imagination is a topic which deserves more discussion- it is a very curious fact of human beings — Manuel

Cool as hell, ain’t it? One of several of those abstract conceptions talked about all the time, a veritable plethora of theories fall apart without them, while there being no such thing.

Minimum stimulation…certainly. Deer, for instance, if they don’t move, you can look right where one is and probably not see it as such.
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it does seem like the dog we see here and now is just like the dog we saw yesterday.
— Mww

The problem though is that the dog is not the complete perception. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, but you’re over-generalizing. Doesn’t matter what the complete perception is, when the judgement of congruency in successive cognitions of a single object, re: “the dog”, requires only the appearance of that object.

Of course we can view a general scene, not picking out any particular object, but picking out particular objects is Hume’s philosophical implication. The mind wouldn’t have an interest in a general scene, or an expanded perception when cognizant of a certain thing.

The reality is that we can perceive with all of the senses at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, no doubt. Maybe the best reason to remove Hume’s notion of perception having to do with the mind, and place it only in that which has to do with sensation. Then, while we may receive sensations from any combination of our five physical sensory devices, other faculties decide which are to become our cognitions.

Something changing is what causes a noise. — Metaphysician Undercover

True, but this works for sight as well. Technically, the irreducible principle is…the intelligibility of any cause is the change of which is its consequence.

I've given it considerable thought, and I just cannot understand Hume's description of perception as a succession of individual perceptions, related to each other through resemblance. — Metaphysician Undercover

It’s easy enough to understand, just not easy to accept. Superficially, his account works well enough; it does seem like the dog we see here and now is just like the dog we saw yesterday. Oversimplification, I know, but still a place to start.

He doesn't properly consider the continuous act of sensing and proposes interruptions to break this act it up into distinct perceptions. (…) this is only done to make perception consistent with thought — Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe that’s exactly the key. If Hume understood it is only possible in humans to have one thought at a time, and asserting the mind to be the container of thoughts, Hume very well could have figured the mind can only do one thing at a time, which must include receiving impressions one at a time, otherwise he suffers self-contradiction. Even though this is logically consistent given the set of premises Hume worked with, it subsequently became obvious the premises were not as sufficiently explanatory as they need to be.

Beginning with the notion that the mind itself doesn’t explain anything that doesn’t depend on that which is supposed to be the constituents of it, or, if not constituency, than at least working in conjunction with it, it becomes clearer that whatever the constituency happens to be, it is that which is doing all the work, and it would behoove the philosopher to start his speculations by naming those and qualifying on their respective function.

It only took less than half a century for that shift to come about, met with almost as many objections as Hume himself caused with his philosophy. Metaphysics is indeed risky business.

Is that so clear to you? — Manuel

I think, sure. Add nails to a bucket; wait a few minutes, add some more. As far as the bucket is concerned, the second batch is a bunch of new nails. Still nails, but new compared to the original nails. Also, however full the bucket is, is contingent on how many batches of nails get put in it.
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Some animals see way more colors than we can (….) Or is this fact of perception contingent on the nervous systems they have? — Manuel

Yep. Each kind of animal’s nervous system is necessary for whatever that kind of animal perceives, but each animal’s perception is contingent on the system it has. It’s like….an object is an effect on our sense organs, while our sensory organs are affected by that object. Outward mind to object we have the necessity of being affected; inward from object to mind we have contingency of effective objects.

“….When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become
double….”

True story: when I was 12, I was in the basketball line-up, listening to the coach. Somehow I got absolutely fascinated by rapidly forcing my ears to open/close as fast as I could move my fingers, such that the coach’s voice was an on/off of sound, in which I heard only bits and pieces of words. It was soooo comical in its oddity; I wasn’t LOL, but I was obviously not paying attention. I got thrown off the team.

So we all receive impressions into our minds, contingent on the effect the object naturally has. In addition, now is included the falsified machinations of their respective deliveries. Our mind’s workings don’t change; the input to it, does. Tantamount to….falsified deliveries may indeed be exceptions to a rule, therefore can be deemed a form of contingency, but still not saying much about what the treatment of the deliveries by the rule is, hence the necessity that any and all deliveries are treated by the same rule, remains constant.

