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Single Idea 15755

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance ]

Full Idea

Hume needs a notion of resemblance where some things resemble a given thing more than other things do, and some may resemble exactly, and some hardly at all.

Gist of Idea

Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance

Source

comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §02

Book Ref

Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.209


A Reaction

An astute and simple point. Once you admit degrees of resemblance, of course, then resemblance probably ceases to be a primitive concept in your system, and Hume would be well stuck.


The 12 ideas with the same theme [seeing recurrences of properties and structures]:

Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato]
General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume]
Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume]
Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons [Mill]
I learn the universal 'resemblance' by seeing two shades of green, and their contrast with red [Russell]
General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine]
To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine]
Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine]
Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine]
The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor]