Always happy to read a bit of Hume. One the best. And by way of illustration, Modern developmental psychology follows and agrees with his analysis even down to the fact that in infants, notions of cause and effect develop before the more indirect understanding of object persistence. See here, for example.

Very interesting. I've read similar studies; it does however create an issue. If an infant can recognize an object, then it looks to me as if causality is already in play, that is the object is a stimulus for the infant, "absorbed" by the infant's intentionality. This can be debated.

What's outlined in this chapter, is perhaps too difficult to create an experiment on. Or maybe not, that's a good question for discussion.

The starting point for Hume's position is that only perceptions (encompassing impressions, ideas, feelings) can be present to the mind.

A second point is that mind can be exhaustively described in terms of such perceptions and their relations (associations, resemblances, and the like).

Which is to say, the mind can be exhaustively described in terms of its states, by which we mean its 'internal' states, there being no others.

Is this plausible?

If a bee is perceiving a flower, isn't the most natural description of such a situation, that there is a relation, perception, that holds between bee and flower?

But Hume will take the bee to be in a perceiving state, full stop, rather than considering the bee as related to another object, the flower, in a particular way.

And the explanation for that move, from relation to state, must be found in Hume's account of the senses.

In so far as Hume is attempting to give a theoretical account of what's empirically available to us (according to his system), your conclusion does seem to follow from what he writes here. It would extend this discussion to add much, but he does say that "the essence of mind" is "unknown", so there may be other factors in play, which we cannot account for.

It becomes complicated, because he readily allows that "bodies" exist, which aren't internal to the mind, this is something we take for granted. The real problem is how to neatly distinguish between "inner" and "outter", when it comes to the mind.

If the bee has experience, then the situation for the bee would be that it relates to thing out there, which we call a flower. But it would likely have no account of the continued existence of the flower, it would merely go to it.

For us, the continued existence of objects, according to Hume, is due to the imagination.

Edit: Misread your last sentence. From relation to state... perhaps, though I suspect that something about our mental architecture plays a role, even if he likes to downplay this aspect.

I have lots of rereading to do, and thinking after that, so I don't have a full picture of the argument yet.

I think the idea is that an impression is something that occurs to us, becomes present to mind, involuntarily, as feelings do, but is otherwise distinguished from an idea only in being more vivid.

In particular, we are counseled not to think we can distinguish impressions from ideas by their source, one external, the other internal. So far as mind is concerned, we are told, they are the same.

If that's right, then indeed the state description is right and the relation description is speculative.

It might seem to be only a formal shift, at one level, from something like (a) stuck-in(arrow, target), a relation, a function from an ordered pair to {0, 1}, to (b) stuck-in-target(arrow), a function from a single object to {0, 1}.

But the 1-place function is just a partially applied 2-place function. The target is just baked in.

Hume seems to think he doesn't need it, that you can coherently say 'impression' and dodge the question, "Impression of what?"

The argument goes round, that the hypothesis of 'double existence' is insupportable, which would be true if impressions are the same as ideas. But is that claim based only on introspection? Or does it arise from a methodological choice not to consider the 'what' that impressions are of? (Here I really have to reread.)

In the latter case, the methodological choice would end up becoming a substantive position, no double existence. Because of course by the time the question is addressed, there's no other answer you can give.

Yeah, I think this is going to be fun, many of the issues you raise based on what he says is quite important, and obviously open to interpretation, as evidenced by all the literature there is on him.

Yes, impressions are a bit like breathing or digestion, we don't have a choice in having them. He does say elsewhere that we can't have a simple idea without a corresponding simple impression. It gets much murkier when we get to complex impressions.

Sticking to the topic you raised:

Hume seems to think he doesn't need it, that you can coherently say 'impression' and dodge the question, "Impression of what?" — Srap Tasmaner

As impressions, perhaps that's right (I'm no expert at all either), but we can have ideas of something, these being based originally on impressions.

The argument goes round, that the hypothesis of 'double existence' is insupportable, which would be true if impressions are the same as ideas. But is that claim based only on introspection? Or does it arise from a methodological choice not to consider the 'what' that impressions are of? (Here I really have to reread.) — Srap Tasmaner

This is extremely difficult, and fascinating for that reason, in my opinion. Let's see, if ideas are merely weaker impressions, then the problem is completely insurmountable.

But let's say they're not. Let's say ideas and impressions are significantly different than what Hume says, is the problem solved?

Let's assume Hume's wrong, and let's look at a statue. We can say we got the idea of this specific statue by looking at it. We close our eyes, and some crumbs of marble, imperceptible to us, fall from the object. (We can't call strictly speaking consider this a statue at this specific point, it could have disappeared, but there is nothing there to "verify" that there is a statue, we are the ones who do that.) We open our eyes and see the same statue, we don't notice a difference, but that statue has changed.

If there was no statue there, we wouldn't have the idea of this specific statue (we may have ideas of other statues). Every instance, it seems to me we have a different perception, and strictly speaking (again) the statue is also changing.

It looks to me as if this situation is one of double existence, which is very strange.

Something like that, on first approximation.

Will have more later, but I wanted to add what seems like a very strong argument against double existence -- though again it leaves me a little confused which arguments have priority over which.

This is the argument based on his account of our judgments of cause and effect being derived from the experience of constant conjunction. He argues that the claim that some object causes our perceptions cannot be accepted because we never have the opportunity to observe the object, on the one hand, accompanied by the perception, on the other, much less constantly.

That's an awfully strong argument *if* his account of causality is correct.

Pardon for giving a sloppy reply, which doesn't even address your question (reply below) , my reading of Hume was heavily influenced by Galen Strawson's books about Hume, both which are excellent.

But he does raise a point, which though you have not argued for or against, is very important to know in the context of the discussion of causation.

My paperback copy of Hume has perhaps too many highlights, so providing more coherent quotes would take a long time, nevertheless he says:

"...I explain only the manner in which objects affect the senses, without endeavouring to account for their real nature and operations.... my intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or explain the secret causes of their operations... I'm afraid such an enterprise is beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we can never pretend to know otherwise than by those external properties, which discover themselves to the senses."

pp.111-112 in the Penguin Edition of Humes Treatise

There are other quotes, but it would be a bit long to provide them here. The point is to state, that Hume did not think that all there was to causality is constant conjunction (this is frequently claimed, it's not true), it's that it's the only thing we can discover about it. We know not the "secret springs" of nature.

This is the argument based on his account of our judgments of cause and effect being derived from the experience of constant conjunction. He argues that the claim that some object causes our perceptions cannot be accepted because we never have the opportunity to observe the object, on the one hand, accompanied by the perception, on the other, much less constantly. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is the case with say, billiard balls hitting each other or a bullet flying off a barrel. But in the case of the examples he gives of the paper in front of him, and the chimney, he is constantly looking at the object, it's not an issue of it being seen very quickly.

So, on this reading, this would not be huge problem to the "two world account" he is critiquing. But, I could be wrong in my interpretation, for sure.

Good point about the secret springs of nature.

There is something I find fundamentally unnerving about Hume's arguments, that they're hard to categorize as 'empirical' or not.

"...I explain only the manner in which objects affect the senses, without endeavouring to account for their real nature and operations.... my intention never was to penetrate into the nature of bodies, or explain the secret causes of their operations... I'm afraid such an enterprise in beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we can never pretend to know otherwise than by those external properties, which discover themselves to the senses."

pp.111-112 in the Penguin Edition of Humes Treatise

There are other quotes, but it would be a bit long to provide them here. The point is to state, that Hume did not think that all there was to causality is constant conjunction (this is frequently claimed, it's not true), it's that it's the only thing we can discover about it. We know not the "secret springs" of nature. — Manuel

That's significant (a great quote) and as you suggest regularly overlooked. Thanks for underscoring it.

Do people still look to Hume around the question of causation? Are we clearer or less clearer in the 21st century? I know there are are regularity theories, counterfactual theories, causal process theories, probabilistic theories, interventionist theories and others...