But Hume and I both were conditioned by something that never actually happened in the world beyond ourselves. For him, there were not two objects to look at, and for me there was not broken speech and the coach certainly wasn’t saying anything comical. These were treatments by minds, according to a rule, by which something follows necessarily as an experience. In what form the necessary experience manifests, is contingent on the treatment the mind endows to the impression.
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Kant did talk about it, but gave it a lesser role than Hume did… — Manuel

I’m not sure what Hume did with imagination itself other than stipulate its overall usefulness, but Kant split imagination itself into two separate and distinct forms, pursuant to the domain within the cognitive system. He gave us the reproductive imagination with respect to empirical phenomena, and productive imagination with respect to conceptions that arise absent phenomena. For whatever that’s worth, which isn’t much, insofar as the concern here is with Hume.
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…..imagination may very well supply its ideas with respect to that singular impression, which may not belong to it.
— Mww

Yes, and this may be putting too much power in the imagination. — Manuel

Imagination has no self-control, else it wouldn’t be imagination proper. If Kant gave more overall usefulness to an aspect of the system than Hume, it would be judgement, which became theorized as imagination’s governor. Then of course, judgement needs a governor, for which we shall designate the faculty of reason, but that only works in a tripartite logical system, so….futuristic indeed, for Hume.
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In the Enquiry, of the "missing shade of blue", which destroys his own theory — Manuel

It’s also presented in T. H. N. 1.,1.,1., towards the close of the section, but I didn’t bring it up due to the stipulation carried by the thread title.

If one just grants the mind will supply the missing shade, he can move on to other things about the mind. If one stops to wonder under what authority the mind provides it, then moving on without the required explanation jeopardizes the validity of all that follows. Back in 1738, the mind supplying the color was good enough, so…..onward and upward he went.

we have new perceptions every time we close and then open our eyes. — Manuel

In skepticism regarding the senses, “new” is used once…..

“…. I shut my eyes, and afterwards open them; and find the new perceptions to resemble perfectly those, which formerly struck my senses. This resemblance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another….”

….and if a new impression resembles perfectly a former impression…..what is new about it?

Despite my sympathy with regarding identity, which undercuts the standard notion of “new perceptions”, it appears that Hume intends us to understand “new” to merely indicate the difference in existential quality of the impression alone, a contingent condition of the mind, rather than existential quality of that by which the mind is impressed, which is a necessary condition of the object causing the impression.

If the “strongest relation” is constant conjunction, then the connecting of ideas can still occur without the input from interrupted impressions, which explains how it is we don’t forget what we’re looking at during those interruptions. Apparently, imagination is that by which our ideas continue to be naturally connected to each other absent the impressions to which they would belong if our impressions were uninterrupted. In modern parlance, perhaps we might say, the mind “rolls over” from one impression to the next?

Now…..how do we describe this operation, when the interruption lasts for a week? And in an extreme case, how does this strongest relation “constant conjunction” work for a single impression, e.g., a visually discernible passing comet, or, the death of a particularly important person, in such case as the mind has nothing to which to “roll over”? Imagination must then supply its own ideas, and connect them to each other. But if “impressions are the cause of our ideas, not our ideas that cause impressions”, for any singular impression for which constant conjunction of its ideas doesn’t work with congruent certainty as with repetitive impressions, imagination may very well supply its ideas with respect to that singular impression, which may not belong to it.

There was subsequently a metaphysical theory perfectly describing how this works, but what would Hume say about it? I suspect he would have rejected it, insofar as having already granted imagination extraordinary power, he would have insisted that power cannot merely be the ground of the greater one the new theory prescribes, especially seeing as how he’s already denied its validity.

You know…..consign it to the flames kinda thing.

There is no neat way of introducing a new object while separating this strictly from continuity in time….. — Manuel

Separating this….what? Introduction of a new object? Time itself is continuous, so, no, there is no way to introduce a new object that doesn’t occur somewhere in the continuity of time. But time in general, while itself continuous, is not the series of continuous times of any particular object. For any object that did not exist, then it does, its time is only continuous from the time of its existence. So under these conditions, re: introduction of a new object to the mind as an impression/sensation, such introduction can be separated from the continuity of time in general.

because again, to register something as new would require us to recognize that the object in front of us is not exactly the same, as the object we were looking at mere moments ago. — Manuel

What do we use to qualify newness when we cannot perceive the difference in exactness regarding the object in front of us? If we’re talking impressions, we can’t use logic, insofar as logic has no bearing on mere perception, its sole domain being reason. Which raises another point: if we can’t distinguish exactness of successive impressions, and if impressions are the source of ideas, then it follows that there would be successively indistinguishable ideas corresponding to those indistinguishable impressions. Then….how would we know there was anything new?

In the case where a new object is nothing at all like the object we were looking at, in which case exactness is irrelevant, makes explicit the registration of change belongs to the perceiver, not the object. An object that changes in successive perceptions by the same perceiver, on the other hand, would necessarily be new at the logical level, but may still be represented by the same conception. Healthy apple on a tree, same rotten apple on the ground, is still an apple. Sorta like Descartes’ wax, right?

If you introduce cognition in addition to impressions….. — Manuel

That wouldn’t be fair to Hume. I don’t recall his use of the concept, do you? If so, be interesting to read the context.

