Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Hume follows Locke’s procedure of starting with the question where our ideas come from.

Part of his answer, if I read him correctly, is that every idea we have must arise from some experience or impression we have received through our senses. It’s an argument which has an inherent appeal. Yet I wonder. I think specifically of recent experiments which seem to suggest that very young children still have an innate sense of fairness. Does this come from an experience or impression they have received? Or are there some ideas which are simply in the human mind in the same way we think certain animals have instinctive responses to situations the first time they encounter them? Or am I misreading Hume here?

His language for the most part seems clear enough, but I am beginning to suspect that the thoughts he is proposing are more complex and richer than the language would at first suggest. I think he is deserving of more thought than I have perhaps so far been giving him.

Are others having the same thought? Or are you persuaded that you can gain a satisfactory grasp of his ideas on one or two readings?

This section is very clear and common sensical so its hard to dispute his assertions. I also would say the being as clear as he can be is one of his objectives as he declared in section 1.

I remember hearing about a study where the experimenter was hanging clothes on a line. On the ground below him he would have a baby who was old enough to crawl but not walk. He would purposely drop a clothespin. The baby would invariably pick up the clothespin and hand it back to him. This suggested that a sense of helpfulness is innate.

In a footnote to the copy I'm reading (an on-line copy from the University of Adelaide) says, "may we assert that all our impressions are innate, and our ideas not innate."

So Hume doesn't deny innateness, he just redefines it as an "impression"--by which he means as I understand a sense or impression of the nerves--and not a thought.

Tony wrote: "... He would purposely drop a clothespin. The baby would invariably pick up the clothespin and hand it back to him. This suggested that a sense of helpfulness is innate.."

I don't think the act of returning something in and of itself suggests a sense of helpfulness. It could be that the baby just disliked the change (the drop of the clothespin), and had no idea whether the change harmed the experimenter, which it obviously didn't.

This seems to be the old nature-nurture discussion.

One might initially think that Hume subscribes to the nurture position, but I guess Tony is right. That he has room for instincts and personality (our firmware, for instance our basic ethics as social animals), calling them 'inward sentiments'.

In general this position makes sense to me. Experience and instincts, or outward and inward sentiments, are the shadows on the wall, and that’s all we really have. To start with.

This is going to be an off the wall comment that I can't possibly rigorously defend, but my feeling at the moment is that Hume is setting us up for Wittgenstein -- in the sense that much of philosophy is etymology -- all those human attempts to apply words or vocabulary to (rigorous) observation of the world about him or her or maybe even some communal "us". (E.g., such as the observations that come out of shared research or "big data" or....)

(Not deliberate set-up, of course:
Hume: 1711 -1776
Wittgenstein: 1889 - 1951)

Patrice wrote: " i think hume got a lot from Locke. Locke, Hume, adam smith, Burke, all of those great British minds......."

My comment above and yours led to a bit of exploration, Patrice. Curiosity.....

1741 Hume: 1711 -1776
1662 John Locke: 1632-1704
1753 Adam Smith: 1723-1790
1759 Edmund Burke: 1729-1797

(First number is the year each was 30 years old. Just a very arbitrary way of thinking about liklihood of influencing each other.)

These are the people, in year of birth order, that a Google search for Hume showed up as his influencing ("influenced by David Hume"). I have no idea how accurate or rigorously extensive it is. Thomas Reid is marked as being Hume's "earliest and fiercest critic." I don't know Reid's work at all, but his criticisms probably could provide some insight for reading Hume.

Thomas Reid: 1710-1796
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach: 1723-1789
Kant: 1724 -1804
James Madison: 1751-1836
Arthur Schopenhauer: 1788-1860
John Stuart Mill: 1806-1873
William James: 1842-1910
Bertrand Russell: 1872-1970
Edmund Husserl 1859-1938
Alfred Einstein: 1879-1955
Sir Karl Popper: 1902-1994
A.J. Ayer: 1910-1989
J.L. Mackie: 1917-1981
Gilles Deleuze: 1925-1995
Noam Chromsky: 1928
Jerry Fodor: 1935 -
Simon Blackburn: 1944--

Now I'll take a look at the list that supposedly influenced Hume. (Yes, that probably should have been first.)

Well, no I won't, at least for the time being. For Hume, Wikipedia/Google does not readily supply a list of those who allegedly influenced him.

Tony wrote: "I remember hearing about a study where the experimenter was hanging clothes on a line. On the ground below him he would have a baby who was old enough to crawl but not walk. He would purposely drop a clothespin. The baby would invariably pick up the clothespin and hand it back to him. This suggested that a sense of helpfulness is innate"

I would agree to the extend that the baby has an innate desire to interact with the adult. For all his young life the primary experience has been interaction, connection, with the people around him. The baby gets fed, cleaned, carried, cuddled, people play with him. The clothespin is just one more prop to partake in interaction.