It's a modern imposition, perhaps influenced by Kant when he categorized philosophers before him as "dogmatists" and "skeptics". But Descartes and Leibniz were more scientific than Locke, Berkeley or Hume. Yet both "camps" used elements of both empiricism and rationalism. The main difference I find between them, is in how strong a power(s) they ascribe to the mind, Hume much less so than Descartes, for instance.

As for Hume, a little quote, that is very important, which shows he does not believe the mind is empty:

"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire, as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. "

That's in his Enquiry

Similar comments are found in his Treatise. He tries to downplay it by saying it just a mechanical instinct, but he can't really suppress it much. Also, his "missing shade of blue" is extraordinary, in that by accepting it, he should have realized his system was fatally injured, imo.



It's a good question, but in my experience, a good deal of the contemporary discussion on these topics aren't very interesting to me, too technical and narrow. So, I couldn't tell you.

Having said that, I believe Hume's problems of causation remains a big problem in philosophy, due to the amount of literature on the topic. One could argue that Kant's framework improved the way we should think about these issues.

But I think the problems remain, concerning causation and the reasons we have for believing in the continuity of external objects.

Every instance, it seems to me we have a different perception — Manuel

This is another point he makes repeatedly, that we only have these unique, ephemeral perceptions, among which, to be sure, there are resemblances, but that neither reason nor observation justify us explaining these resemblances by positing a constant object they are perceptions of.

One thing notable by its absence in the whole section is conceptualization. Hume allows that one perception resembles another, but shows little interest in, or anxiety about, the sorts of conceptualization we worry about a lot. Hume's system is, to this extent, somewhat more mechanical and less cognitive, than we are used to in these post-Kant, post-Frege days. But it may indeed mean he is closer to mainstream psychology than we usually are; this is a naturalist epistemology.

It might be useful to contextualise Hume a bit. His contemporaries were Voltaire and Rousseau; Thomas Reid was his antagonist -and friend. His inheritance was Newton, Spinoza, and further back the great Descartes. This is the beginning of Science as a rival authority to religion, and a time of questioning and revolution. In particular, it is the first stirrings of the industrial revolution.

It seems to me that Hume's scepticism was mainly directed towards Rationalism. He is against 'innate ideas' that Descartes inherited from Plato. Rather, everything comes from the senses, and yet there is nothing in the sensory field that makes sense of the senses. Nevertheless, we do make sense of them through ideas like cause and effect, and object persistence, but this is not by a process of (deductive) reasoning, but by an act of imagination. One imagines a world beyond the senses in order to understand and make sense of sense-experience.

Reason is no longer king, and man has taken the first step towards a reconnection with Nature. Darwin will take the next step, and environmentalism the one after that. The Treatise on Human Nature is thus a work of philosophical psychology, and epistemology -what is man's place in the new world, and what are his fundamental properties? Not the Cartesian 'thinking thing', but the empirical, 'sensing thing'.

Very good post and you are quite right. In fact, assuming you don't already know this, Hume regarded his account to be an empirical theory, meaning scientific, motivated in no small part by Newton's achievement, he was trying to establish a "science of man", what we would today perhaps call a psychology, as you mention.

Your conclusion that Hume was a "sensual" philosopher is correct and is stated explicitly by the (apparently) first serious scholarly work on Hume by Norman Kemp Smith.

His views on the imagination are perhaps the most profound out of the classical figures, which gives him an extra unique factor worth exploring for those interested in the topic. Nevertheless, the imagination as well as his "missing shade of blue", and most of all, by far, his famous Appendix to the Treatise show that he faced insurmountable difficulties given the account of mind he assumed to be true.

Actually, the imagination could be argued about, in terms of its status in relation to innatism.

He does point it out a lot and I think he is factually correct about this, though carrying out experiments on conceptual posits might prove to be quite difficult.

that neither reason nor observation justify us explaining these resemblances by positing a constant object they are perceptions of. — Srap Tasmaner

And this is a difficulty both as stated in this chapter given his assumptions, and also hard given rationalist or even Kantian assumptions.