However, each perception we have of the object is new…. — Manuel

Nevertheless, the moment of perception, if you will, is still new: the object ever so slightly changes, and so do we. — Manuel

Even from a Hume-ian point of view, in which a perception is that which is given to the mind, in this case as impression rather than idea, which contains a sensation involving the stimulation of sensory apparatus, from the perspective of that system in its operation, as it is performing its function, is it better to say a perception/impression/sensation/stimulus is new, or just in a successive time? If every successive perception is new, what is left to say about a perception that is in fact new, re: a stimulus that has not yet been an impression?

It is still very curious that each perception is new….. — Manuel

Yes, but the representation of these perceptions, is not, re: consciousness. The implication of each new perception is that we have to learn a thing every time we perceive it. Not very efficient of Nature to force that upon us, methinks.

…. and that IN our reasoning, we cannot connect our perceptions, though we can postulate an internal cognitive power, which does such binding for us — Manuel

You mean an internal cognitive power like, “… This resemblance is observed in a thousand instances, and naturally connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another. An easy transition or passage of the imagination along the ideas of these different and interrupted perceptions, is almost the same disposition of mind with that in which we consider one constant and uninterrupted perception.…”?

The problem of the connection of perceptions pointed out by Hume remains, or so it looks like to me, in terms of it being fiendishly difficult to focus on each perception and looking for the connection of perception of object O at T1, T2 and so on. — Manuel

Perception is impression and/or idea, so are we really looking for connection of perceptions, or are we looking for the connection of impression to idea, or, impressions/ideas to each other? Imagination, then gives us the connection between an impression, re: “sensation, emotion”, of O, and its idea, re: “thinking or reasoning” about the sensation of O, in any time of our relation to O, which gives us something about object O.

I don’t see this part as very difficult, so you must have meant something else.

….interested in your point of view regarding these questions…. — javra

You know what they say: careful what you wish for.

In the absence of all present and past impressions, what reasoning might such a hypothetical human yet engage in? — javra

I’d probably go with the notion there wouldn’t be any reasoning going on at all. Or, maybe, given how it is with us normally, I’d say if there was reasoning going on absent past and present impressions, it would be utterly unintelligible to us. I don’t see how I could think, if there was nothing to think about, which is what impressions give us. And I don’t think I’d understand a thing, if it were possible to think stuff like ideas, if those ideas never were presented with an object given from an impression I’ll never have.

The second part of your question, then…..

And this via what content? — javra

….becomes moot, insofar as if reasoning is not possible it may be because it lacks content, or if it is unintelligible, its content would be just as unintelligible as the reasoning to which it belongs.
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in Kantian terms, to paraphrase, (…) is it to be assumed that we’d yet hold the ideas of time as space as contents to reasoning? — javra

In Kantian terms, space and time are not the contents of reasoning. They are nothing but the necessary conditions for the possibility of reasoning. And even that’s not quite right, but close enough to what you’re trying to say. But to answer directly, I might say we might well hold the pure intuitions of space and time in abeyance until there is an impression given to us, which would extend to if even if that never happens. But then, it’d be pretty hard to call ourselves….or that hypothetical human…..human at all. Be a different kind of intellect, no doubt.
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But I’m here addressing the issue in what I take to be Hume’s favor: where it's argued that reasoning is brought about by impressions - such that there can be no reasoning in the complete absence of impressions and of that which is derived from impressions — javra

That’s just it. While it may be the case no reasoning is possible in the complete absence of impressions, reasoning is still very possible without an impression being given that represents the reasoning. We know what a beautiful thing would be upon perception of it, because we already have a sense of what it is to be beautiful. We can conceive infinity but never be impressed with a thing that is infinite. And, above all that, we dream things we’ve never done.
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I personally neither agree with empiricists nor rationalists, instead viewing both experience and reasoning as essential to epistemological content. — javra

I also view both empiricism and rationalism equally essential for empirical knowledge, or knowledge of the empirical content of our cognitions. But I think we have just as much capacity for pure rational thought in the form of logical relations, which have no empirical content. But, if I want to prove that logical relation, I must subject it to empirical conditions, let Mother Nature be the judge.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I do not like the idea of classing all things which appear to the mind, together as perceptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Neither do I, and nowadays, most people don’t. But in 1738……

Clearly a sense perception has a completely different type of existence from an emotion. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely, and they were duly distinguished beginning in Germany, mid-1700’s, not long after Hume’s Treatise. In fact, emotions…..for better or worse…..were removed from empirical cognitions entirely. Ramification here being the post-Renaissance reinstatement of an intrinsic human dualistic nature. Anathema to the then up-and-coming scientific/industrial revolution, indeed.

And I really think we need clarity on what Hume means by "reasoning". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, my question as well, as relayed to . He says what we get from it, re: ideas, but doesn’t go very far in describing what it is. Nowadays, we understand the missing exposition of reasoning in Hume, simply from the texts not having a theory specifying a system capable of it. He’s content to say this happens because of that, but not how this happens.