Innate:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...

1: existing in, belonging to, or determined by factors present in an individual from birth : native, inborn innate behavior
2: belonging to the essential nature of something : inherent
3: originating in or derived from the mind or the constitution of the intellect rather than from experience

Hume seems to be using 1 as his working definition in this context.

Did he prove that ideas are not present in a person from birth?

I don't think so. Being present from birth is not the same as being known from birth. He merely showed that ideas are not known or manifested in our minds without our interaction with the world. Neither did he prove that ideas are derived from experience as their necessary and sufficient cause. Quite the contrary, he acknowledged that many ideas have no counterparts in experience.

Hume is trying to resolve the conflict between Locke and Leibniz by saying it is a verbal dispute.

New Essays on Human Understanding

Locke's "blank slate" theory was that there are no inate ideas.

Leibniz's book against Locke's theory is less well known (certainly by me).

Hume's footnote to section 2:

It is probable that no more was meant by those, who denied innate ideas, than that all ideas were copies of our impressions; though it must be confessed, that the terms, which they employed, were not chosen with such caution, nor so exactly defined, as to prevent all mistakes about their doctrine. For what is meant by innate? If innate be equivalent to natural, then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be allowed to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to what is uncommon, artificial, or miraculous. If by innate be meant, contemporary to our birth, the dispute seems to be frivolous; nor is it worth while to enquire at what time thinking begins, whether before, at, or after our birth. Again, the word idea, seems to be commonly taken in a very loose sense, by LOCKE and others; as standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations and passions, as well as thoughts. Now in this sense, I should desire to know, what can be meant by asserting, that self-love, or resentment of injuries, or the passion between the sexes is not innate?

But admitting these terms, impressions and ideas, in the sense above explained, and understanding by innate, what is original or copied from no precedent perception, then may we assert that all our impressions are innate, and our ideas not innate.

To be ingenuous, I must own it to be my opinion, that LOCKE was betrayed into this question by the schoolmen, who, making use of undefined terms, draw out their disputes to a tedious length, without ever touching the point in question. A like ambiguity and circumlocution seem to run through that philosopher's reasonings on this as well as most other subjects.

PS- Hume is saying, in one sense, no one can deny that 'impressions' are innate (i.e., every human being has them.. innate = natural), on the other hand, no one can deny that a newborn infant cannot speak, cannot do arithmetic, etc... there are no "innate" ideas.

I must admit, I got a little confused by Hume's own terminology.

"Impressions" seem to be 'sensations,' but also strong, primal impulses like hunger, fear of the dark, -- at least, I think this is what he means by "innate impressions."

The statement that what is innate is natural (2nd M-W definition) is more of a tautology than a valid definition. It presupposes a knowledge of human nature, that we know what belongs to human nature, which is begging the question already.

Patrice wrote: "..important point is that we cant fully know what we have never experienced...."

I'm trying to resist the temptation to turn this into a discussion of Plato again.

Granted that we cannot know what we have not experienced. The question is: Is sensory experience the only kind of experience humans can have? A Platonist would argue that the soul has its own experience apart from the senses, and the religious would say mystical experiences are as real as sensory experience.

Patrice wrote: "wasn't Leibniz the philosopher voltaire made fun of in candide?
pangloss? the best of all possible worlds? i would have thought that book
finished him off."

I haven't read Leibniz yet, but, if Aristophanes' Clouds didn't finish off Socrates, it is unlikely that Voltair's Candide would finish him off.

Patrice wrote: "it seems to me that plato is in every discussion. how would you compare what hume is saying to what you just wrote about Platos pov?"

It's too early to tell. Hume hasn't said anything new in the first two sections.

Nemo wrote: "I haven't read Leibniz yet, but, if Aristophanes' Clouds didn't finish off Socrates, it is unlikely that Voltaire's Candide would finish him off. ."

LOL! (Ideas, even if they depend on impressions, have a way of reappearing. 0r perhaps because they do depend on impressions, which have their own ways of morphing.)

It is widely accepted in science today that empirical observations include extensions of human capabilities, ranging from such things as human eye glasses ("spectacles," "invented" in the 12th century, if I recall their history accurately), let alone telescopes or to Hubble or roving spaceships or to the Hadron Collider or to the parallel processing of Big Data.

In thinking about these things, I find it fun to consider the information that is known and speculated about the evolution of the eye as a way of gathering "impressions," in the seeming Humean sense, of the world.

