6 ideas
| 7628 | Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund] |
| Full Idea: Broad, one of the most important modern defenders of the representative theory of perception, explicitly rejects the inferential component of the theory. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Mind and Its Place in Nature [1925]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Since the supposed inferences happen much too quickly to be conscious, it is hard to see how we could distinguish an inference from an interpretation mechanism. Personally I interpret things long before the question of truth arises. |
| 4581 | Virtues and vices are like secondary qualities in perception, found in observers, not objects [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1740) | |
| A reaction: Very revealing about the origin of the is/ought idea, but this is an assertion rather than an argument. Most Greeks treat value as a primary quality of things (e.g. life, harmony, beauty, health). |
| 4580 | All virtues benefit either the public, or the individual who possesses them [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I desire you to consider if there be any quality that is virtuous, without having a tendency either to the public good or to the good of the person who possesses it. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1739) | |
| A reaction: Obviously this is generally true. How, though, does it benefit the individual to secretly preserve their integrity? I go round to visit a friend to repay a debt; I am told they have died; I quietly leave some money on the table and leave. Why? |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 4579 | The idea of a final cause is very uncertain and unphilosophical [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Your sense of 'natural' is founded on final causes, which is a consideration that appears to me pretty uncertain and unphilosophical. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], to Hutcheson 1739) | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of Aristotelian teleology by modern science. I agree that the notion of utterly ultimate final cause is worse than 'uncertain' - it is an impossible concept. Nevertheless, I prefer Aristotle to Hume. Nature can teach us lessons. |
| 20705 | That events could be uncaused is absurd; I only say intuition and demonstration don't show this [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause: I only maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor from demonstration, but from another source. | |
| From: David Hume (Letters [1739], 1754), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 5 'God' | |
| A reaction: Since the other source is habit, he is being a bit disingenuous. While rational intuition and demonstration give a fairly secure basis for the universality of causation, mere human habits of expectation give very feeble grounds. |