The sense I get is that if you really think about it, it's an extremely complex problem to justify the continued existence of the object, because, as he says:

"When we have been accustom’d to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found, that the perception of the sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon us after an absence or annihilation with like parts and in a like order, as at its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different, (which they really are) but on the contrary consider them as individually the same, upon account of their resemblance.

But as this interruption of their existence is contrary to their perfect identity, and makes
us regard the first impression as annihilated, and the second as newly created, we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involv’d in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty, we disguise, as much as possible, the interruption, or rather remove it entirely, by
Supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible."

Emphasis mine.

So he says this, which I think is correct, nevertheless we can't forget that he says, at the beginning of this chapter: "...tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings."

So - very very hard.

tis in vain to ask — Manuel

Good.

I think the warmup is done and now we ought to go right through and discuss the arguments as they arise. I've considered graphing them out, but it'll be more fun to make connections as we go.

I was going to start at the first proper argument, that continued and distinct existence are equivalent, but we should look first at the introductory bit, whence this quote comes, because there's some guidance there.

The sceptic, he says, "must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body ... Nature has not left this to his choice."

We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.

Belief in the existence of body is
(1) not supportable by the senses or by reason;
(2) not a matter of choice;
(3) imposed on us by nature;
(4) caused.

Section II, then, takes as given the phenomenon that we believe in body; what we're looking for is a causal explanation of this belief. It will not turn out that we do not so believe, or even that we could, if we chose, not so believe. We do. The only question Hume is addressing is why.

Before explaining some fact, we need to be sure we know what the fact is, and this Hume has already done in Part II Section VI, Of the idea of existence, and of external existence. He will refer to those results almost immediately.

There it is claimed, first, that since to conceive of any thing is to conceive of it as existing, existence is not a distinct idea at all, not a separable perception:

That idea, when conjoin'd with the idea of any object, makes no addition to it.

Specifically what Hume is saying here is that we can have no idea of existence, an idea that we might join to another idea, as a way of having the idea of something existing. It's about our conceptions, not logic, not language. Might Hume have taken another line? Might he, for instance, have said, that to imagine an object differs from imagining it as existing in that the latter is more vivid, or more complete, or something like this? There would still, I think, be no distinct conception of existence. Even if he were to say that conceiving an object as existing is the usual conceiving but accompanied by some particular feeling, that leaves the conception the same, and this is Hume's only point.

But to say that we have no separate conception of existence, which we might add to our conception of an object, is not quite to say that the only existence objects have is in being perceived (esse est percipi). We can form no conception of the existence of an object; that's a fact of psychology, of human nature, the subject of the book, not a metaphysical fact regarding objects and their mode of existence.

But Hume does want to say more, so we get a further argument, which begins:

We may observe, that 'tis universally allow'd by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion.

This would all seem to turn on the meaning of the word 'present': I see the book here by me, but the book is not present with my mind, only the perception it occasions; the book remains forever 'out there' beyond the boundary of my mind. A cordon is drawn around my perceptions: within is mind, without is world. The question for Hume is not what's out there or what isn't, but how we may conceive what's 'out there', the psychological question, and perceptions offer him the solid ground of his psychology.

Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are deriv'd from something antecedently present to the mind [ argued earlier ]; it follows, that 'tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas and impressions.

That is, when we try to conceive the 'external objects' that occasion our perceptions, we have nothing but perceptions to work with — we have no other material with which to construct a conception of 'object', no material that would make such a conception a distinct sort of thing from a perception.

Or: try as you may to conceive, for once, of an external object, itself, you will only produce another idea, an idea derived from previous perceptions, impressions and ideas. It's all your mind can do; there is only one sort of object available to your mind, a perception, and any attempt to bring some other kind of object, whatever it may be, into your mind will fail utterly or substitute an idea of that other kind of object.

