Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Reason, Emotions and Good Life', 'Treatise of Human Nature' and 'Intros to 'Buddhist Scriptures''

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

6 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

11942	Power is the possibility of action, as discovered by experience [Hume]
	Full Idea: Power consists in the possibility or probability of any action, as discovered by experience and the practice of the world.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], p.313), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 5
	A reaction: [page in OUP edn] This strikes me as blatantly false, and typical of those who confuse epistemology with ontology. It implies that a power that takes everyone by surprise is impossible, by definition.

11949	There may well be powers in things, with which we are quite unacquainted [Hume]
	Full Idea: I am, indeed, ready to allow, that there may be several qualities both in material and immaterial objects, with which we are utterly unacquainted; and if we please to call these powers and efficiency, 'twill be be of little consequence to the world.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], p.168), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 7.2.1
	A reaction: A delightful air of casual indifference. What the classic empiricists needed was a notion of 'best explanation', which would allow them to leap beyond immediate experience. They made plenty of other leaps beyond experience, though Hume hated them.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers

11950	We have no idea of powers, because we have no impressions of them [Hume]
	Full Idea: We never have any impression that contains any power or efficacy. We never therefore have any idea of power.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], p.161), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 7.2.1
	A reaction: [page in Selby-Bigges edn] It seems to me plausible that Hume is utterly wrong, because our own mental lives are a direct and constant experience of the physical powers and efficacies of material objects.

11941	The distinction between a power and its exercise is entirely frivolous [Hume]
	Full Idea: The distinction which we sometimes make betwixt a power and the exercise of it is entirely frivolous, and ... neither man nor any other being ought ever to be thought possesst of any ability, unless it be exerted and put into action.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], p.311), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 5
	A reaction: [page in OUP] Molnar says this strong intuition is shared by most of us, but I take the world to be full of people who can play the piano or speak Spanish, but never actually do it. [but see Idea 11942] Most wasps never sting anything.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

11098	Momentary impressions are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance [Hume, by Quine]
	Full Idea: Momentary impressions, according to Hume, are wrongly identified with one another on the basis of resemblance.
	From: report of David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739]) by Willard Quine - Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis 3
	A reaction: I don't have a Hume quotation for this yet, but Quine is plausibly claiming Hume as a resemblance nominalist, equipped with an error theory about universals.

7954	If we see a resemblance among objects, we apply the same name to them, despite their differences [Hume]
	Full Idea: When we have found a resemblance among several objects, that often occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever other differences may appear among them.
	From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.I.7)
	A reaction: This must to some extent by right, whatever objections can be found. Russell's objection (Idea 4441) wouldn't alter the truth of Hume's observation, thought Hume is attacking universals and Russell defending them.