Hume & Locke on Human Knowledge

Hume follows Locke and sees all human knowledge as deriving from experience. He sees the contents of the mind as perceptions, implying that they have been observed in some empirical fashion, and he divides these perceptions into impressions and ideas. Impressions derive from the immediate data of experience through the senses, while the latter, the ideas, are seen by Hume as the copies or faint images of impressions in thinking and reasoning. Another way he differentiates the two is in terms of their vividness, or the degree of power with which they infuse themselves into the mind. The perceptions which have the most power and enter the mind with the most force are called impressions, and these include all our sensations as well as our emotions and passions. Ideas, on the other hand, are the faint images appearing in thinking and reasoning. They are somewhat like recollections of the earlier, stronger impressions. In a broad sense, Hume is trying to differentiate between the immediate data of experience and the thoughts we have about that data.

However complex this analysis of the different types of ideas and impressions may get, the underlying truth of the approach is that experience is necessary for there to be knowledge. Generally, Hume rejects a priori knowledge entirely, though experience can be indirect and can lead to the creation of what seem to be a priori or innate ideas. Hume considers the meaning of substance and concludes that we can have no idea of t

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says Hume, that causes and effects are discoverable not by reason but by experience, and he uses the analogy of two pieces of smooth marble to show it. Present such marble to a man with no knowledge of natural philosophy and he will never discover that they will adhere together so as to require great force to separate them in a direct line while making a small resistance to a lateral pressure. He could only know this by experience. This is the case with all other causes and effects possible from objects which might be presented as well. The object is the cause, and the mind cannot find the effect by contemplating the supposed cause. Only through experience can the mind come to understand the relations between cause and effect. Hume writes, Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect, which will result from it, without consulting past observation; after that manner, I beseech you, must the mind proceed in this operation?. . . The mind can never find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it (614). Another example Hume uses to demonstrate caus

Category: Philosophy - H