display all the ideas for this combination of texts
21 ideas
357 | People are obviously recollecting when they react to a geometrical diagram [Plato] |
Full Idea: The way in which people react to a geometrical diagram or anything like that is unmistakable proof of the theory of recollection. | |
From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 073a) |
359 | If we feel the inadequacy of a resemblance, we must recollect the original [Plato] |
Full Idea: If someone sees a resemblance, but feels that it falls far short of the original, they must therefore have a recollection of the original. | |
From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 074e) |
9343 | To achieve pure knowledge, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things with the soul [Plato] |
Full Idea: We are convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. | |
From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 066c) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the original ideal which motivates the devotion to a priori knowledge - that it will lead to a 'pure' knowledge, which in Plato's case will be eternal and necessary knowledge, like taking lessons from the gods. Wrong. |
2191 | Relations of ideas are known by thought, independently from the world [Hume] |
Full Idea: Relations of Ideas are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], IV.I.20) |
2239 | If secondary qualities (e.g. hardness) are in the mind, so are primary qualities like extension [Hume] |
Full Idea: It is agreed that all sensible qualities of objects, such as hard or hot, are secondary, and exist in the mind and not in objects; but then this also follows for the primary qualities of extension and solidity. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.I.122) | |
A reaction: he mentions Berkeley |
2237 | It never occurs to people that they only experience representations, not the real objects [Hume] |
Full Idea: Men instinctively suppose the very images presented by the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one is nothing but representations of the other. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.I.117) |
2192 | All reasoning about facts is causal; nothing else goes beyond memory and senses [Hume] |
Full Idea: All reasonings concerning matters of fact seem to be founded on the relation of cause and effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond of our memory and senses. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], IV.I.22) |
23631 | Hume is loose when he says perceptions of different strength are different species [Reid on Hume] |
Full Idea: When Hume divides all perceptions into two classes or species, distinguished by their degrees of force and vivacity, this is loose and unphilosophical. To differ in species is one thing, to differ in degree is another. | |
From: comment on David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.12) by Thomas Reid - Essays on Intellectual Powers 1: Preliminary 1 | |
A reaction: This is Hume's 'impressions' and 'ideas'. As usual with Reid, this is a very astute criticism. Reid is a direct realist, so his solution is to view ideas as weakened impressions. If impressions are strong ideas, you get idealism (which is bad!). |
2190 | All objects of enquiry are Relations of Ideas, or Matters of Fact [Hume] |
Full Idea: All objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], IV.I.20) |
2184 | All ideas are copies of impressions [Hume] |
Full Idea: All our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.13) |
2182 | Impressions are our livelier perceptions, Ideas the less lively ones [Hume] |
Full Idea: 'Impressions' are our more lively perceptions, when we hear, see, feel, love, hate, desire or will. 'Ideas' are less lively perceptions, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.12) |
2246 | If books don't relate ideas or explain facts, commit them to the flames [Hume] |
Full Idea: If we take in hand any volume of divinity or metaphysics, ask 'Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?' No. 'Or experimental reason on matters of fact and existence?' No. Commit it then to the flames. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.III.132) |
2189 | All ideas are connected by Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect [Hume] |
Full Idea: To me, there appear to be only three principles of connection between ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], III.19) |
2194 | How could Adam predict he would drown in water or burn in fire? [Hume] |
Full Idea: Adam, though his rational faculties be supposed, at the very first, entirely perfect, could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water, that it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it would consume him. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], IV.I.23) |
2183 | We can only invent a golden mountain by combining experiences [Hume] |
Full Idea: The creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting or diminishing the materials afforded us by the sense or experience. For example, a golden mountain or a virtuous horse come from joining ideas. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.13) | |
A reaction: The example of the Golden Mountain comes from Aguinas Quodlibeta 8.2.1. The original idea is in Sextus Empiricus. |
2702 | Only madmen dispute the authority of experience [Hume] |
Full Idea: None but a fool or a madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], IV.II.31) |
2205 | You couldn't reason at all if you lacked experience [Hume] |
Full Idea: An unexperienced reasoner could be no reasoner at all, were he absolutely unexperienced. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], V.I.36 n.1) |
2217 | When definitions are pushed to the limit, only experience can make them precise [Hume] |
Full Idea: When we have pushed up definitions to the most simple ideas and still find some ambiguity and obscurity, how can we render them altogether precise and determinate? Produce the impressions or original sentiments from which the ideas were copied. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], VII.I.49) |
2186 | We cannot form the idea of something we haven't experienced [Hume] |
Full Idea: A blind man can form no notion of colours; a deaf man of sounds. ….A Laplander or Negro has no notion of the relish of wine. ….A man of mild manners can form no idea of inveterate revenge or cruelty. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.15) |
3902 | Hume mistakenly lumps sensations and perceptions together as 'impressions' [Scruton on Hume] |
Full Idea: The greatest weakness in Hume's philosophy is his use of the term 'impression' to refer to both sensations and perceptions. | |
From: comment on David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 24 |
23421 | If a person had a gap in their experience of blue shades, they could imaginatively fill it in [Hume] |
Full Idea: Suppose a person to be perfectly acquainted with all colours, except one particular shade of blue. It must be possible for him to raise up from his own imagination the idea of that particular shade, though never conveyed to him by the senses. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], II.16) | |
A reaction: [compressed] He dismisses this as 'so singular it is scarcely worth observing', but it is crucial. It isn't 'singular'. We do it all the time, by extrapolating from experiences and interpolating between them. Thus we extend knowledge beyond experience. |