Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Problems in the Explanation of Action', 'Treatise of Human Nature, Appendix' and 'An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation'

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17 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / d. Cause of beliefs
20189 Belief is a feeling, independent of the will, which arises from uncontrolled and unknown causes [Hume]
     Full Idea: Belief consists merely in a certain feeling or sentiment; in something, that depends not on the will, but must arise from certain determinate causes and principles, of which we are not master.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appen p.2)
     A reaction: This is the opposite of Descartes' 'doxastic voluntarism' (i.e. we choose what to believe). If you want to become a Christian, steep yourself in religious literature, and the company of religious people. It will probably work.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
21309 A proposition cannot be intelligible or consistent, if the perceptions are not so [Hume]
     Full Idea: No proposition can be intelligible or consistent with regard to objects, which is not so with regard to perceptions.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
     A reaction: An interesting variant on expressions of the empiricist principle. Presumably one can say intelligible things about Escher drawings.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
21500 We rely on memory for empirical beliefs because they mutually support one another [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: When the whole range of empirical beliefs is taken into account, all of them more or less dependent on memorial knowledge, we find that those which are most credible can be assured by their mutual support, or 'congruence'.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 334), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.1
     A reaction: Lewis may be over-confident about this, and is duly attacked by Olson, but it seems to me roughly correct. How do you assess whether some unusual element in your memory was a dream or a real experience?
21501 If we doubt memories we cannot assess our doubt, or what is being doubted [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: To doubt our sense of past experience as founded in actuality, would be to lose any criterion by which either the doubt itself or what is doubted could be corroborated.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 358), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.3.1
     A reaction: Obviously scepticism about memory can come in degrees, but total rejection of short-term and clear memories looks like a non-starter. What could you put in its place? Hyper-rationalism? Even maths needs memory.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
6556 If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 186), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Intro
     A reaction: Lewis makes this comment when facing infinite regress problems. It is a very nice slogan for foundationalism, which embodies the slippery slope view. Personally I feel the emotional pull of foundations, but acknowledge the very strong doubts about them.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
21498 Congruents assertions increase the probability of each individual assertion in the set [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: A set of statements, or a set of supposed facts asserted, will be said to be congruent if and only if they are so related that the antecedent probability of any one of them will be increased if the remainder of the set can be assumed as given premises.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 338), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
     A reaction: This thesis is vigorously attacked by Erik Olson, who works through the probability calculations. There seems an obvious problem without that. How else do you assess 'congruence', other than by evidence of mutual strengthening?
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance
15755 Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume needs a notion of resemblance where some things resemble a given thing more than other things do, and some may resemble exactly, and some hardly at all.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §02
     A reaction: An astute and simple point. Once you admit degrees of resemblance, of course, then resemblance probably ceases to be a primitive concept in your system, and Hume would be well stuck.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 5. Self as Associations
5323 Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness [Ayer on Hume]
     Full Idea: Our experiences are logically independent, but they may be factually connected. What unites them is that either they are experienced together, or (if at separate times) they are separated by a stream of experience which is felt to be continuous.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Bk 3 App.) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy §VI.A
     A reaction: A strict empiricist cannot deny that the feeling of continuity could be false, though that invites the Cartesian question of what exactly is experiencing the delusion. Hume denies that we experience any link between simultaneous experiences.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
21311 Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume]
     Full Idea: Is the self the same with substance? If it be, how can that question have place concerning the subsistence of self, under a change of substance? If they be distinct, what is the difference between them?
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
     A reaction: Locke seems to think there is a characterless substance which supports momories, and the latter constitute the self. So if my substance acquires Nestor's memories, I become Nestor. Hume, the stricter empiricist, cares nothing for characterless things.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / c. Inadequacy of mental continuity
21312 Perceptions are distinct, so no connection between them can ever be discovered [Hume]
     Full Idea: If perceptions are distinct existences, they form a whole only by being connected together. But no connexions among distinct existences are ever discoverable. We only feel a connexion ...to pass from one object to another.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
     A reaction: This first part of this is a problem for any 'bundle' theory of objects or self. This is why Hume abandons all hope for his theory of personal identity based on association. You infer the associations, but don't perceive them.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
21308 We have no impression of the self, and we therefore have no idea of it [Hume]
     Full Idea: Every idea is derived from preceding impressions; and we have no impression of self or substance, as something simple and individual. We have, therefore, no idea of them in that sense.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
     A reaction: This spells out with beautiful simplicity how his empiricist assumptions lead him to this sceptical view. No logical positivist could reject this thought. Personally I favour empiricism with added inference to the best explanation.
21310 Does an oyster with one perception have a self? Would lots of perceptions change that? [Hume]
     Full Idea: Suppose an oyster to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Do you consider any thing but merely that perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give you that notion.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Appendix)
     A reaction: A splendid addition to his earlier sceptical thinking. We could form a different conclusion. Suppose I do have a self. If my multitudinous perceptions were reduced to a single perception of agonising pain, would that remove the self?
18. Thought / C. Content / 8. Intension
5828 Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: "The denotation or extension of a term is the class of all actual or existent things which the term correctly applies to or names; the connotation or intension of a term is delimited by any correct definition of it." ..And intension determines extension.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II
     A reaction: The last part is one of the big ideas in philosophy of language, which was rejected by Putnam and co. If you were to reverse the slogan, though, (to extension determines intension) how would you identify the members of the extension?
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20074 We can keep Davidson's account of intentions in action, by further explaining prior intentions [Davidson, by Stout,R]
     Full Idea: Davidson's original account of intentions might still stand if we could accept that prior intentions are different in kind from intentions with which one acts.
     From: report of Donald Davidson (Problems in the Explanation of Action [1987]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's'
     A reaction: Davidson says prior intention is all-out judgement of desirability. Prior intentions are more deliberate, with the other intentions as a presumed background to action. Compare Sartre's dual account of the self.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
23115 We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume]
     Full Idea: It may be affirm'd, that there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], p.481), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 9.4
     A reaction: Hume says this is for the best. I can't imagine spontaneous love of human beings we have never met. It takes the teachings of some sort of doctrine - religious or political - to produce such an attitude. I see it as a distortion of love. A hijacking.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
16946 Causation is just invariance, as long as it is described in general terms [Quine on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume explained cause as invariable succession, and this makes sense as long as the cause and effect are referred to by general terms. … This account leaves singular causal statements unexplained.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Willard Quine - Natural Kinds p.131
     A reaction: A nice 20th century linguistic point made against a good 18th century theory.
15250 If impressions, memories and ideas only differ in vivacity, nothing says it is memory, or repetition [Whitehead on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume confuses 'repetition of impressions' with 'impression of repetitions of impressions'. ...In order of 'force and vivacity' we have: impressions, memories, ideas. This omits the vital fact that memory is memory; the notion of repetition is lost.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Alfred North Whitehead - Process and Reality V.II
     A reaction: [compressed; Harré and Madden spotted this idea] This seems to pinpoint rather nicely the hopeless thinness of Hume's account. He is so desperate to get it down to minimal empirical experience that his explanations are too thin. One big idea....