1 00:00:05,130 --> 00:00:10,650 Welcome to the second lecture on David Hume. 2 00:00:10,650 --> 00:00:15,980 A brief reminder of what we looked at last time. 3 00:00:15,980 --> 00:00:29,370 We looked through some of Hume's early philosophical interests, as witnessed by various evidence, including letters, both of whom and others. 4 00:00:29,370 --> 00:00:35,460 Contemporaneous records, some notes that Hugh made that are now in the National Library of Scotland, 5 00:00:35,460 --> 00:00:43,620 which gave indications about where some of his early interests were and in particular looking at the book, 6 00:00:43,620 --> 00:00:51,360 one of the treaties his first published work and the emphasis that he puts there on causation. 7 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:58,950 And we saw that there was a pretty plausible narrative about how Hume came to have the interests that he did. 8 00:00:58,950 --> 00:01:10,930 And that particular focus, we've got a nexus of topics centred around causation, all of vivid interest to Hume at an early point in his life. 9 00:01:10,930 --> 00:01:20,980 And the suggestion is that one of the main drivers of the philosophy in book one of the treaties is Hume's ambition to apply logic and concept 10 00:01:20,980 --> 00:01:34,480 empiricism to the notion of causation and in particular the necessity that he sees as characteristic of causation and armed with that tool, 11 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:42,540 the lockey and empiricism. He is going to attempt to deal with some of these issues. 12 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:49,590 OK, so let's now proceed through the treaties broadly in the order that Hume does, 13 00:01:49,590 --> 00:01:54,240 and we'll be paying more attention to some parts and less to others. 14 00:01:54,240 --> 00:02:00,690 But where we skip over stuff, I will be referring to it and giving a brief summary. 15 00:02:00,690 --> 00:02:06,400 So we're going to look at Hume's theory of ideas and this is book one, part one. 16 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:10,510 Very important parts of the book because it sets the scene for much else. 17 00:02:10,510 --> 00:02:18,310 It's actually quite short, but it's packed full of relevant theory. 18 00:02:18,310 --> 00:02:26,560 So humour dots, what standardly called the theory of ideas, and this is seen as emerging really with Descartes, 19 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:31,630 but Hume's version of it is inherited largely from John Locke. 20 00:02:31,630 --> 00:02:41,440 So Locke's essay concerning human understanding I mentioned this last time and giant of a book towered over the philosophy in the following century, 21 00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:49,430 and Locke defined an idea as whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks. 22 00:02:49,430 --> 00:02:57,650 So ideas are supposed to include all types of thinking, including perception and feeling, as well as contemplation. 23 00:02:57,650 --> 00:03:08,830 So what Locke calls ideas include both thoughts and sensations and also internal ideas that we get from reflection. 24 00:03:08,830 --> 00:03:14,710 Now, Hume looks at Locke's distinctions and says this, this actually isn't very helpful, 25 00:03:14,710 --> 00:03:19,630 it's not very useful to use the word ideas to cover the whole lot. 26 00:03:19,630 --> 00:03:31,390 So I Hume, I'm going to draw a distinction within Locke's category of ideas and distinguish between what I shall call ideas, proper and impressions. 27 00:03:31,390 --> 00:03:41,650 So an impression is either a sensation. Or a feeling so a sensation could be from seeing the sky, I see the sky. 28 00:03:41,650 --> 00:03:49,330 I get an impression of blue. I smell a flower. Maybe I kick my foot and I feel pain. 29 00:03:49,330 --> 00:03:54,760 That's a physical sensation. So those are all impressions. 30 00:03:54,760 --> 00:04:00,700 On the other hand, if I think about the sky, close my eyes, think about the blue of the sky. 31 00:04:00,700 --> 00:04:07,180 Think about the pain. Think about the existence of God. Those are all ideas. 32 00:04:07,180 --> 00:04:19,750 And Hume uses the word perception where Locke used the word idea, so a perception for Hume covers both impressions and ideas. 33 00:04:19,750 --> 00:04:28,330 Now, importantly, Hume, like Locke, thinks that there are two different sources of impressions and therefore ideas. 34 00:04:28,330 --> 00:04:37,000 Obviously, Locke calls these sources of ideas. Hume calls them sources of impressions, but then the impressions give rise to ideas. 35 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:42,640 Impressions are of two kinds those of sensation and those of reflection. 36 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:51,820 So impressions of sensation, not surprisingly, are impressions that come from the senses, colours, smells, pains. 37 00:04:51,820 --> 00:04:56,860 But other impressions arise from things that we think or reflect about. 38 00:04:56,860 --> 00:05:07,300 So suppose I think about a pain that I previously experienced that might make me fearful about encountering countering the same pain again, 39 00:05:07,300 --> 00:05:13,240 that fear the feeling of fear is itself an impression. 40 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:19,240 I might think of somebody who's had some extraordinarily good luck, and I might, as a result, feel envious. 41 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:31,990 So that feeling of envy is an impression of envy. And these are impressions of reflection, which, according to human, are either passions or emotions. 42 00:05:31,990 --> 00:05:36,970 Now I want to draw here an important contrast with Locke. 43 00:05:36,970 --> 00:05:42,820 This isn't explicit at all. It's not something that Hume even seems to recognise. 44 00:05:42,820 --> 00:05:50,740 But I think in understanding Hume, it helps to realise that he's got a particular focus, 45 00:05:50,740 --> 00:05:57,680 which actually, in some parts of his philosophy, arguably leads him astray. 46 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:02,510 So here is Locke in his essay Talking About Reflection. 47 00:06:02,510 --> 00:06:06,770 So just like him, he draws a distinction between sensation and reflection. 48 00:06:06,770 --> 00:06:11,360 Sensation is a source of ideas from the senses externally. 49 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:17,510 Reflection is where we contemplate our own minds and we get impressions from that. 50 00:06:17,510 --> 00:06:23,090 I'm using here Hume's terminology of impressions, where Locke called them ideas, 51 00:06:23,090 --> 00:06:28,070 but the the crucial difference between them is quite different from that. 52 00:06:28,070 --> 00:06:31,850 By reflection, says Locke, I mean that notice, 53 00:06:31,850 --> 00:06:41,080 which the mind takes of its own operations by reason whereof they come to be ideas of these operations in the understanding. 54 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:52,060 Such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing and all the different acting's of our own minds. 55 00:06:52,060 --> 00:06:55,100 Now. Look at that list. 56 00:06:55,100 --> 00:07:06,600 Lock is clearly focussing on operations of our minds, we look into our minds and we see ourselves thinking, we see ourselves knowing and willing. 57 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:13,560 But Hume says impressions of reflection are either passions or emotions. 