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Full Idea
A standard of similarity is in some sense innate. The spacing of qualities (such as red, pink and blue) can be explored and mapped in the laboratory by experiments. They are needed for all learning.
Gist of Idea
Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped
Source
Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.123)
Book Ref
Orenstein,Alex: 'W.V. Quine' [Princeton 2002], p.123
A Reaction
This reasserts Hume's original point in more scientific terms. It is one of the undeniable facts about our perceptions of qualities and properties, no matter how platonist your view of universals may be.
| 191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
| 17712 | General ideas are the connection by resemblance to some particular [Hume] |
| 8544 | Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 2210 | A picture of a friend strengthens our idea of him, by resemblance [Hume] |
| 15755 | Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume] |
| 9081 | We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons [Mill] |
| 5410 | I learn the universal 'resemblance' by seeing two shades of green, and their contrast with red [Russell] |
| 16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
| 16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
| 8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
| 16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |