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3 ideas
| 14301 | We have no good concept of solidity or matter, because accounts of them are all circular [Hume] |
| Full Idea: In order to form an idea of solidity, we must conceive two bodies pressing on each other without penetration. ..The ideas of secondary qualities are excluded, and the idea of motion depends on extension. This leaves us no just idea of solidity or matter. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.4), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 02.3 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] For me these kind of strict empiricist arguments always recede when you accept the notion of an inference to be best explanation. We have some sort of notion of 'matter', but here the physicist seems to take over. |
| 8382 | For Hume a constant conjunction is both necessary and sufficient for causation [Hume, by Crane] |
| Full Idea: Hume held that constant conjunction between As and Bs is both necessary and sufficient for a causal relation. If As and Bs are conjoined that is sufficient for a causal relation; if A and B are causally related, necessarily they are constantly conjoined. | |
| From: report of David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739]) by Tim Crane - Causation 1.2.2 | |
| A reaction: A helpful connection between Hume and the modern debate about conditions for causation (e.g. Mackie). It sounds as if, to spot the necessary condition, you need to independently see that A and B are causally related, which regularity does not allow. |
| 19274 | Hume seems to presuppose necessary connections between mental events [Kripke on Hume] |
| Full Idea: A well-known objection to Hume's analysis of causation is that he presupposes necessary connections between mental events in the theory. | |
| From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739]) by Saul A. Kripke - Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language n 87 | |
| A reaction: Are these the associations that occur within the mind? I'm not clear about the objection, but record it for interest. |