58 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:19,890 So Hume seems to be completely overlooking the operations that Locke is focussing on, 59 00:07:19,890 --> 00:07:24,870 and Locke seems to overlook the kinds of feelings that Hume is focussing on. 60 00:07:24,870 --> 00:07:26,760 So this is well worth noticing. 61 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:39,660 It actually leads him into a little bit of trouble light later because he overlooks some of the kinds of impressions that Locke is focussing on. 62 00:07:39,660 --> 00:07:46,890 OK, what's the difference between impressions and ideas? Well, Hume Hume's text gives the impression. 63 00:07:46,890 --> 00:07:51,930 Sorry about the use of the word impression here. 64 00:07:51,930 --> 00:08:02,910 But if you read Hume's text, it will seem to imply that the the defining difference between impressions and ideas is one of fulsome vivacity. 65 00:08:02,910 --> 00:08:10,680 All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct ideas, which I shall call impressions and ideas. 66 00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:15,390 The difference betwixt these consists in the force and liveliness with which they 67 00:08:15,390 --> 00:08:19,890 strike upon the soul and make their way into our thoughts or consciousness. 68 00:08:19,890 --> 00:08:28,250 Those within which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions. 69 00:08:28,250 --> 00:08:38,990 Well, that seems relatively straightforward, but immediately, Hume notes a problem for this view in sleep, 70 00:08:38,990 --> 00:08:44,480 in a fever, in madness or in any very violent emotions of soul. 71 00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:47,780 Our ideas may approach to our impressions, 72 00:08:47,780 --> 00:08:55,310 and it sometimes happens that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas. 73 00:08:55,310 --> 00:09:03,860 Now, that seems very odd if the defining difference between impressions and ideas is false and vivacity, then how could it ever be? 74 00:09:03,860 --> 00:09:10,610 There's an idea could achieve sufficient force and veracity to be confused with an impression, 75 00:09:10,610 --> 00:09:20,160 and one can imagine easily enough impressions that will be lacking in vividness, for example, watching paint dry. 76 00:09:20,160 --> 00:09:24,780 That's an impression you're seeing the paint, but it's not very vivid. 77 00:09:24,780 --> 00:09:30,180 On the other hand, imagine that you think of being attacked by spiders. 78 00:09:30,180 --> 00:09:37,620 For many people, that would be extremely vivid, but you're not actually perceiving anything. 79 00:09:37,620 --> 00:09:39,420 Now you might be able to try to get around this. 80 00:09:39,420 --> 00:09:45,780 You might say, Well, what Hugh means is that the impressions are more vivid than the corresponding ideas. 81 00:09:45,780 --> 00:09:50,550 So that really being attacked by spiders would be more vivid than just having an idea of it? 82 00:09:50,550 --> 00:09:57,840 Maybe. But on the face of it, Hume seems to be trying to draw this general distinction in terms of false and vivacity, 83 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:03,520 and he himself is pointing out that there are problems with it. 84 00:10:03,520 --> 00:10:12,070 I think actually it's best to understand Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas as basically the distinction between feeling and thinking, 85 00:10:12,070 --> 00:10:17,380 I believe it will not be very necessary to employ many words in explaining this distinction. 86 00:10:17,380 --> 00:10:22,960 Every one of himself will readily perceive the difference between feeling and thinking. 87 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:32,980 So don't think of the and vivacity criterion as definitive of the distinction between impressions and ideas. 88 00:10:32,980 --> 00:10:37,690 Impressions and ideas are actually to be understood in terms of the mental operations. 89 00:10:37,690 --> 00:10:46,120 Is it a matter of sensation or feeling or is it, on the other hand, a matter of thinking and the former impressions? 90 00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:54,100 The latter ideas generally corresponds to false and vivacity, but false and vivacity is not definitive of the distinction. 91 00:10:54,100 --> 00:10:59,570 But why, then, does Hume put such an emphasis on false and vivacity? 92 00:10:59,570 --> 00:11:07,010 Well, if we look a little bit later in the treaties and we'll be coming to this later to treaties one three seven six, 93 00:11:07,010 --> 00:11:14,180 that's book one, part three, section seven, paragraph six, we'll be using that kind of reference lot. 94 00:11:14,180 --> 00:11:21,680 The same idea can only be varied by a variation of its degrees of force and vivacity. 95 00:11:21,680 --> 00:11:29,620 Now, this is related to his empiricism. He wants to say that all our ideas are derived from impressions. 96 00:11:29,620 --> 00:11:35,500 Now, that means he's got to have a close correspondence between impressions and ideas. 97 00:11:35,500 --> 00:11:42,180 Their content has to be the same. If the one I copied from the other. 98 00:11:42,180 --> 00:11:48,270 But then if the contents the same, won't they be identical? Well, no, because they can vary in fulsome veracity. 99 00:11:48,270 --> 00:11:56,820 So and veracity is the term Hume uses when he wants to say that one mental item is has the same content as another, 100 00:11:56,820 --> 00:12:02,490 but is nevertheless somehow different. So the difference between a mere idea and a belief? 101 00:12:02,490 --> 00:12:03,540 What's the difference? 102 00:12:03,540 --> 00:12:11,040 Well, a belief is a more vivid idea, but it has to be the same idea because otherwise it wouldn't be a belief of the same thing. 103 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:14,440 So it will come to that later. 104 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:23,380 Another point here again, which we'll see with his theory of belief, is that Hume has a sort of hydraulic theory of force and vivacity. 105 00:12:23,380 --> 00:12:33,190 He wants to say that some of the operations of the mind are to be explained in terms of force and vivacity moving between our various perceptions. 106 00:12:33,190 --> 00:12:42,550 So a very vivid perception of something can occur, can deliver force and vivacity to an idea. 107 00:12:42,550 --> 00:12:46,300 So when I see something, I get an impression of it. 108 00:12:46,300 --> 00:12:55,120 The force and vivacity from that impression can transfer to associated ideas and elevate those ideas into beliefs. 109 00:12:55,120 --> 00:13:01,870 So this is why Hume puts that emphasis on fulsome vivacity. 110 00:13:01,870 --> 00:13:10,810 Now, I'm not generally going to be discussing these views of him from a philosophical perspective, criticising them. 111 00:13:10,810 --> 00:13:17,660 But I do want to draw attention to a general problem with the theory of ideas. 112 00:13:17,660 --> 00:13:22,560 And it can seem a very tempting way of thinking about the operations of the mindset. 113 00:13:22,560 --> 00:13:27,500 It was very tempting to a lot of philosophers in the 17th, the 19th century. 114 00:13:27,500 --> 00:13:39,270 But I want to highlight a risk. If if you think in terms of our thoughts or our sensations indeed involving ideas in front of the mind, 115 00:13:39,270 --> 00:13:49,470 then the risk is that it makes the mind seem rather passive. The mind is just sitting there perceiving these various impressions and ideas, 116 00:13:49,470 --> 00:13:57,390 and the activity of the mind is to be understood in terms of these various perceptions that occupied the stage. 