense perception only occurs over a duration of time. So what the senses are really picking up is motion, activity, and we actually directly observe change with the senses.
So, if someone represents our observations of change as seeing the way things are at one moment (a perception), then seeing them in a different way at the next moment (the next perception), and we conclude with the use of reason, that change has occurred between these two perceptions, this is really not the way that we actually sense change. Through the senses we are actually perceiving change directly. And this, perceiving change directly, as activity and motion, is what leads us to believe in continuity. Instead of seeing the chair here at one moment, and there at the next moment, we see someone moving it. We see the curtain moving in the wind. And this, sensation of activity, is what produces the propensity toward believing in continuity. So when our sensing is interrupted, as it often is, and we see that the chair is in a different place than it was yesterday, we assume a continuity of change between these two perceptions, because this is what we would have seen if we kept up the observation.
The problem though is that reason works best with static descriptions, predications with laws of logic, like non-contradiction, so it does not properly apprehend what the senses give to it, change. As Aristotle demonstrated, change is what occur between is and is not. A thing goes from having a given property, to not having it, and "change" refers to the intermediate, neither having nor not having the property. But reason tries to describe change as a series of static pictures, of is and is not. Things were like this, then like that, and finally like so. Notice that change is always what occurs between the static pictures which reason likes to employ. So this is the incompatibility between sense and reason. Sense gives us a picture of continuous change, while reason says that at any step of the way it must be describable as either this or not this, and if it is changing from being this to not being this, it must be describable as being something else.
There is a lot of material here to cover. One pertaining directly to Hume's own vocabulary, the other pertaining to your examples and illustrations. You are of course right that, perception is a complex process that we make seem instantaneously but is not. The issue is, is it correct to say that a perception of say, a curtain NOT moving in the wind, that is, appearing static, count as a distinct perception?
In this case, we have no way of establishing this, absent some environmental change such as the wind, or a person or pet moving the curtain. But plainly we must attribute distinctness to perception, if we didn't, then we wouldn't register anything, just movements of events.
On to your own examples:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It does, and I think we can venture to say - based on current evidence - that "higher" mammals tend to perceive this particular aspect of the world similarly, they seem to sense continuity in a single object. But we know that isn't the case, though Locke pointed this out several times, we now have advanced physics that tells us so. There are no fixed objects in nature. It's just the way we see the world.
And it isn't altogether clear that evolution-arguments about survival here make sense. Like, if we happened to see objects in an interrupted manner, kind of like an object flashing quickly on and off, we would necessarily die - depending on how quick these interruptions are, I think creatures could survive such a circumstance, or see no reason why they couldn't do so.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And, Hume aside for this moment, it is very curious. I mean, for us, the philosophically inclined, when we think about this topic, it just seems obvious to us that something is "wrong", or "incomplete" about objects: that's why such topics have been debated for millennia, back to Heraclitus and more.
Senses are very good at what they do: react to what they're supposed to react to. But we know that senses alone, absent some mental architecture, however minimal, would leave us no better than an amoeba or some other creature with a rather poor nature.
So, if reason is a problem, and senses don't help with objects, it is correct to postulate something else, call it nature, instinct, negative noumena - SOMETHING, that renders this intelligible. Even though Hume concludes that the imagination misleads us here, it is a faculty not explored enough, that can also be postulated.
In any case, knowledge of objects brings with it the idea of something not quite being right with naive, "vulgar" pictures of the world.
Yes, but the representation of these perceptions, is not, re: consciousness. The implication of each new perception is that we have to learn a thing every time we perceive it. Not very efficient of Nature to force that upon us, methinks.
Quoting Manuel
You mean an internal cognitive power like, This resemblance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another. An easy transition or passage of the imagination along the ideas of these different and interrupted perceptions, is almost the same disposition of mind with that in which we consider one constant and uninterrupted perception. ?
Quoting Manuel
Perception is impression and/or idea, so are we really looking for connection of perceptions, or are we looking for the connection of impression to idea, or, impressions/ideas to each other? Imagination, then gives us the connection between an impression, re: sensation, emotion, of O, and its idea, re: thinking or reasoning about the sensation of O, in any time of our relation to O, which gives us something about object O.
I dont see this part as very difficult, so you must have meant something else.
Where I have a problem is with the idea of a distinct sense perception. I do not believe there is such a thing, and therefore I think this idea is a misrepresentation. As you agree, sensation always occurs over a duration of time, and we might add that there is always a spatial element as well. What could possibly constitute the spatial and temporal boundaries of a perception, boundaries being required to make the sense perception properly distinct from other perceptions? Time appears continuous, so it seems that any temporal divisions would be completely arbitrary, imaginary and fictitious. And a spatial boundary for a distinct sense perception could not be well defined either, as sensations seem to just get blurry, fuzzy, or confused, toward the sense's spatial limits.
My proposal would be to completely dismiss the idea of a distinct sense perception, as unreal, and misleading. Then, if there is such a thing as a distinct perception, this would be something which the mind has created with the imagination. And, we can see that we do this (create the illusion of distinct perceptions), for a reason. The mind is fundamentally analytic in its desire to understand, so it breaks down the sense information into composite parts, which you might call distinct perceptions. We can see this analysis and comparison of parts, in the mind's treatment of each and every one of the five senses, and also in its comparison between what the various senses provide. So the idea of a "distinct perception" is something the mind produces from its own way of dealing with what it derives from the senses, The senses themselves, in no way produce distinct perceptions.
Quoting Manuel
I think that this is exactly the case. All that the senses provide is movement information. We need to pay attention to the very close relationship between senses and the brain, and recognize that the brain is not a sense organ. So whatever the brain adds to sensation, this is not coming from the sense. And if our proposed separation is between mind and sense, then we would say that since it's not coming from the sense, but from the brain, it must be contributed by the mind.
This is a basic problem with Hume's approach. His proposed separation appears to between the senses, and reason. But "reason" in its proper definition is only the rational and logical activity of the mind. This leaves a vast amount of mental, or brain, activity which is obviously not reasoning, and obviously not activity of the senses, as unassailable, in an uncategorized grey area.
Quoting Manuel
What higher mammals have, which allows them to perceive the world in this way, is greater brain capacity. This is not a greater sense capacity. And it's very interesting to look at the sense capacity of some of the lower mammals, rodents, and even creatures like reptiles and insects. Some of the specific sense capacities are unbelievable. So the term "higher" here is used to refer to the creature's brain capacity, not its sense capacity. And when you say that higher mammals perceive the world in a specific way, this is attributable the type of brains that they have, not to their senses.
If we adhere to the principles then, we sense continuity, but the brain wants to break up the continuity into discrete, or distinct parts for the purpose of understanding. Therefore, individual, fixed and distinct objects is a creation of the brain, hence mind (even reason?) rather than senses. Now Hume says that this is an unjustified creation, an erroneous fiction. However, we must pay respect to the fact that we call these creatures with the advanced brain capacity "higher" mammals. And, we consider that this analytic aspect of the mind which breaks the sensations into parts for separate comparison and understanding is an advantage. Therefore we ought not conclude that this separation into distinct objects is an erroneous mistake, as Hume does. Furthermore, the science of physics supports this position of distinct individual objects with the concepts of gravity, mass, and inertia. And so, we really ought to conclude that it is the senses which are misleading us, with the appearance of continuity, not the mind or brain with its assumption of distinct objects.
Of course, that is an oversimplification because we really need to separate space and time to distinguish whether one of these is responsible for the intuition of continuity, and the other responsible for the intuition of distinct objects. That's what I mentioned earlier in the thread, that there is a fundamental incompatibility between continuity and distinct objects, though Hume simply classes these together and talks of the continued existence of a distinct object. If, for example, we say that an object's spatial existence is discrete, or distinct, and its temporal existence is continuous, it appears like we might have both distinct and continuous within an object. However, as the ancients knew, objects are generated and corrupted in time, so that temporal continuity is a bit elusive, and as we now know from things like gravity and electromagnetic fields, objects overlap each other in their spatial presence, so that spatial distinctness is a bit elusive as well.
Quoting Manuel
So the problem here is with the sense/reason division. As described above, there is vast area of activity which fits neither category, it lies between these two. We can find other ways of dividing, sense/brain, or body/mind, but each has its own problems of not being able to properly account for everything, sp we get aspects, parts of reality which have no category. This indicates that this sort of division is not the best way to go. The same problem is evident in the distinct perspectives of Parmenides and Heraclitus, and Plato's attempts to resolve the issue with the mind/body dualism.
This is why Aristotle proposed a completely different system. The proposed division is between actual (formal) and potential (material). The difference here, which made his system so useful is that all elements of reality are considered to consist of both aspects (although he did leave open the possibility of pure, separate form). This means that instead of classifying all aspects of reality as either of the mind or of the body, we say that within each individual part of reality which is presented to us for consideration, there is a formal aspect and a material aspect. From this perspective, the difficulties we incur in our attempts to understand, (such as that presented by Hume), are due to our inability to properly differentiate the formal (actual) part of the thing from the material (potential) part of the thing.
Quoting Manuel
The vulgar or naive perspective fails to account for the complexity of reality. It is a simplistic view which serves us well in all our mundane activities, so it has become the dominant view, a simplistic monism. The philosopher seeks a higher understanding and quickly uncovers the problems inherent with the simplistic view. The difficulty for the philosopher is in finding a system which can resolve all the problems in a coherent way.
Correct. The object serves as a stimulus, which leads us to develop representations of that object. So we have the representation of the object even when we are not receiving sense-data from said object. Nevertheless, the moment of perception, if you will, is still new: the object ever so slightly changes, and so do we. This us leads down some avenues, concerning rationalist thought, nevertheless, correct statement on your part.
Quoting Mww
Sure, Hume's quote is fine. But I can also say something like my comment above. An object stimulates us, we form a representation. However, each perception we have of the object is new, even though the representation is not, though we often don't register this unless the change is noticeable: a fire is still a fire, until the moment it is extinguished, then it's either tar or smoke.
Quoting Mww
At t1, we are looking at a clock telling us it's 5:10 pm, at t2, it's telling us the same thing, the same thing at t3, but at t4, the clock now indicates it's 5:11. But this can be expanded to most objects.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with such a proposal and it's the mental side of distinct perceptions which is problematic, given what you correctly say about the arbitrariness of our cutting up of time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Absolutely. There are many powers or capacities in the brain which Hume does not recognize or spell out well enough, one area of particular weakness is his notion of ideas being faint copies of impressions. As @Mww correctly reminded me, we should be thinking of representations, which are far stronger and more stable than Humean ideas, heck, I'd even say representations are underdetermined given the brevity of our impressions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I thought physics supported the idea of the world being made fundamentally of probabilities and constant activity, individuation of objects is something we do, which is clearly helpful for all kinds of reasons. So I am unclear here of your example.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
By today's standards, everything is a bit elusive, so to speak. These "fictions" or representations that come innately from us are for sake of convenience. And here we should keep in mind that we are analyzing objects (mostly, not exclusively) from a "vulgar" perspective, which is rather different than analyzing an object from the point of view of physics.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We might disagree here. I don't think it's simplistic, even though I say it is convenient. Philosophers focus on different aspects of the world, those dealing with, say, ethics or law, will care much about the vulgar world. Those that focus on epistemology find interests in both. And then we have philosophers who focus mostly on science.
Back in Hume's day, these distinctions were not nearly as sharp as they are today.
Sorry for not commenting on your Aristotle's portion, I don't know enough about him, and would need more serious study, for some other time. Though I'm sure what you point out about him also merits consideration
This is just assertion.
I'm not taking a position on whether you're right, but on what grounds will anyone agree or disagree?
Honestly, the only thing I can see here worth doing, is try to determine what our powers of discrimination are scientifically, to treat this as an empirical question.
No doubt the terms in which we investigate the question will change, but I think we'll have to allow that based on what the investigation shows. "Senses" will turn out to be far too coarse, as will "perception". We'll want to know which neurons are activated, what level of input it takes to do so, how long that takes, when they're ready to be activated again, at what point information is passed up to the central nervous system, how much information is enough to act on, all with or without conscious awareness, and then there are additional questions about what we become aware of, how, and when.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If the story you're telling is that reason distorts the true nature of the senses, or of their testimony, then that seems to me not a story worth telling. Better actually to go and look at how our nervous system works. That would include what the senses actually do and how, but also how our brains organize the information we have about the world. Reason comes in elsewhere, I suspect, and I think so far as all this goes, Hume's general approach is the right one, regardless of what particulars he may have gotten wrong.
So close, but isn't it the case that Hume is precisely discovering that a lot of mental activity cannot be attributed to the senses or to reason? Isn't that what we've been talking about for pages now? How on earth can you end up claiming that Hume overlooked this, when he's the one that drew our attention to it in the first place?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Obviously there's a problem with saying "brain, hence mind (even reason?)," and Hume is very clear that we cannot attribute the theory of external objects to reason. As for mind well, perceiving (in the modern sense) sure looks like a mental activity, in addition to being a physical activity, but you'll have to look carefully to figure out what in your perceiving is down to the peripheral nervous system and what the central. No reason at all to think it's only one or the other. Hume doesn't talk about the brain much, so I don't think it's helpful to read his claims about the mind as just being 18th-century speak for 'brain'.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And again it's Hume who takes enormous pains to insist that there is centrally important mental activity clearly not attributable either to the senses or to reason. Somehow you've talked yourself into accusing him of doing what he, quite remarkably for his time, did not do.
Yes, I'd say it's specualtion, and it would require a long discussion to get through all the reasons for that speculative assertion, but I did provide a brief explanation, and some examples.
Quoting Manuel
I think the point is that both perspectives are supported. This is why we can't say that one or the other, sense or mind is correct, they are each tuned in to different aspects of reality, kind of like each different sense is tuned in to a different aspect. It wouldn't be correct to say that one apprehends truth and the other falsity.
That's why I argued that reality is complex, and referred to Aristotle's system by which everything is composed of both matter and form. These two aspects seem to be completely incompatible, but somehow things consist of both. The mind has a wonderful way of making incompatible things appear to be compatible, like the number line of real numbers, makes distinct and discrete units, numbers, appear to be compatible with a continuous line.
I'm going to go try to finish reading the section now, and will report back.
