Preview

What Is Hume's Argument Of Impressions?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
136 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Is Hume's Argument Of Impressions?
Hume’s main point in his article is his claim that a person consists of a collection of thoughts, memories, experience, and knowledge. He states that there is no existence of an individual self area of our being and we are instead just a “bundle” of psychological items. Hume is a type of skeptic as he believes that since we cannot internally or externally prove the existence of a soul or distinct self that it in fact does not exist.
Hume uses impressions and their formation of ideas to further his argument. He states that impressions are formed due to a sense experience and then all ideas are based upon a singular impression. Impressions are made to be constant, but as a person we are not unchanging and therefore we cannot be a single idea

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    To discuss the argument of Hume on miracles, Mackie says we must first develop definitions of laws and miracles that does not automatically mean that the concept of a miracle is incoherent or is logically impossible the miracle occurs. ~ Mackie notes that if we define a miracle as a violation of a law of nature and set a law to be a pattern of how the world works, then it is impossible that the miracle occurs. These definitions imply that the bill violated the miracle was not really a law, because it is an exception; eZeentis thus not a miracle, because it does not violate any law. But that argument Hume and Mackie said that to dis- cuss Hume's argument we need different definitions of laws and miracles. We need an account of the laws and miracles…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Copy Principle consists of two main arguments. First, Hume argues that we cannot find an example of an idea that is not related to another impression. Secondly, an argument for a defect of the senses supports this principle. For example, a defect in the senses may involve an individual who is blind. Therefore, this person would not be able to form notions of color. From here, Hume quickly follows the explanation of the arguments of this principle with a counterexample named, “The Missing Shade of Blue.” Hume feels that this counterexample is an exception to The Copy Principle and it is also an objection to his own view. This contradictory phenomenon aims to prove that it is conceivable that a mind be able to develop an idea of a missing shade of blue without being previously exposed to an impression or idea of that particular shade. If an individual were presented with different shades of blue, in an order of shades from lightest to darkest, with a blank space where a new shade of blue would exist, would they know what that shade of blue would look like? Hume thinks that an individual would indeed have an idea of this missing shade of blue, making this a compelling counterexample. However, he quickly dismisses this, stating that it is a…

    • 608 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume’s version of empiricism begins with his distinction between analytic propositions “relationship of ideas,” which he considers to be a priori and true by definition, and synthetic propositions, which he considers to be a posteriori (“matters of fact”), and which are opposite of analytic propositions because they’re derived from our senses.…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume and Berkeley both separated in the middle of reason and sensation. Hume, be that as it may, went encourage, trying to demonstrate that reason and sane judgments are only constant relationship of unmistakable sensations or encounters. ‘’Hume believed that morality was based on feelings of sympathy with other people, and that benevolence towards others tends to promote the interests of our species, and bestow happiness on human society.”(humanism) Hume's contributes to monetary hypothesis, which affected the Scottish scholar and business analyst Adam Smith and later financial specialists, incorporated his conviction that riches depends not on cash but rather on products and his acknowledgment of the impact of social conditions on financial matters. In his moral considering, Hume held that the idea of good and bad is not levelheaded but rather emerges from a respect for one's own particular…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Locke and Hume argue that all concepts are derived from sense experience, from impressions of sensation or reflection.…

    • 1338 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume Liberty and Necessity

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In Section 8 of Hume’s Enquiry titled “Of Liberty and Necessity”, Hume wants to discuss what liberty and necessity mean and whether or not they can be compatible with each other. This is all really a discussion of Hume’s view of free will and determinism, and how they can be easily reconciled through compatibilism where for example both liberty and necessity are required for morality. He starts off by considering the idea of necessity and defines it as, “the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to another” (Hume 150). He wants to talk about its relation to what he calls liberty. He defines his hypothetical liberty as, “A power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will” (Hume 159). This sounds like free will, meaning that people have the ability to act or not act in certain ways. He wants to deny any possibility of chance, because he’s an empiricist, and if you have the possibility of chance, what can you ever really know about the world. In every case, Hume is going to want to go out into the world and see where things come from even these ideas of liberty and necessity to see if there is a way to have both. To take it further, he goes on to claim that we’re all compatibilists without even realizing it. In order to explain his reasoning, he makes three arguments: the necessity argument, the spontaneity argument, and the anti-libertarianism argument.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Hume is an Empiricist, this means that he believes that the source of a humans knowledge derives from or mostly from their sensory experiences. In short, people gain knowledge from their experiences. For example, children learn languages through constantly hearing someone (a parent or guardian) speaking to them in a certain language. Another example is that one can come to know what different colors are due to actually seeing the colors. Simply knowing the name of a color does not entail that someone knows what the color actually looks like. One can never fully come to know what a color is by simply being given the definition because in order to know what a color is, one must have a visual of the color to connect with the name. Thus according to Hume, a person learns and obtains knowledge through sensory…