Patrice wrote: "...the important point is that we cant fully know what we have never experienced...."

Patrice, I am not convinced that we can even fully know what we have experienced. But I also perceive that we sometimes "know" things better than those who have "experienced" them.

Patrice wrote: "...since my husband is an art professor i asked him to slog through the page on color. it made perfect sense to him, but Hume said it is the exception to his rule so is barely worth mentioning. but i think its important. our brains are designed to find patterns so if one color is missing, even if we have never seen that color in our lives, we will know it is missing, ..."

Since you are starting to love this, Patrice, you (and your husband) would probably enjoy the Wikipedia article on "The Missing Shade of Blue." It provides arguments, both pro and con, on the significance and on why Hume included this example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mis...

(I like the article; I can't say, at least yet, that I understand it.)

Patrice wrote: " i find his sentence structure difficult to read and just as i get it he contradicts himself. but he is saying something important...i think! ..."

LOL! I believe Hume is viewed as one of the thinkers at that boundary into "modern."

Patrice wrote: "Hume says truth can only come from sensory evidence. we cant know what we have not experienced. Rousseau invented the noble savage out of his imagination. it was a romantic Idea without any basis in reality. communism is a romantic idea that has never worked anywhere ever, look at communism at work...it doesn't work. yet the idea lives on. Hume is saying show me. show me"

But if I understand this correctly--and believe me, I don't know that I do!--Hume would say that Rousseau invented the noble savage out of things he already "knew" and put them together ("compounding"), and Communism is an Idea created by "compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing" previously known things as well (depending on how you view its origins, I guess). It seems whether these Ideas are realistic or workable is beside the point. Or is it? I don't know--I'm just getting my feet wet here. (And when I Think about that, it doesn't feel much like actually getting my feet wet!)

Patrice wrote: "is a fantasy experiential? ..."

I don't remember where it is, but Hume does talk about human's ability to "create" fantasy creatures from elements of those that are experienced. That seems fairly straightforward to me.

Strangely, I'm finding that logic harder to apply insofar as "imagining" a "missing" color in a continuum. I get lost in the arguments put forward in the Wiki article. I ask myself what those who study the perception of color by the human brain could add to the discussion -- or confuse or expand it.

At this point in reading Hume, I would posit that, especially in our 21st century world, there are "impressions" that depend on our extensions of our "natural" or "innate" senses.

Lily wrote: "..It is widely accepted in science today that empirical observations include extensions of human capabilities,...."

Yes, the advance of technology has made it possible to collect astronomical amount of data far beyond the capabilities of our senses. It was believed that our knowledge would increase in proportion to the amount of empirical data available. If ideas are derived from the senses, then that's what you would expect. As it turned out, it was not the case. We're struggling with analyzing the enormous amount of data where insights are few and far between.

The situation gives new meaning to the expression, "having eyes but do not see, having ears and do not hear".

Patrice wrote: "the missing blue ...the point is that although you have never seen, never experienced a certain shade of blue you will know it is missing..."

What of imagining previously unknown elements with certain characteristics filling specific gaps in the periodic table; imagining particles that perform necessary roles in certain theories, like the Higgs boson; Einstein never experienced a gravity wave but he certainly imagined them; or imagining transitional fossils that fill gaps where and when we might expect to see them. Would these be other examples of what Hume is getting at? If so, is the missing blue such a lone contradiction to the rule? It only seems natural to imagine both that there is something and what that something is like that may fit into any perceived breaks in continuity.

One could argue we had some experience with these things. But does one really have more experience with things before they are discovered than what one has with of the other shades of blue that allowed the gap to be detected? Is one's experience with these undiscovered things really less than one's experience of the missing shade of blue?

The missing shade of blue is important as an indication that there’s something wrong with Hume’s theory of perception.

It made me reflect on how relative our observations are. What is big and what is small, where does green start and blue end? Russell comments on the vagueness involved and no doubt a modern psychologist could tell us a lot more on this subject.

However, does all this undercut Hume’s thesis that all ideas ultimately derive from impressions?

Our observations can only be relative if we're using impressions to judge them. We can only judge something big by using our experience of other things to categorize it as such. I'm not unconvinced by Hume's argument on this point. The examples David gave above solidify it for me, even though Hume seems to think the color example is unique. On that point I would disagree with him.

Nemo wrote: "Tony wrote: "... He would purposely drop a clothespin. The baby would invariably pick up the clothespin and hand it back to him. This suggested that a sense of helpfulness is innate.."