Quoting Manuel
Even from a Hume-ian point of view, in which a perception is that which is given to the mind, in this case as impression rather than idea, which contains a sensation involving the stimulation of sensory apparatus, from the perspective of that system in its operation, as it is performing its function, is it better to say a perception/impression/sensation/stimulus is new, or just in a successive time? If every successive perception is new, what is left to say about a perception that is in fact new, re: a stimulus that has not yet been an impression?
[quote=213]Let it be taken for granted, that our perceptions are broken, and interrupted,
and however like, are still
different from each other ; and let any one upon this -
supposition shew why the fancy, directly and immediately, proceeds to the belief of another existence, resembling these perceptions in their nature, but yet continud, and uninterrupted, and identical; and after he has done this to my
satisfaction, I promise to renounce my present opinion. [/quote]
Here we have complete evidence of Hume's mistaken interpretation of the philosophical concept of "identity". Notice that he uses "identical" here, and this is indicative of how he interprets "identity". For him, "identity" is a continued invariable existence which he earlier called "perfect identity". But in philosophy, the law of identity, and even in vulgar uses of "identity", the word is used to refer to a thing which remains being the same thing despite undergoing changes. So it is not at all meant to indicate invariable existence as Hume supposes.
So "identity" does not equate with "identical", and the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself, is actually intended to provide for the changing nature of a thing. It allows that we can say the identified thing, X, at one time has the property A, and at another time does not have the property A, all the while continuing to be the same thing.
The entire section therefore, has Hume attacking a strawman "identity", due to his misunderstanding of identity. So his purported causes, or reasons, why we assume an independent existence (dual existence), being a fanciful imagination, are incorrect, and his claim that the dual existence is unjustified is equally incorrect.
To get to the real causes for the assumption of dual existence, look at Hume's premise above. "Let it be taken for granted, that our perceptions are broken, and interrupted, and however like, are still different from each other". "Interrupted" refers to a break in temporal duration. And, although it is true that sense perceptions do get interrupted, it is also true that they have a temporal duration inherent within them. A perception requires a temporal duration. So each perception has an extent of duration, and does not exist as an atemporal, timeless, static moment. This duration provides us with an uninterrupted perception, during which time we perceive the activity of change.
Now, we can understand that sense perception is fundamentally an uninterrupted observance of activity, which occurs through temporal duration. Hume throws interruptions into the sense perception, and these interruptions (being caused for a multitude of different reasons) are very real as well. So the fundamental constituent of perception is continuous uninterrupted activity, which is change. But, these perceptions may also be interrupted. When they are interrupted we perceive the before and after of change, and we do not perceive the activity of change itself. So we posit the independent object, as the thing which is changing, to account for the reality of the changes which occur that we do not perceive when the perception is interrupted. Accordingly, any time that I perceive things (such as my chamber) to be different from the last time I perceived it, having been an interruption in my perception, but due to a very high degree of resemblance remaining, I am inclined to believe that if my perception had not been interrupted, I would have perceived a continuity complete with the activity of change, then I invoke the "independent object" to account for this deficiency (interruptedness) of my perception. The change, which I did not observed, happened to the independent object while I wasn't looking.
So you can see that rather than assuming an independent, invariable, unchanging "identical" object of Humes "perfect identity", what the "identity" of philosophy, and common use, refers to is a changing object. This misunderstanding has completely misled Hume as to what causes us to take the independent, distinct and continued object for granted. The independent object is not an imaginary, fanciful ideal, of a perfectly invariable, unchanging object with "perfect identity", as Hume presents us with, rather it is a continuously changing object which philosophers and the vulgar take to be the independent object with "identity". And such an independent object is assumed not as something from the imagination, as completely fictitious and erroneous, but it is assumed with good reasons. We assume it to account for the difference between continuous, uninterrupted perception, and the interruptions in perception, which naturally occur for many different reasons.
More evidence of Hume's mistake can be seen at 215. Here he repeatedly refers to the idea of continued existence, as something imaginary, in complete denial or ignorance of the fact that continuity, or continued existence is derived directly from sense perception. We sense activity, motion, and this requires an uninterrupted duration of time, constituting a continuity of existence. All of our five senses detect motion, activity, therefore continuous existence, and the idea of continued existence is derived from this, not from the imagination.
Consider the following:
[quote=215] The contradiction betwixt these opinions we elude by a new
fiction, which is conformable to the hypotheses both of reflection and fancy,
by ascribing these contrary qualities to
different existences; the interruption to perceptions, and the
continuance to objects. [/quote]
He does not assign continuance to perceptions. If he properly assigned continuance to perceptions, which is necessary due to the fact that we actually perceive motions and activities, which can only be described in terms of temporal continuity, then he would see that the presented contradiction inheres completely within sense perception itself. We have continuous perceptions which get interrupted. Therefore continuity, "continuance" in this case is a feature of the perception itself, and we do not need to assume an independent object to account for the reality of continuity. Continuity is inherent within our perceptions. However, we do assume the independent object to account for the interruptions in our perceptions. When the continuity of sensation is interrupted, and we have good reasons to believe that there was continuity, then we need to assume the independent object to account for these good reasons.
Notice that the assumption of the independent object is not a product of the fancy, or imagination, as Hume claims, it is the product of good reasons. Hume's strawman "identity" as a perfect, ideal, invariable continuity of an object, rather than the changing existence of true identity and true objects, is what misleads him into thinking that the idea of an independent object is a product of the imagination rather than a product of good reason.
Again, we see a similar issue at 216. He says that we must make any supposed external objects to resemble internal perceptions. But he does not respect the duality of perception which I've pointed out. We perceive some aspects of a perception as unchanging, and some aspects as changing. And it is this dual nature of perception which leads to the contrariety which he refers to, rather than a difference between sense and reason. Some aspects of the perception appear to continue unchangingly, and other aspects of the perception are changing. Both of these are inherent to the perception itself.
So finally, p217, we see a very clear expression of how Hume's misunderstanding of "identity" has misled him.
[quote=217] 'Tis a gross illusion to suppose, that our
resembling perceptions are numerically the same ; and .'tis
this illusion, which leads us into the opinion, that these
perceptions are uninterrupted, and are still existent, even
when they are not present to the senses. [/quote]
Clearly, it is the activity, and motion of our perceptions which incline us to believe in the continuity of perception. The resemblance between interrupted perceptions does not lead us to believe that they are identical, or "numerically the same", thereby causing us to create this imaginary fiction of continuity as Hume claims. The idea of continuity has already been created by our perceptions of activity. The resemblance between one interrupted perception and another, which is not a "perfect identity", only inclines us to believe that there is a continuity of activity, or change, which unites the two, thereby validating what we tend to believe, that they are not perfectly the same. So it is change which we attribute to continuity and identity, not sameness. The independent, identified thing, is assumed to be continuously changing, not maintaining a "perfect identity", as in "identical" like Hume has presented.
Under the framework you sketch out here, that is, depending solely on impressions and not bringing in any cognitive apparatus, it would indeed be correct to say that the impression is successive in time, as "newness" would involve the registration of this concept to the mind, instead of mere perceiving.
I can't answer your second question under these constraints, because again, to register something as new would require us to recognize that the object in front of us is not exactly the same, as the object we were looking at mere moments ago.
If you introduce cognition in addition to impressions, of whatever kind, the answer is far from trivial, in my opinion. There is no neat way of introducing a new object while separating this strictly from continuity in time, in fact, this is one of the problems we've been discussing, that of trying to establish how sensible it is to speak of a distinct impression being distinctly existent.
Separating this .what? Introduction of a new object? Time itself is continuous, so, no, there is no way to introduce a new object that doesnt occur somewhere in the continuity of time. But time in general, while itself continuous, is not the series of continuous times of any particular object. For any object that did not exist, then it does, its time is only continuous from the time of its existence. So under these conditions, re: introduction of a new object to the mind as an impression/sensation, such introduction can be separated from the continuity of time in general.
Quoting Manuel
What do we use to qualify newness when we cannot perceive the difference in exactness regarding the object in front of us? If were talking impressions, we cant use logic, insofar as logic has no bearing on mere perception, its sole domain being reason. Which raises another point: if we cant distinguish exactness of successive impressions, and if impressions are the source of ideas, then it follows that there would be successively indistinguishable ideas corresponding to those indistinguishable impressions. Then .how would we know there was anything new?
In the case where a new object is nothing at all like the object we were looking at, in which case exactness is irrelevant, makes explicit the registration of change belongs to the perceiver, not the object. An object that changes in successive perceptions by the same perceiver, on the other hand, would necessarily be new at the logical level, but may still be represented by the same conception. Healthy apple on a tree, same rotten apple on the ground, is still an apple. Sorta like Descartes wax, right?
Quoting Manuel
That wouldnt be fair to Hume. I dont recall his use of the concept, do you? If so, be interesting to read the context.
I think I may have misread your own quote originally, when you said "Even from a Hume-ian point of view...", I took that to mean that what followed need not be restricted to Hume, hence my introducing extra innate factors he does not talk about. My mistake.
As per what you say here, it's through reason that we can say that an impression is new, that's what Hume seems to be saying, I also think this simply follows logically that we have new perceptions every time we close and then open our eyes. I'll skip innate talk here, unless you want to pursue it.
Quoting Mww
Damn, I feel restricted here by sticking to Hume, but, that's the point of this thread (mostly). In a sense, yes, like Descartes' wax. But then we'd have to say that the conception of rotten and melted (in the case of wax) is not exactly the same one we have of a healthy apple or unmelted wax. We can still refer to them as apple and wax respectively but modified.
Quoting Mww
Not "concept" per se, but important innate considerations. You'd have to fill in a lot, but it is in the book. Here are a few quotes, not limited to this chapter or book even, but can be incorporated into it, fruitfully, in my opinion:
"There is a great difference betwixt such opinions as we form after a calm and profound reflection, and such as we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse, on account of their suitableness and conformity to the mind." (This one can be found in this chapter)
"Reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls..."
"Nothing is more admirable, than the readiness, with which the imagination suggests its ideas, and presents them at the very instant, in which they become necessary or useful. The fancy runs from one end of the universe to the other in collecting those ideas, which belong to any subject... [the imagination is] a kind of magical faculty in the soul, which, tho' it be always most perfect in the greatest geniuses, and is properly what we call a genius, is however inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding."
It's easier to search here, finding that quote in the text I provided is difficult, not here: https://davidhume.org/texts/t/full
Finally, and most importantly, for me, is in his Enquiry, where he says:
"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding."
Italics mine.
Instincts as Hume discusses here, as well as talk of the soul, are innate, there are no other intelligible readings of such passages.
https://davidhume.org/texts/e/9
Hume is a naturalist... so what goes for animals, goes for us too, though not always the other way around. If one keeps quotes like these in mind, it may make reading Hume more interesting, given that instincts are always in the background.
In skepticism regarding the senses, new is used once ..
. I shut my eyes, and afterwards open them; and find the new perceptions to resemble perfectly those, which formerly struck my senses. This resemblance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another .
.and if a new impression resembles perfectly a former impression ..what is new about it?
Despite my sympathy with regarding identity, which undercuts the standard notion of new perceptions, it appears that Hume intends us to understand new to merely indicate the difference in existential quality of the impression alone, a contingent condition of the mind, rather than existential quality of that by which the mind is impressed, which is a necessary condition of the object causing the impression.
If the strongest relation is constant conjunction, then the connecting of ideas can still occur without the input from interrupted impressions, which explains how it is we dont forget what were looking at during those interruptions. Apparently, imagination is that by which our ideas continue to be naturally connected to each other absent the impressions to which they would belong if our impressions were uninterrupted. In modern parlance, perhaps we might say, the mind rolls over from one impression to the next?
Now ..how do we describe this operation, when the interruption lasts for a week? And in an extreme case, how does this strongest relation constant conjunction work for a single impression, e.g., a visually discernible passing comet, or, the death of a particularly important person, in such case as the mind has nothing to which to roll over? Imagination must then supply its own ideas, and connect them to each other. But if impressions are the cause of our ideas, not our ideas that cause impressions, for any singular impression for which constant conjunction of its ideas doesnt work with congruent certainty as with repetitive impressions, imagination may very well supply its ideas with respect to that singular impression, which may not belong to it.
There was subsequently a metaphysical theory perfectly describing how this works, but what would Hume say about it? I suspect he would have rejected it, insofar as having already granted imagination extraordinary power, he would have insisted that power cannot merely be the ground of the greater one the new theory prescribes, especially seeing as how hes already denied its validity.
You know ..consign it to the flames kinda thing.
Is that so clear to you? How can you tell what is contingent from what is necessary? For instance, Hume points out that:
"When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become
double, and one half of them to be removd from their common and natural position. But as we do not attribute a continud existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive, that all our perceptions are dependent on our organs, and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits." (This chapter)
Some animals see way more colors than we can, are we also to say that these animals are in a better necessary condition to perceive objects in the environment than we are? Or is this fact of perception contingent on the nervous systems they have?
So, this distinction is a bit blurry to me, not that it doesn't exist.
Quoting Mww
Sure. I agree, in principle it works this way. In practice, we need the proper stimulation to "awaken" the ideas we have in us.
That is one aspect of the imagination for Hume, but he also stresses "instinct and natural impulse."
I do think he does do us a favor in highlighting the role of the imagination in general, we may disagree with his exposition, but it is a quite pervasive theme in his philosophy, not explored in similar length or depth in other figures.
Kant did talk about it, but gave it a lesser role than Hume did, if I recall correctly: which is totally fair.
Quoting Mww
Yes, and this may be putting too much power in the imagination. As I've said a few times, I'm not an empiricist, I agree with Cudworth, Descartes and Kant about the nature of perception, differences aside, which they indeed do have: they gave the proper role to the mind, which Hume supposed to be "an empty theater", which cannot be sustained anymore - maybe not even back then.
Quoting Mww
One need not go to Kant: there was a prior metaphysical account, before Hume, considered to be "the most extensive treatment of innatism by any seventeenth-century philosopher", Cudworth. (From the SEP) The same essential idea is to be found here.
There is some evidence he knew of his ethics. Locke did know his work, but he rejected the reasoning.
In a similar vein, Hume would likely send Kant's theories to the flames too had he been able to read them somehow.
But then we must throw Hume's own theory to the flames for several reasons: his discussion of the self is not the best, him saying that ideas can sometimes replace impressions cast doubt upon his formulation.