117 00:13:57,390 --> 00:14:03,390 Now, that doesn't seem to be very faithful to how the mind works. 118 00:14:03,390 --> 00:14:09,720 The mind is active. It's not just having a sequence of perceptions going in front of it. 119 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:18,100 And moreover, our mental activity is not usually best understood in terms of queasy perceptual states. 120 00:14:18,100 --> 00:14:25,350 It's, I might have say, the image of a of a dog in front of my mind, let's say. 121 00:14:25,350 --> 00:14:30,720 And that might be accompanied by lots and lots of different kinds of thinking, I might be thinking, 122 00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:38,950 I wish I had a dog or I must remember to take the dog for a walk, or I wonder how the dog is now or my dog is rather small. 123 00:14:38,950 --> 00:14:45,750 Or you could. There are endless different thoughts that one could be having associated with a single image. 124 00:14:45,750 --> 00:14:57,150 And the idea that mental activity can be pinned down purely in terms of the perceptions in front of the mind seems to be a very simplistic. 125 00:14:57,150 --> 00:15:02,460 So I've spelt that out a little bit more. We'll see. 126 00:15:02,460 --> 00:15:08,340 Incidentally, that the same issue comes up a little bit when Hume discusses personal identity. 127 00:15:08,340 --> 00:15:13,380 He actually warns against the idea of thinking of the mind as a mental stage. 128 00:15:13,380 --> 00:15:21,690 He actually goes to the extent of thinking of the self of simply consisting of bundles of perceptions that avoids one problem, 129 00:15:21,690 --> 00:15:35,550 but it falls into another anyway. Of that more later. So let's get a word now about lock and the origin of ideas. 130 00:15:35,550 --> 00:15:45,010 So I'd stress that Hume is following Locke's empiricism. And Locke was arguing against people like Descartes. 131 00:15:45,010 --> 00:15:51,280 I mean, particularly Descartes, because Descartes claimed that we have certain innate ideas. 132 00:15:51,280 --> 00:16:00,250 Two of those the innate idea of God. Those, you know, the trademark argument from the third meditation. 133 00:16:00,250 --> 00:16:04,300 Descartes actually appeals to this idea that he has of God. 134 00:16:04,300 --> 00:16:08,260 And he says it's such a perfect idea it must have had a perfect source. 135 00:16:08,260 --> 00:16:18,040 The only possible source for this idea is God. So it's an innate idea that's been given to me by God as a sort of trademark. 136 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:22,510 The idea of extension for Descartes is an innate idea. 137 00:16:22,510 --> 00:16:31,090 He thinks that by looking at our idea of extension, we can draw conclusions about the way the physical world works. 138 00:16:31,090 --> 00:16:33,160 Now, John Locke wanted to oppose that. 139 00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:41,050 He wanted to argue that all of our ideas come from experience in book, one of the essay concerning human understanding. 140 00:16:41,050 --> 00:16:52,150 He argues against innate principles. If you like innate knowledge of those arguments, I think are rather problematic for various reasons. 141 00:16:52,150 --> 00:16:56,890 Far more emphasis historically has been given to book two of the treaties sorry, 142 00:16:56,890 --> 00:17:09,370 book two of the essay where Locke goes through a whole catalogue of different ideas and shows how they could arise from experience. 143 00:17:09,370 --> 00:17:15,130 So the main influence of Locke's attack on Descartes was to provide an alternative 144 00:17:15,130 --> 00:17:22,220 account of how various ideas which made the hypotheses have been neatness redundant. 145 00:17:22,220 --> 00:17:27,560 And this was extremely influential, most philosophers following lots, 146 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:35,240 particularly in Britain, took something like Locke's empiricism more or less for granted. 147 00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:39,530 So as I say, Lock is an empiricist about ideas. 148 00:17:39,530 --> 00:17:51,940 Hume's copy principle, which we're coming to in a moment, is essentially a reworking or reformulation of locks empiricism. 149 00:17:51,940 --> 00:18:05,070 But first, we've got to draw a distinction. Because it's not true that all of our ideas are directly derived from experience. 150 00:18:05,070 --> 00:18:12,990 And the reason for this is some ideas are complex, they're made out of parts and having acquired ideas of the parts, 151 00:18:12,990 --> 00:18:19,590 we can construct new ideas by putting those parts together in novel ways. 152 00:18:19,590 --> 00:18:31,530 So take an Apple. Well, the idea of an Apple you might get by pondering an apple in front of you and smelling it, tasting it, 153 00:18:31,530 --> 00:18:38,130 that Apple has a shape, a colour, a taste or smell, and we can distinguish those and the shape. 154 00:18:38,130 --> 00:18:44,180 Indeed, the shape of an apple is a complex shape. So we can distinguish different parts within it. 155 00:18:44,180 --> 00:18:50,380 And having taken apart the various bits, we can put them back together in different orders. 156 00:18:50,380 --> 00:18:55,100 So one example that uses is the idea of a golden mountain. 157 00:18:55,100 --> 00:19:00,500 I've got the idea of a gold mountain, but I haven't got that idea from an impression of a Golden Mountain. 158 00:19:00,500 --> 00:19:07,130 I've never seen a Golden Mountain, but I have had impressions of a mountain and I have had impressions of gold. 159 00:19:07,130 --> 00:19:16,010 And I can put those together and form the I put the ideas derived from those impressions together and form the idea of a gold mountain. 160 00:19:16,010 --> 00:19:21,710 Likewise, I've seen a banana. So I've got the impression of a banana. 161 00:19:21,710 --> 00:19:25,550 Therefore, the idea of a millionaire, the shape of the banana. 162 00:19:25,550 --> 00:19:33,080 And I can put that together with the idea of the taste of an apple and come up with a new concept like an apple, 163 00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:38,880 a banana shaped fruit that has the taste of an apple. 164 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:50,580 OK, now at Treaties one one, three four. Hume talks about the liberty of the imagination that is our ability to cut up our ideas into simple parts, 165 00:19:50,580 --> 00:19:55,800 mix them, make new complexes and to do that more or less arbitrarily. 166 00:19:55,800 --> 00:20:01,520 He calls that his second principle. The second principle of the liberty of the imagination. 167 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,700 And it comes back at treaties one one, seven three. 168 00:20:05,700 --> 00:20:11,760 And I'll have I'll be saying a little bit about this later. Later, the so-called severability principle. 169 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:17,040 The odd thing is that when he comes back to the severability principle, he says, 170 00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:23,820 We have already seen this principle and it looks like the only place he can be referring 171 00:20:23,820 --> 00:20:32,530 to there is one one three four where he talked about the liberty of the imagination. 172 00:20:32,530 --> 00:20:38,800 OK, so Hume divides all ideas and impressions into simple and complex, 173 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:45,190 simple perceptions or impressions and ideas such as admits of no distinction or separation, 174 00:20:45,190 --> 00:20:51,040 the complex of the contrary to these and may be distinguished into parts and in the treaties. 