Hume Ch.2

Question 1

The most lively thought…

Answer 1

…Is still inferior to the dullest sensation

Question 2

The less forcible and lively…

Answer 2

… are commonly denominated thoughts or ideas

Question 3

Impressions are distinguished from ideas,…

Answer 3

… Which are the less lively perceptions

Question 4

Nor is anything beyond…

Answer 4

… The power of thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction

Question 5

Hume on imagination

Answer 5

It is really confined within very narrow limits

Question 6

The Copy Principle

Answer 6

The creative power of the mind is restricted to: “Compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing”

Question 7

Complex ideas “resolve themselves…”

Answer 7

“… into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment”

Question 8

A blind man…

Answer 8

… can form no notion of colours

Question 9

Hume on the missing shade of blue

Answer 9

“ this instance is so singular, that it is scarcely worth our observing”

Question 10

Differences between ideas and impressions

Answer 10

Ideas are “ apt to be confounded with other resembling ideas” whereas impression are “strong and vivid”

Question 11

Noonan three levels of probability

Answer 11

Probable
Probable and undisputed
Probable, undisputed and tested

Question 12

Hume 10 marker structure

Answer 12

• Hume’s mitigated scepticism/empiricism
• ”Perceptions of the mind”: knowledge starts with what we are directly aware of - ideas and impressions
• Hume on differences between ideas and impressions (liveliness)
• imagination: golden mountain, God, copy principle
• complex ideas resolved into simple ones
• no ideas without corresponding sensations
• missing shade of blue as “contradictory phenomenon”
• ideas are faint and elusive, apt to be confounded

Question 13

Hume’s Fork

Answer 13

All the objects of human reason for enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, too wit, relations of ideas, and matters of fact

Matter of fact = can be contradicted
Relations of ideas = a priori reasoning

Question 14

Matters of fact - the sun

Answer 14

The sun will not rise tomorrow, this proposition is “No less intelligible […] than the affirmation, that it will rise tomorrow”

Question 15

Adam and water

Answer 15

Adam, “Though his rational capacity be supposed […] could not have inferred from the fluidity, the transparency of water, that it would suffocate him”

Question 16

Hume 15 marker structure

Answer 16

• difference between empiricism/rationalism; ultimately agree with mitigates scepticism
• Hume missing shade of blue; answer to this
• concept formation: we know what Spain is without having been there; abstract concepts (justice or freedom) not related to experience
• Descartes concept of God: Nothing we experience is perfect; so the concept of a perfect God must be innately placed in us (other concepts like infinity are problematic) Response: Hilary Putnam on division of linguistic Labour
• Noam Chomsky on innate language capacities (counter: “knowing how” - a persons abilities - and “knowing that” - propositional knowledge - are different) grammar is know-how. Hume implies we are able to be conditioned (know how) by custom and habit
• Kant and transcendental idealism (synthetic a priori)
• Leibniz and the marble block

Question 17

Hilary Putnam on the division of linguistic labour

Answer 17

We think the concept of God is innate because we are excluded from the linguistic elite than have invented the term God - supported by the moulding of God over time; Boethius claims that God was eternal and outside time (contrast to Old Testament writers who said He was within time)

Question 18

Kant synthetic a priori

Answer 18

«Every event has a cause»
Space and time are a priori; we cannot imagine a no dimensional room
Hume says all a priori knowledge is analytic

Question 19

Leibniz and marble block

Answer 19

Hercules would be innate in it, in a way, even though labour would be required to expose the veins and polish them into clarity