It is remarkable, that Hume often says stuff like….no one in his right mind can argue with me here….but that’s exactly what his successors did. Nevertheless, it is impossible to tell whether his successors argued because Hume was so obviously misguided, or because arguing is just what humans do.
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Without a separation between the different types of things which are present to the mind, we have no basis for saying that some perceptions are produced from the senses, and some are produced by reasoning — Metaphysician Undercover

Not only a separation in things presented to the mind, but separation in the ways the mind treats those things. Senses present to the mind nothing but empirical data; the mind presents to itself everything except empirical data. We know both of those kinds of things happen, so the account for them must accord with the differences, from which arises the internal/external, subjective/objective dichotomies.

And we’re off to the races…..

the very faculty of reason is again ascribed to natural impulses, instincts; such that it is as inescapable (and I’ll add, a-rational) as is the natural impulse to breath: A toddler does not reason that one breaths in order to live and thereby breaths; nor does it reason that it is using its faculties of reason to develop its reasoning skills in order to better live; yet it inevitably engages in both activities a-rationally - this, the argument would then go, just as much as we adult humans do. — javra

Overall, a well-thought post. Nothing in it to counter-argue conclusively. That being said, it might be worthwhile to consider the different between reason the faculty, which the infant hasn’t developed, and reason the innate human condition, by which development of the faculty is possible.

The infant human brain is sufficiently complex to imbue an autonomous nervous system, which is itself sufficient causality for the infant to breath without either reason or instinct.

That an infant doesn’t reason to the development or use of his faculty of reason, makes explicit something by which such development and use is possible to begin with. It becomes, then, perfectly logical for there to be an innate human condition, not itself a faculty but that which is antecedent to the faculty such that the faculty is possible. Such must be the case, for otherwise all humans would be born with immediate empirical knowledge, immediate language use, and the immediate ability for abstract constructs. They are not so born, which makes necessary nothing but the possibility for all that stuff they eventually do accomplish.

On the other hand, instinct, supposed as that by which an action is prescribed, but without any judgement whatsoever. Instinct says….do this, do this this way and do this now. No negotiations, no explanations, no if-ands-or-buts.

With these notions in mind, it is clear reason the innate human condition, and instinct the innate human capacity, are very different. Or, if not very different, then different enough such that it is unintelligible to interchange them. Like….can’t use a baseball bat to tell you what time it is kinda thing.

Which gets us inevitably to Hume, in that, being an empiricist relying exclusively on experience and observation for his philosophical precepts, says while it is not perfectly legitimate to use a baseball bat to tell him what time it is, he doesn’t have much choice because he doesn’t have a clock.

Anyway…..Hume came so close “…to consider the matter aright…”. Reason is wonderful and unintelligible in itself, but it is not so much an instinct in our souls, as a necessary condition of our humanity. Reason the faculty, then, reduces to merely a necessary condition of our intelligence, our humanity being presupposed.

”… Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding…." — Manuel

The times. Always the times. It was difficult for Hume and everyone else of those times, for none of them gave space and time, for the missing principle of simple inherence, and matter and form, for the principle of common connection, the re-consideration required to construct the foundation of a new and sufficiently explanatory theory.

Still, neither of those hypotheticals would work if the mind was not relieved of its being the seat of perceptions. Once perception became the purview of sensibility, the physical apparatus alone, then it became possible to separate cognitive functionalities, and at the same time connect them all together into a system.

And you know as well as I, that unless the power and absolute necessity of a priori reasoning denied by Hume and continental empiricists in general, became part and parcel of the rational human condition, there wouldn’t be a sufficiently explanatory theory, ever.
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The way it looks to me, is that he has presented us some rather big problems — Manuel

Exactly right: he presented the problems better than anyone else, in which his true claim to fame resides, but realized his inability to solve them. Highly commendable, I should think.

…..two important premises (…) The first one (...) we cannot doubt the existence of body, that to do so would be unreasonable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kinda-sorta. What he says first about the existence of bodies, is, “…it is in vain to ask whether there be body or not.…”, which is a weak euphemism for, don’t expect an answer if you do ask. It isn’t so much unreasonable to ask, as it is unreasonable to expect an answer.

This section regards skepticism with respect to the senses, which follows the section on skepticism regarding reason, so the beginning of this section carries over from it, in which it is reiterated that, “…so the sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts, that he cannot defend his reason by reason…”. It appears then, that Hume, after tacitly relegating reason to an indefensible power, yet acknowledging that it is reason itself that allows one to ask about the existence of objects, the implication is that it is in vain to ask an indefensible power, pretty much anything at all. The skeptic continues to reason and believe, but simply cannot justify his reasoning and believing with the very tool he used to acquire to them.

