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Full Idea
Hume regarded the notion of resemblance as unproblematic, ..but any two objects share infinitely many Cambridge (whimsical relational) properties, and resemble in infinite ways. He needs real resemblance, which needs degrees of resemblance.
Gist of Idea
Hume does not distinguish real resemblances among degrees of resemblance
Source
comment on David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.II.41) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §2
Book Ref
'Properties', ed/tr. Mellor,D.H. /Oliver,A [OUP 1997], p.231
A Reaction
[compressed] See Idea 191. We forgive Hume, because he is a pioneer, but this is obviously right. Draw a line between 'real' resemblances and rest will be tricky, and bad news for regularity accounts of laws and causation.
Related Idea
Idea 191 Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato]
| 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] |