Also, by far, and most importantly, is his own example, in the Enquiry, of the "missing shade of blue", which destroys his own theory. It is quite remarkable that he can so acutely point to such an example and proceed as if it merited no more attention.
I've given it considerable thought, and I just cannot understand Hume's description of perception as a succession of individual perceptions, related to each other through resemblance. This seems to be completely inconsistent with my experience.
If I take an experience of sitting and paying attention to my senses, I have the experience of a continuous act of perception. That a large part of what I am perceiving with my vision is remaining the same, as time passes, indicates to me that this is one continuous act of perception. Yet I know that it is extended temporally because my perception does not remain the same, perfectly. The sense of sound especially, provides me with many changes which are not evident in my visual field. There are sudden sounds for example, a bird, a dog, or continuous changing sounds, like a car passing or other machinery operating. These aspects of change which coexist with my continuous visual perception of many things remaining the same, vary greatly in the way that they punctuate the continuous perception. The sound of a gun shot for example, is sudden and quickly disappears, but in the visual field, the sun moving across the sky is slow and persistent, requiring a willful reference to memory to be noticed. In none of this, do I experience a succession of distinct perceptions which are related by resemblance, as is required to be consistent with Hume's description.
So I think that Hume manufactures this description, by throwing in artificial interruptions. By hypothesizing a succession of interruptions, Hume creates the illusion of a succession of distinct perceptions. But it's not really a succession of distinct perceptions, it is the continuous act of perception with numerous interruptions. Or, it might be a number of distinct acts of perception, each being a continuous act, but for a limited duration of time.
And if I look at the act of the conscious mind, as willful, intentional thinking, I do not find that this is consistent with Hume's description of a resemblance relation either. The progression of thoughts is not related by some form of resemblance, rather the thoughts are related by principles of conception, or other associations, and habits produced over time, and by training. There does appear to be what can be referred to as distinct thoughts, probably due to the use of distinct words which are like united bundles of meaning, but they are not related to each other in the way that Hume says perceptions and impressions are related to each other.
Even if I look for something that fits in between my act of paying attention to my senses, and my willful thinking, something like dreaming, where my mind appears to run free without influence from the senses or conscious intention, I do not find what Hume describes. I find that I might describe this as a succession of distinct impressions, but I do not find that the impressions are related by resemblance. In fact I see it very hard to see how the distinct impressions of a dream are even related to one another because it is not consistent with my conscious habits of association and training. It appears like there's a large aspect of randomness in my dreaming.
So I find that Hume's description of perception is not at all consistent with my experience. He doesn't properly consider the continuous act of sensing and proposes interruptions to break this act it up into distinct perceptions. But this is only done to make perception consistent with thought, which seems to employ distinct objects. Then he tries to manufacture continuity out of these distinct objects, through a resemblance relation, and this cannot provide him with continuity as we know it, in its basic, intuitive form, as derived from continuous perception. So he insists that this manufactured continuity is erroneous, a falsehood. And yes, it is a falsity, but only because it does not adequately recreate the continuity which continuous perception gives us, it is a synthesized continuity. Therefore he does not disprove continuity, as an erroneous idea, like he claims, he just proves that this synthesized continuity, which he has manufactured from interrupted perception, is not an adequate representation of the true continuity of perception.
I think, sure. Add nails to a bucket; wait a few minutes, add some more. As far as the bucket is concerned, the second batch is a bunch of new nails. Still nails, but new compared to the original nails. Also, however full the bucket is, is contingent on how many batches of nails get put in it.
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Quoting Manuel
Yep. Each kind of animals nervous system is necessary for whatever that kind of animal perceives, but each animals perception is contingent on the system it has. Its like .an object is an effect on our sense organs, while our sensory organs are affected by that object. Outward mind to object we have the necessity of being affected; inward from object to mind we have contingency of effective objects.
.When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become
double .
True story: when I was 12, I was in the basketball line-up, listening to the coach. Somehow I got absolutely fascinated by rapidly forcing my ears to open/close as fast as I could move my fingers, such that the coachs voice was an on/off of sound, in which I heard only bits and pieces of words. It was soooo comical in its oddity; I wasnt LOL, but I was obviously not paying attention. I got thrown off the team.
So we all receive impressions into our minds, contingent on the effect the object naturally has. In addition, now is included the falsified machinations of their respective deliveries. Our minds workings dont change; the input to it, does. Tantamount to .falsified deliveries may indeed be exceptions to a rule, therefore can be deemed a form of contingency, but still not saying much about what the treatment of the deliveries by the rule is, hence the necessity that any and all deliveries are treated by the same rule, remains constant.
But Hume and I both were conditioned by something that never actually happened in the world beyond ourselves. For him, there were not two objects to look at, and for me there was not broken speech and the coach certainly wasnt saying anything comical. These were treatments by minds, according to a rule, by which something follows necessarily as an experience. In what form the necessary experience manifests, is contingent on the treatment the mind endows to the impression.