I agree Hume intends it to be the case we cannot doubt the existence of bodies, insofar as he explicitly states, “… but it is 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 yes, we take for granted that there are bodies, but under one and only one condition, which is…as long as we don’t reason or believe. Which still leaves us to prove what we’ve merely taken for granted. And how do we prove anything, without the trust of reason, for which we have been rightly shown we should be skeptical.

Do perceptions of the mind, re: impressions and/or ideas, count as reasonings? If they do, then bodies are granted. If they are not, bodies are not necessarily granted. Hume says, “…. Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions: and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul…”. Apparently, then, impressions are not reasonings, from which follows the existence of bodies is not granted to impressions.

Ideas, on the other hand, he says, “…. By ideas I mean the faint images of these (impressions) in thinking and reasoning….”. Here it appears bodies are to be granted, insofar as “in all our reasonings” is the condition necessary for taking bodies for granted.

Now we got a problem, caused by, “… it sometimes happens, that our impressions are so faint and low, that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas...”, and, “…. impressions are the causes of our ideas, not our ideas of our impressions…”.

Holy Crap, Batman!!! We cannot grant the existence of bodies to sensations, where it belongs as a seemingly “first appearance”, because impressions are not reasonings, but the existence of bodies is granted to ideas, because it is reasoning, but impressions cause those ideas, so….sensation of an object cannot be so low as to be the same as its idea, impression of an object causes our reasoning to an idea of that object……the very reasoning of which we have already been shown we should be skeptical of.

We’ve been granted the very thing we’ve no warrant to trust. The skeptic cannot defend his reason by reason, so how does he defend it, or does he not bother defending the very thing by which he acquires his ideas?

Disclaimer: It must be in the “in all our reasonings” by which this apparent absurdity arises, to which I admit. I hope you notice that by quoting Hume verbatim I am making a concerted effort to suppress my Kantian prejudices.

Where did I go wrong? And if I didn’t, or not enough to bother, then is it any wonder that dogmatic slumbers awoke?

Agreed, neither drawn from, nor extracted by, experience, and both innate conditions. I might add that the animal has instinct moreso than reason, while the human animal has reason moreso than instinct. He became civilized, donchaknow. Instinct no longer serves as well as reason.

Like Hume…..diminuating degrees regarding instinct, but accumulating degrees regarding judgement, kinda like the argument in your 1. 4. 1.

My reading of Hume is that he does take reason to be a faculty on its own, but he consistently tries to show how weak it is — Manuel

Ahhhh….cool. Thanks. There are places where he seems to give that impression, but doesn’t come right out and say it.
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….reason told us for thousands of years that we were the center of the universe, which is not at all a silly view due to the evidence available at the time — Manuel

Yep. Judgement parsed the evidence, reason found no contradictions. POOF!! Knowledge.

Later, judgement parsed new evidence, reason found no contradictions: new knowledge.

Evidence, judgement and knowledge changed over time, reason did not.
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The reason we trust is reason the human condition, not reason the cognitive faculty. The former is a logical system, the latter is an aspect of the system. That’s what I meant to say, but I strayed from a thread concerned with a philosophy that doesn’t have this as a precept. My bad.

substituting 'Nature' for 'God', so it's not such an advance as it might seem. — Srap Tasmaner

Hmmmm. 1., 3., sec XIV intimates Hume considers them as quite different, even if one follows from the other.
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Hume is quite clear that the belief in body does not arise either from the senses or from reason, but from a sort of instinct, and much of this chapter is in some ways a description of how we adapt ourselves to having this instinct — thus the 'double existence' theory. — Srap Tasmaner

I’d have to examine deeper, to affirm adaptation to instinct suffices for a cause. I can see where he denies senses and reason as being sufficient cause of belief, but not that some kind of instinct, is.

But your comment is quite beautiful in itself. I’ll work on incorporating as much of it as I can justify.

I don't want to be overwhelmingly the only person talking here. — Manuel

Ehhhhhh….it’s your tread, so you’ve the onus for responding to everyone writing to you, so you’re potentially the most talkative anyway, assuming folks don’t just talk among themselves. Which is sorta disrespectful, I should think.

It isn’t that we can’t find reasons. It’s that our reason, the faculty, can’t be trusted. But Hume had to have trusted his reason in order to claim “experience and observation” is all we can trust.

Do you think, given this…..

“… We may here take occasion to observe a very remarkable error, which being frequently inculcated in the schools, has become a kind of establishd maxim, and is universally received by all logicians. This error consists in the vulgar division of the acts of the understanding, into CONCEPTION, JUDGMENT and REASONING, and in the definitions we give of them.…”
(1., 3., VII…..page number unavailable, sorry)

….that Hume didn’t even consider reason to be a dedicated faculty of its own? If not, I could see why he would consider it untrustworthy, insofar as the quote implies other influences on it, or, it is dependent on or conjoined necessarily with, other aspects of understanding. E.C.H.U. probably answers that, but we’re not there, so…..