There is no claim that perceptions are the only kind of objects, or that all objects are really perceptions, but only that the only kind of object in our minds is perception.

The farthest we can go towards a conception of external objects, when suppos'd specifically different from our perceptions, is to form a relative idea of them, without pretending to comprehend the related objects. Generally speaking, we do not suppose them specifically different; but only attribute to them different relations, connexions and durations. But of this more fully hereafter.

And that's the pointer to our section, Part IV Section II, where he will refer back to this section:

For as to the notion of external existence, when taken for something specifically different from our perceptions, we have already shewn its absurdity.

Note the same language, 'specifically different', meaning some kind of object distinct from the kinds of objects that can be within our minds, perceptions, impressions, ideas.


So how good is Hume's case? Are we convinced by Part II Section VI that external existence is not even an idea?

The introductory bit in 4.2 says we can't raise the question of external objects — because Nature — but we can look for causes of the belief we're stuck with.

But didn't 2.6 say we have, and can have, no such conception of the external existence of objects?

Isn't that a flat contradiction?

There's an out — because in 2.6 he says we don't, you know, really think of objects with external existence (since we can't) but that we do attribute 'different relations, connexions, and durations' to our perceptions.

4.2 is thus entirely about our perceptions, because Hume takes it he has already shown there's no point in trying to talk about anything else — or at least that such talk can be no part of his psychology. Thus, whatever idea we have about objects that exist distinct from our mind and perceptions, will be an idea about perceptions that exist distinct from our perceptions. Big no there. Whatever idea we have about objects that continue to exist when they are not perceived by the senses, will be an idea about a perception that continues to exist when there is no perceiving. Another big no. This is the substance of point (1) above, that neither the senses nor reason take us any way toward the principle concerning the existence of body.

So this is what nature has forced on us, the idea we think of as the external existence of objects, the bizarre belief that some our perceptions continue over time distinct from us the perceivers, since we can only think perceptions not objects. Picturing the tree is picturing the tree existing; picturing the tree existing when no one's looking is picturing the tree. Picturing the tree without the tree being pictured, is not a thing. Picturing yourself picturing the tree for a bit and then stopping, is picturing your picture of the tree waiting for you to come back and resume picturing it. Whatever we may try to think about external objects, this is what we'll end up thinking.

That was a fantastic, fantastic post, much better than what I could muster myself. I think the arguments you present as your reading of Hume are correct. Which gives me very little to room to disagree so far. Let's see how to add or comment, and proceed:

we can't raise the question of external objects — because Nature — but we can look for causes of the belief we're stuck with. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. And notice a difficulty here, nature has made this issue too important to leave it to us to decide if objects ("body") exist or no, this, we take "for granted". Yet the thing taken for granted is what paves the way for Hume to ask, essentially, well what reasons do we have to believe in the continued existence of these objects? It turns out that the reasons we have (or the ones he gives) are not nearly as good as we would like to have.

You seem to be more methodical than me, so I'll add what I think I can contribute to, by way of agreement or disagreement, and perhaps not mention a section which others might find crucial, if so, they can bring it up.

He goes on to mention (in part iv) that the perceptions we have of objects are actual perceptions. It makes no sense that we should say that the perception feels different from the object, whose impression gives us the idea of it.

Then, concerning external existence, Hume states:

"The paper, on which I write at present, is beyond my hand. The table is beyond the paper. The walls of the chamber beyond the table. And in casting my eye towards the window, I perceive a great extent of fields and buildings beyond my chamber. From all this it may be infer'd, that no other faculty is requir'd, beside the senses, to convince us of the external existence of body." (pp.190-191)

This is pretty clear and one would even say, a "naive realist" view of the world. But he is quick to point, we to take into account several important facts (three in total), of which I will mention only the first, as it looks to me the most important one:

"...properly speaking, ’tis not our body we perceive, when we regard our limbs and members but certain impressions, which enter by the senses." (p.191)

Which is true, and reminds me of Russell's comment that, strictly speaking, a neurologist is not looking at a brain when he studies it. He has a perception of something, which we call a brain, it's not as if the neurologist looking at a brain, is much different from us looking at our bodies, both are perceptions of "brains" and "bodies".

He points out that some of the things we attribute to external bodies, on minimal consideration, turn out to be internal affections, heat and sweetness and colours, etc. How far do we take this? It's not trivial, but we must at the very least allow the opportunity of contact with an object, to gain an impression, but for Hume, it's much more than this minimal consideration.

To end this post, he reiterates:

"[the senses] give us no notion of continu’d existence, because they cannot operate beyond the extent, in which they really Operate. They [the senses] as little produce the opinion of a distinct existence, because they neither can- offer it to the mind as represented, nor as original. To offer it as represented they [the senses] must present both an object and an image. To make it appear as original, they must convey a falshood ; and this falshood must lie in the relations and situation: In order to
which they must be able to compare the object with ourselves; and even in that case they do not, nor is it possible they shou’d, deceive us" (pp.191-192)

As I understand it, if the senses represented "originals", objects as they are, we should be able to then compare these objects to ourselves, which would make them "external and independent" from us, as he says in p.190, 3rd paragraph.

nature has made this issue too important to leave it to us to decide if objects ("body") exist or no — Manuel

Yes, and that's a pregnant suggestion, not really substantiated yet — since I'm less than a page into the exegesis so far.

Nature has not left this [ the principle of the existence of body ] to his [ the sceptic's ] choice, and has doubtless [ ! ] esteemed it an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations.

That last phrase referring to the results of Section I, Of scepticism with regard to reason. There he argues that even doing mathematics is, roughly, a matter of believing you've done it right, and checking your work or having others check it can only raise your confidence that you've done it right, never guarantee it.

Again, all about the psychology. It's not that mathematics can't be trusted absolutely, but that mathematicians can't be! And so it is for all sorts of reasoning. That's how we enter Section II, having established that the sceptic must reason even knowing that he reasons imperfectly. We even get a twin of the point made here:

Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable [ by us ] necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel. ... Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of this total scepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, and endeavor'd by arguments to establish a faculty, which nature has antecedently implanted in the mind, and render'd unavoidable.

If we go back through Part I, we may find some encomium to reason, but I'm not going to bother looking: I think we can just say 'Newton'. Hume may never bother saying in so many words what value to us reason has, because I think in 1739 he would consider the value, indeed the triumph, of mathematics and reason, for which reason nature would instill reason in us, to be perfectly obvious. We may, as he specifically argues, be unable to ground our reliance on reason in reason, but it's clear what we get by this reliance.

Not so for the external existence of objects. There has been nothing yet to explain why nature implanted this habit in us, why the belief in external objects is so necessary. What do we get out of this belief of such great importance that nature implanted it in us?

We will have to be on the lookout as we go through Section II for some clue if not explanation, as to what this belief does for us.

It is curious that he treats reasoning (with the principle example being mathematics) and the belief in distinct, persistent, external objects as separate questions, albeit giving them related answers. In the post-Frege world, we might naturally think these go together. We carve up the world into classifiable objects to make it safe for logic; conversely we analyze the world using the logic of predicates and classes because we have carved it up into distinct objects with properties in common. Logic and objects go together. Without distinct objects, there is nothing for the functions of logic (not the predicates, not the truth functions, quantifiers, or other operators) to be applied to.

Not so for the external existence of objects. There has been nothing yet to explain why nature implanted this habit in us, why the belief in external objects is so necessary. What do we get out of this belief of such great importance that nature implanted it in us? — Srap Tasmaner

One option may be one of the things I cited, which is simply, we do not know - it may be one of those "secret springs", which we cannot understand. Of course, this could well be accused of being a cop-out, which - may be.

But he offers an explanation, it is due to the powers of our imagination - arguments you will eventually get to in due time, I don't want to monopolize with the length of my posts.