175 00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:55,240 At least he seems to treat this as an absolute distinction. 176 00:20:55,240 --> 00:21:04,780 Certain ideas are absolutely simple. Certain ideas are absolutely complex, and any complex idea can be divided up into symbols. 177 00:21:04,780 --> 00:21:13,150 In the enquiry that 1748 the book one of the treatises 1739 in the enquiry. 178 00:21:13,150 --> 00:21:17,890 He's less explicit about the distinction. It may be that he's less confident in it. 179 00:21:17,890 --> 00:21:26,740 We just don't know. He does mention simple. He does mention complex, but he never draws the distinction in quite the same way. 180 00:21:26,740 --> 00:21:31,960 So it's possible that he's having doubts about the absolute simplicity or complexity of ideas. 181 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:39,180 And one reason why he might have had such doubts will come to shortly. 182 00:21:39,180 --> 00:21:43,200 OK, so now having drawn the distinction between simple and complex ideas. 183 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,580 Now Hume can state his coffee principle. 184 00:21:47,580 --> 00:21:58,230 All our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them and which they exactly represent. 185 00:21:58,230 --> 00:22:03,150 OK, so a complex idea like the idea of a unicorn. 186 00:22:03,150 --> 00:22:09,090 Doesn't necessarily get derive from a conflict, a corresponding impression. 187 00:22:09,090 --> 00:22:16,980 But it's made up of part in this case, a horse and a horn, which are, of course, themselves complex. 188 00:22:16,980 --> 00:22:21,930 But those ideas I have derived from complex impressions. 189 00:22:21,930 --> 00:22:28,830 And what I'm saying is that wherever you get an idea, no matter how complex it is, 190 00:22:28,830 --> 00:22:35,820 ultimately it must be derived from ideas that have been copied from impressions. 191 00:22:35,820 --> 00:22:43,340 OK. Now, Hume acknowledges his debt to lock in two places, 192 00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:50,780 and he actually seems rather uncritical about the coffee principle he's arguments for it are not particularly strong, 193 00:22:50,780 --> 00:23:06,140 as we'll see the obvious explanation. Why he seems to take it relatively for granted is precisely that it is when humans writing lock and orthodoxy. 194 00:23:06,140 --> 00:23:11,930 In fact, the coffee principle is probably best known from the enquiry rather than the treaties. 195 00:23:11,930 --> 00:23:16,910 And there he seems to weaponize it when we entertain any suspicion that a 196 00:23:16,910 --> 00:23:23,270 philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea as he's about to frequent, 197 00:23:23,270 --> 00:23:26,840 we need but enquire from what impression is that. 198 00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:34,520 I suppose the idea derived and if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. 199 00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:45,780 This is a very famous passage. And if you look at this, you would get the idea that what humans going to do is to explore various supposed ideas. 200 00:23:45,780 --> 00:23:54,450 He's going to examine them and say, from what impression is that supposed idea derived, there is no impression from which it could be derived. 201 00:23:54,450 --> 00:24:00,900 Therefore, it's a bogus idea. Throw it in the bin. That's the impression you get from the enquiry. 202 00:24:00,900 --> 00:24:06,570 In fact, he hardly ever does that. He does it a little, but nearly always. 203 00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:19,990 What Hume is doing is pursuing the impressions from which ideas are derived, not in order to debunk the ideas, but actually to shed light on them. 204 00:24:19,990 --> 00:24:24,460 OK, so Hume gives two arguments for the coffee principle. 205 00:24:24,460 --> 00:24:29,950 The first argument is that there aren't any counterexamples to it. 206 00:24:29,950 --> 00:24:33,190 If you look through all the different ideas in your mind, 207 00:24:33,190 --> 00:24:42,040 you will find that all of them can be resolved in two simple ideas that are derived or were derived from simple impressions. 208 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:46,420 And we find from experience that the impressions come before the ideas, 209 00:24:46,420 --> 00:24:52,080 so it follows that the impressions must cause the ideas rather than the other way round. 210 00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:56,880 OK, so. Give them this exact correspondence. 211 00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:03,010 It's reasonable to infer that the one they're closely related. 212 00:25:03,010 --> 00:25:10,240 Second argument, people who lack any particular sense modality lack the corresponding ideas. 213 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:15,190 A blind person, for example, can't have the idea of read. 214 00:25:15,190 --> 00:25:20,740 A deaf person cannot have the idea of the sound of a trumpet. 215 00:25:20,740 --> 00:25:27,220 They can't get the appropriate impressions. And we find they don't have the ideas. 216 00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:34,690 The obvious explanation is that the idea is to derive from the impressions, and that's why they lack the ideas. 217 00:25:34,690 --> 00:25:45,780 But actually, these arguments are not particularly strong. First of all, suppose somebody disagrees with him. 218 00:25:45,780 --> 00:25:51,300 Suppose somebody says, actually, I have got some ideas that aren't derived from impressions. 219 00:25:51,300 --> 00:26:00,910 I mean, for example, the idea of the self, the idea of substance, the idea of inheritance, the idea of a vacuum. 220 00:26:00,910 --> 00:26:08,140 How's your market going to argue against them because humans are if Hume's argument is actually look at all your simple ideas, 221 00:26:08,140 --> 00:26:16,760 you will find they're always derived from simple impressions. Then his opponent just denies that and said, sorry, you're begging the question. 222 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:23,630 It's so it's not really on for him to say, I look at all my own ideas, I find there are no exceptions. 223 00:26:23,630 --> 00:26:30,760 You're claiming an exception, but you must be wrong because there aren't any exceptions. That's just begging the question. 224 00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:35,020 Just by the way, Don Garrett does attempt to defend him on this, 225 00:26:35,020 --> 00:26:46,800 and I will be providing you with a reading list to cover the various people that I'm mentioning as we go through to give the other side as it were. 226 00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:53,730 But certainly Hume himself doesn't defend his arguments at any length, he states it in a very cursory form. 227 00:26:53,730 --> 00:26:59,330 What about the second argument? A blind man can have no idea of red. 228 00:26:59,330 --> 00:27:09,760 Is that true? How would you know? How could we possibly know whether a blind man has the idea of red? 229 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:14,140 You ask him, do you have the idea of red, red? What's red? 230 00:27:14,140 --> 00:27:19,180 Well, it's a colour. What's a colour? Something you see what? See? 231 00:27:19,180 --> 00:27:23,470 Well, I don't really know how to explain it to you. I guess you just don't have the idea. 232 00:27:23,470 --> 00:27:28,120 But how do we know he might do it? Simple, simply because he's blind. 