We may not trust our reasons, but we have no choice but to trust reason itself. It is what makes us human, after all, along with morality.

Because the cause is not identified, Hume is left saying that we "feign" continued existence. He then proceeds to analyze why we have a propensity toward believing this idea which has been feigned. — Metaphysician Undercover

A worthy exposition of the issue, I must say. The solution….of a sort…..must await the “transcendental unity of apperception” for its sufficient analysis. But, being nonetheless a metaphysical analysis, however logically coherent it may be, it is still a kind of feigning, insofar as it remains a speculative causality. The unity of apperception is, of course, represented by the concept of consciousness, which in its turn, we can say truthfully is the source of recreation of impressions/ideas from thought after annihilation from perception, and, even more importantly, maintains an impression’s successive identity. Hume did actually touch on this condition, but didn’t give to the conception of consciousness itself, enough systemic power.

But all that aside, you’re right, I think, in that Hume didn’t identify a sufficient cause for continued existence of our impressions. And I think there is a very good reason why he didn’t carry his theory further, re: he mistakes that all perceptions of the mind, which are only one of either impressions or ideas, can only be derived from “experience and observation”, and that impressions and ideas are necessarily connected to each other.

The times. Always the times.

…..unresolvable inconsistency which Hume finds himself up against. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely, and when he says…

“…. And as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation….”

….in which it is easy to see the obvious inconsistency. It may well be the case that the science of man underpins all the other sciences, but to treat of that science by using the same conditions as the other sciences, it cannot then be the ground for them.

Still, consider the times. In the treatise, Hume mentions God four times. Count ‘em. Four. In however-many-hundreds of pages. This goes great lengths to show the separation from the philosophical standard of the time he is making, and for which he is, as says, definitely of historical importance. Can’t really blame the guy for not getting the finer points out in the open, when he was the first to seriously open the box out of which his successors would step.

And if historical precedent is any indicator, it stands to reason the current philosophical paradigm will be shown its own inconsistencies, sooner or later.
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What I think this indicates is that we ought not claim certainty about the existence of bodies. — Metaphysician Undercover

From Hume’s point of view, from the Treatise, you mean? I’d agree with his premise, or principle, that our reason is insufficient for grounding the certainty for the existence of bodies. But it isn’t reason by which that certainty arises anyway, so his claim with respect to reason does nothing to prohibit some other means by which the certainty of the existence of things is given.

You know…..it’s awful hard to maintain the conceptual schemes of outdated philosophies. One has to keep in mind what the original author knew about, and from which his terminology derives, even if he himself alters its meaning. For instance, perception. Perception now means something very different than how Hume wanted it to be understood with respect to his “new” philosophical approach. The concept of mind itself was still taken to be one half of the entirety of human nature, while in later times it became merely an apex placeholder, having no exacting import of its own, at all.

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

Nature, in deeming the question of the existence of bodies too important to be determinable by the skeptic, who can’t trust his reason by means of reason anyway, forces the skeptic to grant the principles which in turn make necessary the existence of bodies.

If his reason cannot be trusted with respect to determining the existence of bodies, why would it be trusted to reasonably ask for the causes by which his believing that the existence of bodies is to be taken for granted? Furthermore, why would we be “induced to believe”, when the principle which grants the existence of bodies has been given to us, insofar as Nature has “….not left this to his choice….”?

On the one hand there is no mistaking the existence of bodies, but on the other, the skeptic may actually doubt how it is possible the existence of bodies is given, for the simple reason he has no philosophical system by which it is proved. Which means, in effect, he rejects that Nature has forced him to accept it. So….the section on skepticism of the senses apparently begins with a disguised antinomy.

It almost looks like Hume is chastising skeptical philosophers, but if that is true, it begs the question, why would Kant call him, “…. perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all skeptical philosophers…”, if not to say if one is to be a skeptical philosopher, he should be better at it than anyone else.

All this to show you guys have progressed but I’m still stuck on the first page.

Cool.

Important historical figures, yes.

You’re agreeing with Hume’s philosophy on human understanding, then?

Makes no sense at all…… — Manuel

It did in 1738.

……but it's what we have.[/quote]

It’s what we had.

Nothing against Hume, he “…. perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all sceptical philosophers…”

I think it’s pretty much spot on. Less complex version than mine on pg 2.

Yeah, well, you know....times for fun, times for serious, a la Andy Rooney.

Oh, Easy as that? Who’da thunk it. How come it’s never been done, then? Didn’t think ideas could be undermined. The objects of ideas, maybe, but.....oh well.

So be it.

That's a matter of taking physics way, way outside of its purview. — Manuel

Quite right. How does an idea become undermined?

Hahaha, the joke is on us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, fine. I thought about it for awhile, but I can’t come up with a clever comeback for your clever comeback.

From your first “here”....

“....if you do it correctly, you will always get the same answer no matter which coordinates you use....”

.....and from Einstein 1905.....

“....If, relative to K, K′ is a uniformly moving co-ordinate system devoid of rotation, then natural phenomena run their course with respect to K′ according to exactly the same general laws as with respect to K....”

.....and from Blagojević 2002.....

“.....Newton's laws hold in their simplest form only in a family of reference frames, called inertial frames. The laws of mechanics have the same form in all inertial frames....”

......put together seemingly demonstrate that we are indeed in our own inertial reference frames, insofar as the simplest physical laws being used correctly are why the answers will always be the same no matter where on Earth (K) you’re standing (K’).

When I get back from my ~SOL trip to Never-neverland, on the other hand, then we can talk about why you’re old and gray and I’m still pretty. But if you don’t care about that because it ain’t gonna happen, we can discuss why you’re 3 x 10-6sec old’r’n me after my trip to London on a Big Jet Plane, which does happen, but good luck measuring THAT on your trusty Timex.
————

All y’all self-implied adults.....sit back, put up your swollen ankles and enjoy yet another shot of Geritol.

THE TODDLERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!!!!

Everybody’s entitled to disagree as they see fit.

No need to explain. I hold with most of your position in real/reality philosophy, reject any position calling for those silly marks bracketing those words, in everybody’s grammar philosophy.

The biological structures, which include the senses, must be ordered in such a way so as to fulfill each one's purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

True enough, but couldn’t that be conditioned by natural evolution?

The argument is that it can only be an intellect which creates this biological order, the order which is necessary for these parts to serve their various purposes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, true enough, but that kind of intelligence isn’t human, nor could it be, and human intelligence is the only one we have non-contradictory grounds to discuss.

this places an intellect as prior to the brain, and impossible that the intellect is a product of, or dependent on, the brain. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, that’s been a logical inconsistency for eons. Hence....epiphenomenalism and such like. But whatcha gonna do when there’s no answer that doesn’t ask its own question. Speculate, of course, also been done for eons and with just as much logical inconsistencies between them.

Pick an explanation, I guess, run with it ‘til you trip over it. Metaphysical reductionism can only go so far before it defeats itself, right?

different individuals aren't using a common basis of understanding when they each refer to 'reality' — sime

If this is true, it is impossible to explain how it is that there are commonalities in every human’s understanding of reality. No human ever, in any culture in any time, ever jumped up in the air...and didn’t meet with the inevitability of coming down. While some of them may indeed reason differently than others as to why they all always come down, the common basis of understanding the reality that they will, remains, no matter the why.

That there is a common basis for any human’s understanding is simply that each one of them is human. Irrealism, on the other hand, wants to thwart the rules of understanding, the common basis of it, by granting exceptions to the rule the authority to negate the rule. This absurdity disappears by restricting reality to a mere general metaphysical conception, re: , constructed and apprehended by humans alone. Then those silly marks bracketing the word, which carries the implication it isn’t a valid conception in the first pace, can disappear as well.

Now, it may be the case that humans aren’t using a common basis for understanding when they each refer to the content of reality, what can be said about that which belongs to the conception, that which is subsumed under it without contradiction, while the concept of reality itself remains untouched.
———-

But isn't even this supposedly aperpsectival concept of 'shared reality' relative to perspective, and thus not a defence against irrealism? — sime

Irrealism, re: Goodman 1978, is just another speculative metaphysical theory, having less logical support than its predecessors. Rather than the parsimony of many conceptions of one world’s reality, the theory suggests there are as many worlds as there are conceptions of the reality of them. Rather than granting the validity of the notion my experiences in this reality are different than your experiences in this same reality, it just might be the case my experiences relate only to my world but your experiences relate only to your world.

A possible defense against irrealism begins, then, with the fact that experiences....or perspectives if you wish.....belong to and are processes of the owner of them, predicated entirely on understanding. The world, and the singular reality of it, whatever it may be, reduces to naught but the necessary condition for all of them.

Not that irrealism is unjustified under its conditions; just that it’s less justifiable under others.

Agreed.

Hence, the non-reciprocity I brought up way back. Reality is the real, but the real is not necessarily reality.

Carry on, then?

I guess I tend to think of reality in material terms, but that doesn't mean I reject the reality of things like itches. — T Clark

Very well. But then, do you not have to resolve the logical dilemma of material things connected with a immediate and necessary causality, but itches, and the like, that are not? Seems the more consistent to reject as material reality that which has no connection to a causality, while acknowledging its being real, insofar as if it wasn’t real, with respect to the case at hand......where would you know to scratch?