It is curious that he treats reasoning (with the principle example being mathematics) and the belief in distinct, persistent, external objects as separate questions, albeit giving them related answers. In the post-Frege world, we might naturally think these go together. We carve up the world into classifiable objects to make it safe for logic; conversely we analyze the world using the logic of predicates and classes because we have carved it up into distinct objects with properties in common. Logic and objects go together. Without distinct objects, there is nothing for the functions of logic (not the predicates, not the truth functions, quantifiers, or other operators) to be applied to. — Srap Tasmaner

And I think this is an example in which empiricism simply fails, the account it gives of mathematics make little sense. It does not explain why every person on Earth can do basic arithmetic, if it be brought to the fore.

As for objects, yes, we postulate them, but we should be warry of treating them as platonic things. And here I think Hume is correct to point out the frequency in which our perceptions are new.

we do not know — Manuel

That really might be. I'm undecided.

Hume sets out to show that various beliefs we hold cannot be justified either by observation or by reason. But we do, nevertheless, hold these beliefs, and we hold them even once he has done as much as anyone can to demolish them.

Why we would hold reasonable beliefs needs no explanation; why we would give up unfounded beliefs needs no explanation; but why we would hold questionable beliefs and continue to hold them once shown to be groundless — that requires some explanation.

Certainly this talk of nature deciding for us does that. Much of 4.2 is taken up with showing how exactly it works, to make it plausible that this is 'just how we think', willy-nilly.

So perhaps my wondering 'what we get out of it', why nature would so order things, is misplaced. That nature does so order our minds is all Hume is trying to show.

Plausible?

Once you get to the imagination, you may see something you find convincing, though he spends a good deal of time on it. Browsing it now, not in great detail, his appeal to the imagination is elegant, and perhaps right to an extent, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

why we would hold questionable beliefs and continue to hold them once shown to be groundless — that requires some explanation. — Srap Tasmaner

Maybe you're familiar with Donald Hoffman's recent work. Very, very briefly: we evolved for survival, not for discovering truths about the world. His analogy is that the objects we see are like desktop items, they're useful, but they're literally not what they seem, at bottom it's a bunch of code.

I don't find this too persuasive, but it has some merit.

It's not that they're groundless, our reasons, it's that they're not as good as we would like.

So perhaps my wondering 'what we get out of it', why nature would so order things, is misplaced. That nature does so order our minds is all Hume is trying to show.

Plausible? — Srap Tasmaner

In a way, taking Hume's phrase. But, if we admit his empiricism is false, not accepted today, then we need only a slight modification: that our minds so structure nature such that we postulate persisting objects. Of course, our minds are part of nature, but also separated from it by billions of years of evolution. But Hume's gist is quite plausible.

I should be clearer. I was only asking if my reading of Hume was plausible, not whether what he says was.

I do want to evaluate the arguments as we come to them, but only once we know what they are!

Ah. In that case, "what we get out of it" seems to me to be misplaced, yes. But certainly, that concern, is a very natural and immediate issue that arises when reading this chapter.

On the whole, I find your reading of him to be quite accurate, more accurate than me, given that I've read part I of the Treatise twice in a period of about 6 to 8 months.

On the whole, I find your reading of him to be quite accurate — Manuel

I'm leaning on his actual words too much though.

I'm not absolutely certain I've gotten to the bottom of the arguments in 2.6

There's no optimal way to read, imo. We all have our biases, sympathies, ways of thinking. We may attempt to be as faithful as possible to what he's saying, but these are hard issues with no straight answers.

I can't get Strawson or Chomsky's comments out of my reading of Hume, that may be my fault, but that's what I see when I read him, and I've found that useful, maybe it's a distorting view, it's possible.

In any case, if you could point out to the specific page number, instead of the section, it would be easier for me to find what is giving you trouble.

2.6 is the section about existence, and it's only a couple pages. I quoted some bits.

One minor point maybe worth going back to is his use of the word 'specifically', also used in our section when recalling 2.6, when he denies that external existence can be taken as something 'specifically different' from our perceptions. I haven't checked, but I strongly suspect that word here means 'different in kind', 'specific' from 'species'. That's how I read his point, but I don't think I mentioned I was relying in part on this particular word.