233 00:27:28,120 --> 00:27:36,660 He can't actually identify things in the world that are red, so we can't know whether he's experiencing the idea of red. 234 00:27:36,660 --> 00:27:42,820 That doesn't prove that in his mind, he doesn't have the idea. 235 00:27:42,820 --> 00:27:47,290 So again, we've got an argument that seems rather weak. 236 00:27:47,290 --> 00:27:53,020 Now some authors, Bennett Decker, for example, have tried to defend him here and say, 237 00:27:53,020 --> 00:28:03,940 actually, what Hume is really doing here is not giving a claim about the mental entities, 238 00:28:03,940 --> 00:28:11,140 the perceptions in our mind, but really, we should understand him as talking about meaningfulness of words. 239 00:28:11,140 --> 00:28:19,300 The problem for the blind man is that he cannot use the word red in the way that we use it because he has no access to public means of verification. 240 00:28:19,300 --> 00:28:26,200 Well, maybe. I mean, I think it's fair to see this kind of positive positive is thinking. 241 00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,890 I mean, the sort of thing logical positive is in the 20th century we're keen on. 242 00:28:29,890 --> 00:28:41,770 I think you can see that sort of forces inherited from Hume, but it seems to me rather implausible to really take Hume himself as arguing in this way. 243 00:28:41,770 --> 00:28:45,340 So it is possible to say Hume's on to something here. 244 00:28:45,340 --> 00:28:55,000 Maybe he's got a germ of a philosophical insight, and he's expressing that in the rather limited vocabulary that's available to him. 245 00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:03,850 But here we're going to carry on discussing things in Hume's limited vocabulary in order to understand and thinking. 246 00:29:03,850 --> 00:29:07,150 OK, so let's put the basis of the copy principle behind us. 247 00:29:07,150 --> 00:29:16,510 As I've said, Hume himself probably takes it pretty much for granted because it was so much of the lock in orthodoxy. 248 00:29:16,510 --> 00:29:24,070 But strangely, immediately after he's enunciated the poppy principle, he himself raises a difficulty for it. 249 00:29:24,070 --> 00:29:37,830 The famous missing shade of blue. So the idea is imagine that I have in my life been I've seen lots and lots of different shades of blue. 250 00:29:37,830 --> 00:29:41,760 But there's a particular shade of blue that I've never seen. 251 00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:50,110 And imagine that all the shades of blue that I've seen are lined up kind of in a spectrum, but with a gap where the missing shade is. 252 00:29:50,110 --> 00:30:00,140 And the question is, could I, as it were, create for myself the idea of that missing shade? 253 00:30:00,140 --> 00:30:10,470 And Hume actually thinks plausibly I could I could sort of blend the shades on either side and form an idea of the missing shade. 254 00:30:10,470 --> 00:30:15,690 But he then immediately after having raised this, he says, OK, maybe we can have a simple idea, 255 00:30:15,690 --> 00:30:22,380 namely the simple idea of that particular shade of blue, which isn't derived from a corresponding impression. 256 00:30:22,380 --> 00:30:27,920 But this is such a singular in that particular example. Let's not worry about it. 257 00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:33,290 That seems a little bit odd. I actually think he could. 258 00:30:33,290 --> 00:30:39,820 He can easily justify putting it to one side. 259 00:30:39,820 --> 00:30:44,260 One reason is that the new idea is clearly being constructed. 260 00:30:44,260 --> 00:30:53,430 But from ideas that have been derived from experience, so it's actually not a serious violation of Locky and empiricism. 261 00:30:53,430 --> 00:30:59,280 Moreover, it's an idea that you could derive from sensory experience, even though I haven't derived it that way. 262 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:04,770 It is a possible idea that could be derived from a straightforward visual impression. 263 00:31:04,770 --> 00:31:10,630 So it's not a particularly problematic idea. But. 264 00:31:10,630 --> 00:31:15,640 Notice that if you does take the strategy here that I've suggested, 265 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:22,440 it might undermine the absolute distinction between a simple, simple and complex ideas. 266 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:31,260 Because if an idea, if a simple what Kim thinks of as a simple idea can be created from other simple ideas by blending. 267 00:31:31,260 --> 00:31:37,590 Then there's a sense in which on this occasion, that's a complex idea because it's being constructed from others. 268 00:31:37,590 --> 00:31:45,520 So he may not be able to maintain the straightforward, simple, complex distinction. 269 00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:55,060 OK. I've already mentioned that the theory of ideas is somewhat problematic because it parses our thinking in terms of ideas in front of the mind. 270 00:31:55,060 --> 00:32:01,810 Another point is that because of his empiricism, Locke takes ideas to be straightforward copies of impressions, 271 00:32:01,810 --> 00:32:07,940 which means he tends to conceive of our thinking in a very imagistic way. 272 00:32:07,940 --> 00:32:20,060 And he tends to think of mental severability when we divide ideas and then put them back together almost as though, you know, we're using Photoshop. 273 00:32:20,060 --> 00:32:25,670 So chop this idea here. This one here put them together in new ways. 274 00:32:25,670 --> 00:32:30,500 A lot of his thinking is very much focussed on a visual metaphor. 275 00:32:30,500 --> 00:32:38,440 And that, combined with the copy principle, explains some of the crude as he was thinking about the mind. 276 00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:43,390 And as I've said, he has a rather impoverished view of the faculty of Reflection. 277 00:32:43,390 --> 00:32:49,420 OK, so let's move on to the Association of Ideas and the Theory of Relations. 278 00:32:49,420 --> 00:32:53,200 I'll be saying more about the theory of relations next time here. 279 00:32:53,200 --> 00:33:00,610 I just want to kind of introduce it in situ and say a little bit about it. 280 00:33:00,610 --> 00:33:05,170 OK, now he's already introduced the principle of the liberty of the imagination. 281 00:33:05,170 --> 00:33:08,890 That is, we can take our ideas. We can chop them into bits. 282 00:33:08,890 --> 00:33:15,040 We can move them around, put them together in new ways and we can do that almost arbitrarily. 283 00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:23,110 Nevertheless, when we're thinking our ideas do not move arbitrarily, they move in patterns. 284 00:33:23,110 --> 00:33:28,660 So if, for example, we're daydreaming, our thoughts may go through different things. 285 00:33:28,660 --> 00:33:36,670 You know, I look at a picture and I think that guy, he looks rather like so-and-so, that guy. 286 00:33:36,670 --> 00:33:42,250 He had a nice house that was next door to, oh gosh, and they had a terrible fire. 287 00:33:42,250 --> 00:33:49,270 And now my mind is wandering from one thing to another, and it's moving partly on the basis of resemblance. 288 00:33:49,270 --> 00:33:55,540 I look at that guy and he reminds me of someone else, and then I contiguity. His house was close to such and such. 289 00:33:55,540 --> 00:34:00,580 Cause and effect there was a fire and that had various impacts. 290 00:34:00,580 --> 00:34:08,350 And humans claim is that whenever our ideas move from one thing to another in this sort of way, 291 00:34:08,350 --> 00:34:15,730 it's either based on resemblance or contiguity, you know, with closeness in space or time and cause and effect. 292 00:34:15,730 --> 00:34:23,140 So there are three associative relations the qualities from which this association arises. 293 00:34:23,140 --> 00:34:30,250 Of three, this resemblance contiguity in time or place and cause and effect. 294 00:34:30,250 --> 00:34:34,840 And he likens this to Newtonian gravity. 295 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:45,790 He suggests the Association of Ideas may be as big in the theory of the mind as gravity has proved to be in the theory of the physical world. 296 00:34:45,790 --> 00:34:47,530 So there are various places. 297 00:34:47,530 --> 00:34:55,750 Another is in the abstract to the treatise right at the end, where he really waxes lyrical about the Association of Ideas. 298 00:34:55,750 --> 00:35:04,700 And we'll see later on in the treaties that he appeals to the association to explain a lot of mental phenomena. 299 00:35:04,700 --> 00:35:10,190 OK, but at this point, Hume seems to be very committed to being systematic. 300 00:35:10,190 --> 00:35:20,180 He's now introduced complex ideas, he's introduced Association of Ideas, and now he's going to talk about the different kinds of complex ideas. 301 00:35:20,180 --> 00:35:37,520 They may be divided into relations modes and substances. Just before moving on to those categories, however, let's draw a clear contrast with Locke. 302 00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:42,520 This is Locke discussing the Association of Ideas. 303 00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:52,390 This sort of madness, this weakness to which all men are so liable, a taint which so universally affects infects mankind. 304 00:35:52,390 --> 00:35:57,940 There is a connexion of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom ideas that in themselves are not 305 00:35:57,940 --> 00:36:04,630 at all of keen come to be so united in some men's minds that it is very hard to separate them. 306 00:36:04,630 --> 00:36:16,850 So notice previous philosophers and lot wasn't the only one prior to whom for Association of Ideas was a source of error. 307 00:36:16,850 --> 00:36:25,520 The fact that we associate one idea with another that our ideas naturally link together in this in this tempting way leads us astray. 308 00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:32,570 It leads us into superstition and all sorts of ridiculous views. So this is a very, very strong contrast. 309 00:36:32,570 --> 00:36:40,370 Hume is going to emphasise association of ideas as what enables us to think about the world at all. 310 00:36:40,370 --> 00:36:46,910 So he's got a much, much more positive view than the philosophers that came before him. 311 00:36:46,910 --> 00:36:52,370 OK, so he was going through the various complex ideas and he starts off, you know, 312 00:36:52,370 --> 00:36:58,340 relations modes and substances, actually, relations proves to be the most important of those. 313 00:36:58,340 --> 00:37:06,190 And as I said, I'll be saying more about the theory of relations next time where it becomes really important. 314 00:37:06,190 --> 00:37:12,570 But increases one one five humans just introducing the theory of relations. 315 00:37:12,570 --> 00:37:18,180 And it starts off in a way that can seem a little bit confusing, but he's actually, I think, very straightforward. 316 00:37:18,180 --> 00:37:23,090 You've got a distinction between two different senses of the word relation. 317 00:37:23,090 --> 00:37:37,390 OK, so suppose I say that this building the examination schools is related to Salisbury Cathedral. 318 00:37:37,390 --> 00:37:50,820 Oh, really? How is it related? Well, Salisbury Cathedral is bigger and older, and it's about 75 miles away. 319 00:37:50,820 --> 00:37:58,150 Hang on. That's not a relation. That doesn't make them related. 320 00:37:58,150 --> 00:38:03,400 Well, in one sense, it does, right in the philosopher's sense, it does. 321 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:13,760 You can disdain, you can say X and Y have the following relation X is bigger than Y and older than Y and about 70 miles away. 322 00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:20,670 That constitutes a relation that can hold between different pairs of objects. 323 00:38:20,670 --> 00:38:27,330 But that's not the kind of relation that's going to naturally make your thought go from one to the other. 324 00:38:27,330 --> 00:38:32,880 So in the ordinary, everyday sense, we wouldn't say they're related in the ordinary, everyday sense. 325 00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:40,080 We say that things are related when thinking of one of them naturally leads your thoughts to thoughts of the other. 326 00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:46,830 Yeah, and that's when they are linked by contiguity or resemblance or causation, according to him. 327 00:38:46,830 --> 00:38:53,430 OK, so there's a difference between the natural and the philosophical view of relation. 328 00:38:53,430 --> 00:39:02,180 And Hume is more interested in philosophical relations. He wants to look at relations in the philosopher's sense. 329 00:39:02,180 --> 00:39:10,520 And here I'm just going to very quickly say that his theory of relations here is highly, highly derivative from locks. 330 00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:17,480 So if you look at Locks essay, he categorises various types of relation like this. 331 00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:23,930 And we can line them up against the various kinds of relation that Hume identifies. 332 00:39:23,930 --> 00:39:33,680 So notice that what Hume does. He takes the theory of relations that Locke has presented, and he says all the philosophical relations, 333 00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:44,850 all the different kinds of relations that philosophers recognise can actually be shoehorned into seven different categories. 334 00:39:44,850 --> 00:39:55,740 OK. So resemblance, cause and effect, space and time identity, contrary to proportions in quantity, degrees in quality. 335 00:39:55,740 --> 00:40:01,780 So this will become important in the next lecture. 336 00:40:01,780 --> 00:40:15,090 OK, I'm going to finish with a quick survey of the last part of book one, part one, which is Hume's theory of abstract ideas. 337 00:40:15,090 --> 00:40:21,330 Now, how important this is to understanding Hume is a controversial matter. 338 00:40:21,330 --> 00:40:32,310 Some scholars, notably Don Garrett, thinks that Hume's theory of general ideas actually informs a huge amount of his philosophy that there are lots of 339 00:40:32,310 --> 00:40:41,120 human claims which can only be properly understood when understood in the light of the theory of general ideas. 340 00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:45,320 My own view is somewhat in contrast with that. 341 00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:52,580 I suspect that Hume introduces this theory because he sees that something he has to deal with here. 342 00:40:52,580 --> 00:40:56,750 And he introduces what he thinks is a plausible way of dealing with it. 343 00:40:56,750 --> 00:41:01,970 But I think when he's discussing other topics later on, he largely forgets it. 344 00:41:01,970 --> 00:41:06,290 That's to say that that's an open question. Or I think, you know, 345 00:41:06,290 --> 00:41:15,080 Don Garrett has done a lot of work to to argue that certain of Hume's theories really do make better sense when seen in this light. 346 00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:23,300 And I'm not going to discuss that controversy at this point. 347 00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:33,980 Now, first of all, let's let's look at the general problem here. I'm an empiricist, is claiming that all of our ideas derive from impressions. 348 00:41:33,980 --> 00:41:40,020 So all of our ideas ultimately come from sense, experience or feelings. 349 00:41:40,020 --> 00:41:50,490 But what about general ideas? I mean, I can have the idea, say, of a particular person by seeing them see someone, I form the idea of them. 350 00:41:50,490 --> 00:41:59,150 But how can I form the idea of a person in general because I never see a person in general, I only ever see specific people. 351 00:41:59,150 --> 00:42:05,310 So quite generally, I'm an empiricist, has this problem. 352 00:42:05,310 --> 00:42:10,230 How do we explain where general ideas come from? 353 00:42:10,230 --> 00:42:21,110 Well, Locke's theory. Is that ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place and any 354 00:42:21,110 --> 00:42:27,800 other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence by this way of abstraction? 355 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,550 They are made capable of representing more individuals than one, 356 00:42:31,550 --> 00:42:40,950 each of which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea is, as we call it, of that sort. 357 00:42:40,950 --> 00:42:48,800 OK. Let's see that applied to a particular example. 358 00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:57,170 The ideas of the person's children converse with. Unlike the persons themselves, only particular. 359 00:42:57,170 --> 00:43:05,160 OK, so we only see particular people. The idea is that we form from them our particular ideas. 360 00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:11,250 The names they first give to them are confined to these individuals, nurse and mama. 361 00:43:11,250 --> 00:43:17,970 Afterwards, they observe that there are a great many other things in the world that resemble their father and mother. 362 00:43:17,970 --> 00:43:26,490 They frame an idea which they find those many particulars du partaken and so that they give the name man. 363 00:43:26,490 --> 00:43:35,830 Here he clearly means person. Wherein they make nothing new, but only leave out of the complex idea they had of Peter and James, 364 00:43:35,830 --> 00:43:44,000 Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each and retain only what is common to them all. 365 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:51,680 OK, so the child sees lots of different people recognises that there are things in common between them 366 00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:59,170 and then forms an idea which includes all the common bits and leaves out all the specific bits. 367 00:43:59,170 --> 00:44:05,400 And that gives them the general abstract idea of a person. 368 00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:13,350 OK, that seems to be Locke's theory. That's certainly the way Berkeley and Hume interpreted it. 369 00:44:13,350 --> 00:44:19,380 And a notorious example of this is Locke's triangle. 370 00:44:19,380 --> 00:44:26,130 He gives the example of the idea of a triangle which has to be neither oblique nor 371 00:44:26,130 --> 00:44:31,950 rectangle nor equilateral a quicker rule that means isosceles nor scaling on. 372 00:44:31,950 --> 00:44:40,680 But all of these none of these at once. So in order to form an idea of a triangle which somehow is applicable to all triangles, 373 00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:49,000 I've got to form an idea which has what is in common to all triangles, but leaving out whatever is specific to them. 374 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:56,200 And not surprisingly, George Barclay comes along and attacks this and says you cannot form any such idea. 375 00:44:56,200 --> 00:45:03,340 This is an impossible idea. How can you possibly have an image of a triangle which is neither scaly nor 376 00:45:03,340 --> 00:45:08,140 isosceles nor equilateral any right angled and not right angled at the same time? 377 00:45:08,140 --> 00:45:23,510 Forget it. It's hopeless. And Berkeley gives a rival account of abstract ideas, which I think is best understood by example. 378 00:45:23,510 --> 00:45:29,150 So take this famous example of a geometrical proof. 379 00:45:29,150 --> 00:45:42,240 So we've got a triangle here and a line has been drawn from the the right hand vertex of the triangle parallel to the left hand side. 380 00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:52,020 And now we can see that the left hand angle of the triangle is identical to this angle here. 381 00:45:52,020 --> 00:45:58,140 You can't see my cursor, unfortunately, this angle here and their corresponding angles. 382 00:45:58,140 --> 00:46:05,770 And you can see that the top angle of the triangle is the same as the top angle here. 383 00:46:05,770 --> 00:46:07,920 There alternate angles. 384 00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:15,870 And we can therefore conclude that some of the three angles to the truck of the triangle is the same as the angles on a straight line. 385 00:46:15,870 --> 00:46:21,910 OK. Famous proof now that's been proved about a specific triangle. 386 00:46:21,910 --> 00:46:27,250 But we can see that the way we've been thinking about that triangle could apply to any other triangle. 387 00:46:27,250 --> 00:46:30,610 All right. You could change the angles, you could move the lines along. 388 00:46:30,610 --> 00:46:35,590 And as long as you form basically the same construction, the same conclusion is going to follow. 389 00:46:35,590 --> 00:46:45,220 So here we are, using a single particular triangle as an exemplar, and we're using it to reason about all triangles, whatever. 390 00:46:45,220 --> 00:46:54,580 And Berkeley says that's how our ideas work. We use specific ideas and reason with them as exemplars. 391 00:46:54,580 --> 00:47:02,080 We don't somehow form this lucky and abstract idea, which is all triangles and none of them at once. 392 00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:09,310 We reasoned with specifics that interpret them as general. 393 00:47:09,310 --> 00:47:16,060 So very briefly, I just want to mention it's not clear that Berkeley is being fair to lock here. 394 00:47:16,060 --> 00:47:20,530 OK, this scholarly controversy about exactly how lock should be interpreted. 395 00:47:20,530 --> 00:47:28,060 But there are passages in lock which suggests that he may well be thinking of things in exactly the way the Berkeley is. 396 00:47:28,060 --> 00:47:36,310 OK, maybe Berkeley misinterpreted him. By the way, neither Berkeley nor Hume are particularly faithful at interpreting Locke. 397 00:47:36,310 --> 00:47:40,660 Do not get your lock scholarship from Berkeley or Hugh. 398 00:47:40,660 --> 00:47:48,320 They are rather opinionated and in certain topics like this one rather keen to put the boot in. 399 00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,070 OK, back to then. 400 00:47:51,070 --> 00:48:02,380 Hume credits Berkeley with this great and valuable discovery that all general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, 401 00:48:02,380 --> 00:48:10,210 which gives them a more extensive signification and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals which are similar to them. 402 00:48:10,210 --> 00:48:18,220 In fact, Berkeley hasn't put that much emphasis on the certain term that comes from Hume. 403 00:48:18,220 --> 00:48:31,570 But Hume's theory of abstract ideas or general ideas is very much like Barclays, except that he puts this great emphasis on use of a term and custom. 