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Full Idea
Hume confuses 'repetition of impressions' with 'impression of repetitions of impressions'. ...In order of 'force and vivacity' we have: impressions, memories, ideas. This omits the vital fact that memory is memory; the notion of repetition is lost.
Gist of Idea
If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition
Source
comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality V.II
Book Ref
Whitehead,A.N.: 'Process and Reality' [Free Press 1985], p.135
A Reaction
[compressed; Harré and Madden spotted this idea] This seems to pinpoint rather nicely the hopeless thinness of Hume's account. He is so desperate to get it down to minimal empirical experience that his explanations are too thin. One big idea....
| 15755 | Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 16946 | Causation is just invariance, as long as it is described in general terms [Quine on Hume] |
| 15250 | If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition [Whitehead on Hume] |
| 20189 | Belief is a feeling, independent of the will, which arises from uncontrolled and unknown causes [Hume] |
| 21309 | A proposition cannot be intelligible or consistent, if the perceptions are not so [Hume] |
| 21311 | Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume] |
| 21312 | Perceptions are distinct, so no connection between them can ever be discovered [Hume] |
| 21308 | We have no impression of the self, and we therefore have no idea of it [Hume] |
| 21310 | Does an oyster with one perception have a self? Would lots of perceptions change that? [Hume] |
| 5323 | Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness [Ayer on Hume] |
| 23115 | We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume] |