So the argument begins

(1) Existence, external or not, is not something we have any separate conception of.

But then we get the other part:

(2) The notion of external existence cannot be taken as specifically different from perception.

That sounds like it's telling us what sort of thing something that doesn't exist is.

I think that means (1) is at least a little misleading as I've phrased it.

(2) is part of the larger claim that it's only perceptions in our mind, nothing else.

So if we have an idea of existence, it's that sort of thing, a perception; but (1) had already shown that existence itself is not a perception, but just something part of every perception, so in a way nothing.

(Some of the confusion here is just rhetorical. It's a pretty common move to say something doesn't exist, at least not as the kind of thing you think it is, not if we take it to be what you think it is, but it does exist, just as something completely different. We're keeping the name, but changing the meaning. Like that.)

But there is something else going on here, because Hume says our idea of external existence turns out to be different relations, connections, and durations that we *attribute* to perceptions.

So these are ideas *about* perceptions.

Thus instead of thinking some idea we have is of an object that we also think exists, we will have the perception or idea of the object and then *attribute* to that perception the properties that will be refuted in 4.2, distinct existence and continuity over time.

But attributing, like relating or associating -- these don't sound like perceptions but ways of handling or working with or acting upon perceptions. We can, in addition, have ideas about what we're doing when do this sort of thing, and Hume bundles some of these mental behaviors together and calls them our notion of external existence.

The status of these mental behaviors might be clearer if we look back at Part I where most of the basic machinery is laid out.

There it is claimed, first, that since to conceive of any thing is to conceive of it as existing, existence is not a distinct idea at all, not a separable perception:

That idea, when conjoin'd with the idea of any object, makes no addition to it. — Srap Tasmaner

Just for fun and profit, here is Kant, who some where said that Hume's work 'awakened me from my slumbers', ripping off Hume big-style,

Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition, God is omnipotent, contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or content; the word is, is no additional predicate—it merely indicates the relation of the predicate to the subject. Now, if I take the subject (God) with all its predicates (om- nipotence being one), and say: God is, or, There is a God, I add no new predicate to the conception of God, I merely posit or affirm the existence of the subject with all its predicates—I posit the object in relation to my conception. The content of both is the same; and there is no addition made to the conception, which expresses merely the possibility of the object, by my cogitating the object—in the expression, it is—as absolutely given or existing. Thus the real contains no more than the possible.

The Critique of Pure Reason, Section IV.

The sceptic must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body ... Nature has not left this to his choice. — "

That idea, [existence] when conjoin'd with the idea of any object, makes no addition to it.

He doesn't really need the tyranny of Nature here, does he? The sceptic is not admitting anything of any consequence.

There's a bracketing problem here.

The idea of existence conjoined with the idea of any object makes no addition to it, but existence conjoined with the idea of any object adds everything to it. A unicorn is a horse with a horn, but the main difference between a horses and unicorns is not the horn, it's that horses exist. Nature bites.

On such subtitles, philosophies are built and crumble. 'Maps and territories' anyone?

Are you remaining within the chapter? I've been reading the section, but the exact quote you gave I found in another section of the book, concerning the self, with is several sections after this one. I may be reading too fast, which is why giving the page number is clearer.

But attributing, like relating or associating -- these don't sound like perceptions but ways of handling or working with or acting upon perceptions. We can, in addition, have ideas about what we're doing when do this sort of thing, and Hume bundles some of these mental behaviors together and calls them our notion of external existence. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's likely true. I think that some of this may be alleviated once you get to the part in which he discusses the imagination.

So far as I can see, he's still talking about our perceptions of the object, and then the problem is how do these perceptions tell us something about the existence and continuity of these objects ("body"), which "we must take for granted."

Ultimately, Hume is trying to convince his perceptions that they are perception. And this demonstrates the absurdity of his position. Our starting position to understand another human being is our shared reality….tables, apples, hands….not private notions of perceptions, impressions, etc