I don't think the act of returning something in and of itself suggests a sense of helpfulness. It could be that the baby just disliked the change (the drop of the clothespin), and had no idea whether the change harmed the experimenter, which it obviously didn't.


..."

True. I wonder what the suggested conclusion would be if the baby would return a bottle of cyanide or something else harmful to the experimenter. (that he was 'helping' a suicide attempt?) Some of the experiments on innate human nature are really hard to prove as the conclusion we suggest from the results is just one of the many possible interpretations. But as the 'exception' of the missing blue shade implies, the motive behind returning the clothespin may be an attempt to fill the missing gap or revert to an old familiar pattern or the will/instinct(I'm not sure which word to use here) to seek and revert to a homeostatic equilibrium. But where does our idea of filling the gap or reverting to a familiar pattern or state emerge? Why do we know or sense (again, not sure which term to use here) that going back to the status quo is or feels better than changing?

Borum wrote: ",,,Why do we know or sense (again, not sure which term to use here) that going back to the status quo is or feels better than changing?..."

The evidence that we do?

Wendel wrote: "The missing shade of blue is important as an indication that there’s something wrong with Hume’s theory of perception.

It made me reflect on how relative our observations are. What is big and wha..."

'Exceptions' would imply that the exceptions are so few and far between and minimally influential that the maxim overrules the exceptions but I don't think that the human mind's tendency to fill the gap or find a pattern is an exception. In fact, I think there is a possiblity that it's even innate. However, I also don't think the possibility that there are some innate ideas makes it impossilbe for some ideas to be based on impressions. Could there be a different category of ideas?

Lily wrote: "Borum wrote: ",,,Why do we know or sense (again, not sure which term to use here) that going back to the status quo is or feels better than changing?..."

The evidence that we do?"

Not sure if the reason for the baby's returning the clothespin was really that he felt better staying the same way, but even if it is, why? That's what I've always wanted to know. I've been wondering about this status quo bias (when in doubt do nothing) and there's a study that examines the neural pathway that is involved in rejecting the default.

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/13/60...

I think there's another work by Kahneman but I can't find it at the moment.

Borum wrote: "That's what I've always wanted to know. I've been wondering about this status quo bias..."

Don't you think your wanting to know is also an attempt to reach an equilibrium, a state of knowing as opposed to unknowing? :)

I'm not suggesting that is always the case, but only one of the possibilities. Another possibility is that babies are curious by nature, they imitate adults and do other things simply to find out what will happen or what it feels like, to interact with the world and people, as Kerstin pointed out earlier.

It may also be what drove Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden tree. Did they know what death was? If there was no death in Eden, the punishment of death would have meant nothing to them, and had no deterring power.

Nemo wrote: "Borum wrote: "That's what I've always wanted to know. I've been wondering about this status quo bias..."

Don't you think your wanting to know is also an attempt to reach an equilibrium, a state of..."

That IS a possibility. I've always wanted to why I wanted to know. :-) Why do babies and children and I have a curiosity in the first place? If the curiosity is built in in order to stay alive and beter interact instead of being outcast, it may be an attempt to reach an equilibrium (of wellbeing) while also striving to change from the 'unknowing' state to the 'knowing' state.

Borum wrote: "Nemo wrote: "Borum wrote: "That's what I've always wanted to know. I've been wondering about this status quo bias..."

Don't you think your wanting to know is also an attempt to reach an equilibriu..."

Confucius said to the effect that he would be content to live for only a day, if he could learn the Truth in the morning.

I tend to think there is more in our desire to know than just to stay alive. Or, to paraphrase Aristotle, to know is to be alive.

Nemo wrote: "I tend to think there is more in our desire to know than just to stay alive. Or, to paraphrase Aristotle, to know is to be alive. ..."

I love your use of "know" in these two sentences. I would postulate that one is "know" in some sort of static way; the other is "know" in some sort of dynamic, living way. I will leave it to others to discern if such a distinction has any validity, and if it does, which is which. (The assignment to category was obvious to me when I started to write; but not when I quit!)

Borum wrote: "But where does our idea of filling the gap or reverting to a familiar pattern or state emerge?"

We instinctively learn and discern patterns. Even animals can do that. If a baby bird falls out of its nest while the mother bird is absent, she will notice upon her return one of the brood is missing and make a big fuss. Monarch butterflies will lay their eggs only on milkweed. Among the thousands of plants in a meadow they know how to find it.
For our pre-historic ancestors and tribes still living in the bush discerning patterns is crucial for survival. The trees carrying fruit, bushes with berries, nuts, etc. not only have distinct branch, bark, and leaf patterns but they grow in areas grouped with other plants that thrive in the same environment. That's a pattern. Chances are, if a certain tree is not present, then the nuts growing on another tree won't be found either.