404 00:48:31,570 --> 00:48:34,600 When we found a resemblance amongst several objects, 405 00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:42,310 we apply the same name to all of them after we've acquired a custom of this kind the custom of applying a name, 406 00:48:42,310 --> 00:48:48,150 say the word dog to that dog and that dog and that dog and that dog. 407 00:48:48,150 --> 00:48:53,760 The hearing of that name, dog revives the idea of one of these objects. 408 00:48:53,760 --> 00:49:03,270 So when I hear the name dog, I think of one of these dogs and makes the imagination conceive it with all its particular circumstances and proportions. 409 00:49:03,270 --> 00:49:12,290 So I'm conceiving of a very particular dog. But as the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals, 410 00:49:12,290 --> 00:49:20,510 the word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals only revives that custom, which we have acquired by surveying them. 411 00:49:20,510 --> 00:49:27,710 They are not really present to the mind, but only in power. We keep ourselves in a readiness to survey any of them. 412 00:49:27,710 --> 00:49:37,340 So when I hear the word dog, although a particular idea of dog comes into my mind, nevertheless, the word dog, 413 00:49:37,340 --> 00:49:47,600 because it's customarily associated with a whole load of other dogs, kind of has a power there to revive the ideas of those dogs at appropriate times. 414 00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,320 And Don Garrett is called this the revival set of ideas. 415 00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:58,340 That's a nice term. So after the mine just produced an individual idea upon which we reason the attendant 416 00:49:58,340 --> 00:50:04,250 custom revive by the general abstract term readily suggests any other individual, 417 00:50:04,250 --> 00:50:09,280 if by chance, we form any reasoning that agrees not with it. 418 00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:15,220 So let's suppose my mind go when the word dog appears. 419 00:50:15,220 --> 00:50:20,950 My mind goes to a particular dog. You know, well, I'm very fond of a minute. 420 00:50:20,950 --> 00:50:31,130 Somebody says all dogs are friendly. Well, at that point, although I'm thinking of that friendly dog, 421 00:50:31,130 --> 00:50:38,060 my mind is naturally drawn towards other dogs associated with the custom that aren't friendly. 422 00:50:38,060 --> 00:50:48,260 And because I I am aware of other dogs that aren't friendly, those come to my mind and make me realise that the claim all dogs are friendly is false, 423 00:50:48,260 --> 00:50:52,850 even though it was true of the particular dog that I was thinking of the the the fierce 424 00:50:52,850 --> 00:51:00,970 dogs that I've come across in the past jump into my mind and replace the previous idea. 425 00:51:00,970 --> 00:51:10,030 So essentially, humans theory of of general ideas has the term, the word playing a very important role. 426 00:51:10,030 --> 00:51:16,420 It kind of binds together the various ideas of dogs as it may be in such a way that 427 00:51:16,420 --> 00:51:26,110 they can potentially fly into our mind at relevant times and inform our reasoning. 428 00:51:26,110 --> 00:51:31,990 OK. He argues against Locke, and I'm not going to go into detail here. Here I'm simply as I will do it, 429 00:51:31,990 --> 00:51:40,720 a number of occasions in these lectures simply give you slides that summarise things so that you can go and read over them for yourselves, 430 00:51:40,720 --> 00:51:52,900 but kind of see the main points. He argues against Locke, so he's supplementing Barkley's arguments. 431 00:51:52,900 --> 00:51:58,600 And as one of these arguments, he introduces what's commonly called the severability principle. 432 00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:08,780 He doesn't call it this, but we shall. And this is where, as I mentioned earlier in the lecture, he's alluding back to the liberty of the imagination. 433 00:52:08,780 --> 00:52:16,750 So let's just look at the severability principle here. We have observed, he says, where did we observe that him? 434 00:52:16,750 --> 00:52:24,890 He must be referring to one one three four. We have observed that whatever objects are different are distinguishable and that 435 00:52:24,890 --> 00:52:29,870 whatever objects are distinguishable are separable by the thought and imagination. 436 00:52:29,870 --> 00:52:33,890 And these propositions are equally true in the inverse. And then what? 437 00:52:33,890 --> 00:52:41,720 Whatever objects are separable are also distinguishable and that whatever objects are distinguishable are also different. 438 00:52:41,720 --> 00:52:46,410 Now, at the moment, that looks perhaps tautology. 439 00:52:46,410 --> 00:52:57,090 It's it's hard to see what is going to draw from this, and it will be much later that we see this principle playing havoc in one part for. 440 00:52:57,090 --> 00:53:03,070 At this stage, Hume's argument for the principle does give the impression that it's pretty much trivial. 441 00:53:03,070 --> 00:53:09,030 But how is it possible we can separate what is not distinguishable or distinguish what is not different? 442 00:53:09,030 --> 00:53:21,200 So we'll come back to that later. There is one problem that Hume notes with his theory of abstract or general ideas. 443 00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,350 The severability principle, as just enunciated, 444 00:53:24,350 --> 00:53:36,620 he thinks that implies that we cannot possibly think about a line separately from its length because a line and its length cannot be separated. 445 00:53:36,620 --> 00:53:43,100 It's evident at first sight that the precise length of a line is not different nor distinguishable from the line itself, 446 00:53:43,100 --> 00:53:48,360 nor the precise degree of any quality from the quality. 447 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:58,290 But then if that's right, it seems to make it impossible to distinguish some of the things that we actually do distinguish, how do we manage that? 448 00:53:58,290 --> 00:54:05,590 Hume and Hume ends his discussion. With what he calls the distinction of reason. 449 00:54:05,590 --> 00:54:16,090 So for basically his answer is if you have a globe of white marble and a cube of white marble, 450 00:54:16,090 --> 00:54:24,580 you can by focussing on the two objects, you can focus on what's common to them that whiteness. 451 00:54:24,580 --> 00:54:29,020 Whilst ignoring what's different between them, namely their shape. 452 00:54:29,020 --> 00:54:32,500 So although actually with the with the globe of white marble, 453 00:54:32,500 --> 00:54:45,460 we can't really distinguish the shape from the colour because what we've got there is is a globe of white and the two are not separable. 454 00:54:45,460 --> 00:54:56,140 The whiteness is globular in shape by comparing with other objects as it might be a black globe or a white cube. 455 00:54:56,140 --> 00:55:05,860 We can focus on what is similar and what is different, and thus draw distinctions which the severability principle might have seemed to rule out. 456 00:55:05,860 --> 00:55:06,820 And that's it for today. 457 00:55:06,820 --> 00:55:15,580 That's where we finish treaties one one we'll be going on mainly to treaties one three with a quick nod, treaties one to next time. 458 00:55:15,580 --> 00:55:18,805 Thank you.