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Quoting Manuel
Im not sure what Hume did with imagination itself other than stipulate its overall usefulness, but Kant split imagination itself into two separate and distinct forms, pursuant to the domain within the cognitive system. He gave us the reproductive imagination with respect to empirical phenomena, and productive imagination with respect to conceptions that arise absent phenomena. For whatever thats worth, which isnt much, insofar as the concern here is with Hume.
Quoting Manuel
Imagination has no self-control, else it wouldnt be imagination proper. If Kant gave more overall usefulness to an aspect of the system than Hume, it would be judgement, which became theorized as imaginations governor. Then of course, judgement needs a governor, for which we shall designate the faculty of reason, but that only works in a tripartite logical system, so .futuristic indeed, for Hume.
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Quoting Manuel
Its also presented in T. H. N. 1.,1.,1., towards the close of the section, but I didnt bring it up due to the stipulation carried by the thread title.
If one just grants the mind will supply the missing shade, he can move on to other things about the mind. If one stops to wonder under what authority the mind provides it, then moving on without the required explanation jeopardizes the validity of all that follows. Back in 1738, the mind supplying the color was good enough, so ..onward and upward he went.
Its easy enough to understand, just not easy to accept. Superficially, his account works well enough; it does seem like the dog we see here and now is just like the dog we saw yesterday. Oversimplification, I know, but still a place to start.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Maybe thats exactly the key. If Hume understood it is only possible in humans to have one thought at a time, and asserting the mind to be the container of thoughts, Hume very well could have figured the mind can only do one thing at a time, which must include receiving impressions one at a time, otherwise he suffers self-contradiction. Even though this is logically consistent given the set of premises Hume worked with, it subsequently became obvious the premises were not as sufficiently explanatory as they need to be.
Beginning with the notion that the mind itself doesnt explain anything that doesnt depend on that which is supposed to be the constituents of it, or, if not constituency, than at least working in conjunction with it, it becomes clearer that whatever the constituency happens to be, it is that which is doing all the work, and it would behoove the philosopher to start his speculations by naming those and qualifying on their respective function.
It only took less than half a century for that shift to come about, met with almost as many objections as Hume himself caused with his philosophy. Metaphysics is indeed risky business.
The problem though is that the dog is not the complete perception. The dog is only a part of the perception, so it is not very accurate to say that each time a dog is seen, that this is a perception of a dog. That's not what perception is like, it always consists of many aspects, so that the dog is only a part. Perception always has many facets.
Quoting Mww
Right, because if this was Hume's premise it would be very inaccurate. The reality is that we can perceive with all of the senses at the same time. So a person might be looking at something, while hearing something else, and also touching, tasting, and smelling all at the same time. And even with one sense, such as sight for example, there are many different things being sensed at the same time. How would Hume describe this type of perception?
Incidentally, we often think of observation as watching with the eyes, but it's interesting to note the importance of hearing in ontology. Vision often gives us an image with the majority of the aspects within that image, appearing quite static, staying the same as time passes. But hearing only gives us the effects of a change. Something changing is what causes a noise.
The Pythagoreans understood sound as a vibration, and had developed some theories about the division of the octave, and basic musical principles. As I understand it, they hypothesized that if there was a sound which was constant and unchanging, it would not be heard. And this formed the basis of their cosmology. They posited a background vibration in an aether that permeates the entire cosmos, the vibration being continuous and consistent, so that it could not be sensed with the eyes. Then all the heavenly bodies in their orbs, are supposed to be variations to the background vibration, making them visible.
Cool as hell, aint it? One of several of those abstract conceptions talked about all the time, a veritable plethora of theories fall apart without them, while there being no such thing.
Minimum stimulation certainly. Deer, for instance, if they dont move, you can look right where one is and probably not see it as such.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, but youre over-generalizing. Doesnt matter what the complete perception is, when the judgement of congruency in successive cognitions of a single object, re: the dog, requires only the appearance of that object.
Of course we can view a general scene, not picking out any particular object, but picking out particular objects is Humes philosophical implication. The mind wouldnt have an interest in a general scene, or an expanded perception when cognizant of a certain thing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, no doubt. Maybe the best reason to remove Humes notion of perception having to do with the mind, and place it only in that which has to do with sensation. Then, while we may receive sensations from any combination of our five physical sensory devices, other faculties decide which are to become our cognitions.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
True, but this works for sight as well. Technically, the irreducible principle is the intelligibility of any cause is the change of which is its consequence.
By the way, pal, we will have to iron out our differences concerning new perceptions, my reply was made on my phone, which limits how much I can write without making it look like a wall of text.
But since you rely on Kant, as a good Kantian should, I may create a thread about the topic, or if it happens to arise in some other thread, there we can discuss it without restrictions.
It's an interesting topic.
On to more Hume...