Kerstin wrote: "Borum wrote: "But where does our idea of filling the gap or reverting to a familiar pattern or state emerge?"

We instinctively learn and discern patterns. Even animals can do that. If a baby bird ..."

So according to Kerstin and Patrice, we DO often strive to know in order to stay alive and/or relax. However, I, too, would like to believe that there is also a more dynamic side to our quest for knowledge. I can totally empathize with Confucius or Pandora. :-)

Patrice wrote: "how so confucious? just curious."

Nemo wrote: "Confucius said to the effect that he would be content to live for only a day, if he could learn the Truth in the morning."

Patrice wrote: "what starts out as an evolutionary advantage becomes self rewarding and we end up poring over Hume."

LOL I hear that!

My husband is like 'Why the HELL are you poring over a PHILOSOPHY book THAT old? What for?' Maybe not exactly in those words, but he wanted to know why I wanted to know this kind of stuff.

Borum wrote: "'Why the HELL are you poring over a PHILOSOPHY book THAT old? ..."

Maybe: 'Cause I figure those [smart] guys must long ago figured out what I am still interested in knowing, but haven't yet found clearly explained in modern stuff?

Lily wrote: "I love your use of "know" in these two sentences. I would postulate that one is "know" in some sort of static way; the other is "know" in some sort of dynamic, living way.."

I think your distinction between static vs dynamic would make Aristotle proud. :)

Lily wrote: "Borum wrote: "'Why the HELL are you poring over a PHILOSOPHY book THAT old? ..."

Maybe: 'Cause I figure those [smart] guys must long ago figured out what I am still interested in knowing, but have..."

Right on! and even if they haven't got it all figured out, I would still like to share thoughts with people from different perspectives.

"Borum wrote: "My husband is like 'Why the HELL are you poring over a PHILOSOPHY book THAT old? .."

Maybe he feels it is unfair for him to have to compete with a guy who has been dead more than 200 years for your attention. :)

I would prefer an opportunity to read and interact with a living author than reading a centuries-old classic. But I haven't found many modern authors that interest me as much.

Nemo wrote: "...I haven't found many modern authors that interest me as much...."

They are probably writing arcane scholarly works that we don't hear about. (In theology, I wouldn't mind knowing Walter Brueggemann or Hans Küng. Princeton and the University of Chicago, among others, have some contenders in the fields of history and international politics, as well as economics, worthy of "knowing." I suspect more and more of them are becoming "available" via online video. I enjoy John Dominic Crossan, controversial though he can be. I'd rather listen to him than read his books, however.)

Patrice wrote: "i have never heard those names. it will take one hundred years for one of them to have a reputation. every age has mostly mediocre writers. thats why i read classics, in the hope that if they have ..."

Still, we must live in the times we are allotted to live, at least this time around. No?

From what combination in the mind and will of
1. outward or inward sentiment and
2. impressions or more lively ones

does the following
a. material of thinking
b. idea
c. feeble perception

derive from?

II.13. . .In short, all the materials of thinking are derived either from our outward or inward sentiment: the mixture and composition of these belongs alone to the mind and will. Or, to express myself in philosophical language, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.

It seems now that we can conceive of this being or not being the case, but we only find examples demonstrating instances where it is the case and can find no counter-examples to it not being the case, despite the missing blue. I am finding it fascinating that Hume's arguments here fall prey to themselves and still seem to hold up.

Concerning the missing blue, does anyone think this controversially uncertain outlier is purposefully included in order to prime the reader for the problem of induction?

But you see what Hume is trying to exclude, although he is not exerting himself to state the main opponent, which is revelation, or Christian platonism.. the idea that the mind is like an eye, and that just as the eye cannot see without light, likewise the mind is blind without divine illumination.
Look at what he says about Locke.. led into a way of speaking by the schoolmen. Hume wants to stuff all that medieval nonsense.
(not saying he's right, btw)

Christopher wrote: "But you see what Hume is trying to exclude, although he is not exerting himself to state the main opponent, which is revelation, or Christian platonism..."

The blasphemy law was still in effect in the U.K. in Hume's time, so he couldn't come right out and attack Christian philosophy, even if he wanted to.

Patrice wrote: "just finishing sect 2 and i am having it come together for the first time and it is wonderful! since my husband is an art professor i asked him to slog through the page on color. it made perfect se..."

I really like the colour example too, Patrice. I guess he means that in some limited cases, the unknown can be assumed from the available evidence, even if we don't have the original 'impression'/experience of the colour.