Most fun I’ve had with a thread in ages, so, thanks for that.

Bees don’t bite.

Just wondering whether the itch you had...assuming you admit to it....was real. And if it was, would it at the same time, be a member of reality in the way a statue or a ‘57 DeSoto, is.

‘Tis a veritable playground here, aye.

Seriously. Ever had an itch?

that what we mean by "real" and "reality" only has meaning in relation to everyday human experience. I think that's a metaphysical position, so I wasn't looking to see if it was right, but if it is useful. — T Clark

.....I'm the most ruthlessly rational figure on the forum? — T Clark

The first goes a long way in supporting the second, I’ll wager.

That neither of you highlighted me I understand indicates mutual non-solicitation of a response, but some of this is getting out of hand. You guys are exhibiting inconsistencies between comments.

I really didn't understand your use of "tool". — Metaphysician Undercover

A tool is just some means that facilitates an end. Morality is, then, merely that tool in a human such that an act he actually performs is in accordance with the means for determining what that act should be. I need no sensibility, and indeed sometimes it’s even better....more comfortable for me.....if there is none, for the accomplishment of my moral ends. We may, or indeed even may not, witness our own acts through sensibility, but the witnessing of them is very far removed from the tool employed for the determination of what they should be, from which it follows that not witnessing at all, removes sensibility from consideration entirely, while the determining tool remains in full force.

I didn’t get from your comments, that you hold the senses are existentially dependent upon an intellect, or that the intellect orders the individual parts, that is to say, the biological structures, of the senses. What is done with the product of the sense’s biological structures, which is nothing more than mere mental/cognitive stimuli, considered as initially ordering the parts of that which is sensed, is nonetheless the dedicated purview of the intellect. In which case, it does hold that the intellect is antecedent to that which stimulates it. That senses don’t think and intellects don’t perceive, should be perfectly obvious to those examining the human condition, from any justifiable point of view.

I don’t see it as unreasonable that the intellect can exist in the complete absence of physiological sensory perception. In the first place, sensory perception is redundant, insofar as all sensation is from perception and all perception is sensory, the reciprocity of them being impossible, and that which affects the brain is physiological, re: cognitive neuroscience, but that which affects the intellect is not, re: pure speculative metaphysics. It is possible for the intellect to operate on that which is impossible to perceive, but it is absurd to suppose there is that perception upon which the intellect cannot operate. We all think in our sleep, or, more accurately perhaps, there is precedent for the justification that any human can think in his sleep, which is the same as saying the intellect is functioning in the complete absence of the physiological senses and perception.

That there is no intellect without the physiological structures sufficient for it, is given, but that structure is the brain and ancilliary connectivity, not mechanistic sensory devices.

I now return you to your local......ehhhhh, you know.

Is not a preposition that is true, linked to a fact? — PhilosophyRunner

That every change is a succession in time is true. An instance of this change is a truth linked to a fact; any instance of any given change is a truth linked to its fact, but not every instance of every change can be a truth linked to its fact. No inductive inference is factually provable antecedent to its experience. Analytical, or tautological, truths have no possible ground in fact, but only in logical form.

That fact exists, if nothing else. — PhilosophyRunner

Facts don’t exist; they merely represent the relations under which physical objects exist, in accordance with the intelligence that affords such determinations. “It is a fact that.....” just says some conditions relative to physical objects are such that their negation is contradictory.

While, conventionally speaking, true propositions are related to facts, but it is not necessary that they do, insofar as it is not necessarily a fact that makes a proposition true. Philosophy proper does not concern itself with convention.

Is there a truth value to "Objective reality is not a question of fact." — PhilosophyRunner

Yes. It is true objective reality is not a question of fact.

If there is a truth value to the above statement, does that not show objective reality does exist. — PhilosophyRunner

No. The truth value of a proposition is not sufficient for proof of existence. Truth value is nothing but logical relation to the LNC and resides nowhere else than propositions. Proof of existence, for humans, is experience.

Objective reality is merely a conception, a thought by which the manifold of possible existences is contained. The manifold of possible existences does not make objective reality itself an existence, from which follows necessarily, re: proof of existence, that the manifold of all possible existences is an impossible experience for humans.

Objective reality is not a question of fact, because no mere conception is ever a fact. Objective reality is a metaphysical idea, technically a category of pure reason, hence whether or not there is an objective reality is a metaphysical question, re: is an aggregate of all possible existences itself a possible existence, which will have a truth value relative to the premises in the argument, given the condition that any argument grounded in possibility, cannot be argued as fact.

Does the notion of objective reality seem real to humans in general? Sure it does, and that’s the point of the OP, innit?