    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume believes the root of morality is emotion. He believes emotions, or passions, as he calls them, are the driving force behind our actions. Hume believes that how we feel about things determines what we determine is moral or immoral. There is no logical reason for keeping one’s promises if there is no benefit to you. However, we as a people have decided that keeping one’s word is moral because we would like someone to do that for us. We keep our promises because we want people to think kindly of us. There is no logic behind it, but there is emotion. Even when there is nothing to be gained for us by keeping our promises, we still maintain its moral to keep them because of how it makes us feel. This means, even when it is illogical to do something, if we feel it is moral, we should do it. Reason is not enough to change how we behave. It can give us some direction but it cannot compel us to do…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people may argue that they know themselves very well and they do not need a ‘stranger’ to tell them who they truly are, what they are manifesting etc. However, Hume refutes this aspect. Can one truly “[distinguish] and [separate their feelings, actions or what so ever] from each other [or even consider to do the separations needed to identify their personality] and have no Deed of tiny thing to support their existence?” (Hume, 1). All that he wants to raise awareness to that: ‘is possible to exist separately from your actual oneself?’ Can someone step outside of their body or self and observe everything about their personality and all, then make their own judgement and walk back in the body; speaking of death or some out of body experience? According to Hume, “if we wou'd have the idea of self-pass for clear and intelligible, It must be someone impression, that gives rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are suppos'd to have a reference.” (1) If that was the case, many people who have remorse of some sort would have been able to stop themselves from committing their faults and make the necessary changes; especially when the outcome known is not favorable. It is just that “the mind is a ‘kind of theatre’ where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hume then argues that ideas are ‘faint copies’ of impressions. Think what it is like to see…

    • 869 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The second of Hume’s points is that the causal principle is doubtful. His evidence for this is that we can conceive of things without a cause therefore things without a cause are possible this is also backed up by Mackie who says that the causal principle has no evidence and only exists in a methodological sense. However this argument also has severe faults that discredit it. If the arguments from causality are questionable then that means that the arguments from conceivability are questionable as well. This could also mean that a logically necessary truth could be conceived as false if you don’t completely understand it. This opens the problem that just because something is logically possible then that doesn’t mean it could happen in the real world. This basically disables Hume’s ideas on non-causal…

    • 437 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Hume on Personal Identity

    • 1534 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Stroud, B. Hume: The Arguments of the Philosophers. Suffolk: Routledge & Kegan Paul plc, 2002.…

    • 1534 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lastly, he points out how there are limits to what the mind can do or control. We know these limits through experience. This means we are only learning through the “conjunction of objects” (Hume), not through the “connexion” (Hume). This helps prove his argument that we cannot have experience of power or necessary…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These traits are the building blocks of our identity and should be fed in order to better understand who we are. These two men seem to agree that our passions needs special attention in order to have an enduring and comfortable life. Despite being different, they share similar ideas, one being that humans can be similar to animals therefore cannot separate reason from passion. Philosophers like Rene Descartes believe reason triumphs passion, and we are distinct from animals because of God and superior intellect. Without God involved, I believe that in an isolated state away from any outside influence that we are naturally selfish and greedy; in the sense that we feed off our desires similar to animals. We have the will power to do good, but giving into our wants and needs is easier to us. Because of this quality, we are taught to control our emotions, passions, desires and feelings to make sense of our surroundings, but at the same times. Hume and Southworth are both related by opinion and may even support each…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First Impressions

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A first impression is the opinion someone forms about you when they first meet you. This opinion is either formed in a good way or a bad way. When someone is forming this opinion of you they are looking at your attire, facial expressions, posture, and overall mannerism.…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays