PHIL 4040 - Week 2, Section 2 : Of the Origin of Ideas

     Today's reading seemed to be another way of understanding this duality of human reasoning and doing that Hume is trying to construct. This time, Hume uses the terms "thoughts/ideas" and "impressions" to describe how human understanding works. Note, I used the word "seem" earlier. While "reasoning" and "doing" are paired to describe how a painter successfully paints the goddess Venus and why it's impossible for someone who has never eaten almonds to imagine what they taste like, "ideas" and "impressions" are paired to describe how reasoning originates. Though I cannot support this inference with the text, I can infer that the "idea-impression" duality is the way Hume is trying to break down the faculty of "reasoning" into simpler parts, since both ideas and impressions occur within the human mind, whereas action--doing--occurs externally.

     Arguably, impressions occur externally, yet I would counter-argue that exactly one thing or event can have two different impressions on two persons. This would imply a factor of interpretation is involved within the creation of the impression, as it would make no sense to say that two bodies, being exact clones, were given two different impressions of one thing, unless that thing is being experienced differently due to circumstances external to the mind (such as the angle of view, distance, or speed of the observer). Assuming no such circumstances exist, it makes more sense to say that, instead, two different persons made two different impressions of one thing, since the ability for two different impressions to be made entails the presence of two persons. Notice I use the word "different." If I used the word "separate," then the impressions betwixt the clones and the two persons could be the same impression, and, if we only knew what kinds of impressions were being received, we could never conclude whether there was one or two people present. By this, I'm also more inclined to say that if the very same two impressions were made on two people by one thing, then there was only ever one impression, and that one impression was mutually shared amongst the two persons. However, the existence of any likelihood of one impression being shared by two persons does not detriment the claim that impressions are parts of the faculty of reasoning, or within the mind, since there is one remaining vein in which the lines of reasoning are allowed to differ: ideas.

     For there to be two lines of reasoning, assuming the impressions of two persons to be the same, we must then also assume the latter half of reasoning, the half involving ideas, is how two such lines of reasoning differ, as that is the only remaining place in which they can differ. Ideas derived from the same impression can be different, because ideas are made purely through the cogitations within the human mind. This may seem to beg the question, but it cannot be denied that, if they vary to even the tiniest degree, two different human minds will think differently. Sure, impressions can be received as the same, but what occurs afterwards--the process of uniting those impressions with the imagination--will, indeed, be what causes different ideas to originate. Not to mention that we can describe a situation where two different human minds exist by virtue of the fact that there are two distinct, simultaneous ideas, and if, on the contrary, they were perfectly synchronized in both the formation of ideas and the absorption of impressions, then they must be one in the same mind.

     In short, I therefore assert that impressions are solely parts of "reasoning" because it is possible for one thing to leave more than one impression on more than one person and to be the origin of a multiplicity of coincidentally-occurring ideas.

     Yes, this is an absurd amount of information to take in, but allow me to make confetti of this confusion with a few examples and illustrations:

Here's a template of the situation:
Above I have illustrated the situation. The person receiving Impression 1 is depicted to the left, thinking Thought 1, and the person receiving Impression 2 is depicted to the right, thinking Thought 2. Each of these impressions is derived from one experience, shared by both persons (though the impressions are not shared). Enough of these generalizations. We want to see what's really happening here. Here is an example:

While the person on the left's impression of the knife as a tool originates in him the thought of slicing bread for some breakfast, the rightward person's impression of the knife as a weapon originates in him the thought of murdering his promiscuous daughter once she comes home from high school. Though both persons may have bread they want to slice or daughters they want to murder, the differences in their lines of reasons originates at the impressions they are given of the thing (the knife) they are mutually experiencing.

     Now, if we decided that we wanted to get rid of the person on the right because he is a psychopath, and replace him with an exact clone of the person on the left, would it at least be rational to believe their impressions and ideas, and thus their lines of reasoning, would have no differences whatsoever (factoring out the aforementioned external circumstances)? If this is the case, would we be able to tell, just by knowing the thoughts of each clone, if there was two people exposed to the inspiration (the knife), or one person?

...

     Two days later, I believe I've come to a conclusion on this matter. Though the knowledge of just their impressions would indicate they are one mind, the clones consist of two minds, as their thoughts take place in two separate, spatial locations. Yet, this brings about an unexpected conclusion. Impression are parts of reasoning because no two impressions can be the same, even if they are brought about by the same object or event. This is because every mind is, necessarily, taking place in its own spatial location, therefore their impressions draw on differing perspectives. 

     I'm more inclined to agree with this conclusion because, if we deny location of the mind, where reasoning is done, then it would be impossible to tell whether or not impressions occur in the mind, and thus, whether or not they are parts of reasoning. It would be impossible because, if the mind has no location (we disregard perspective), then two persons can share one mind if they have the same thoughts, making it impossible to tell if the impression is being internalized within that one mind, or is a thought-commanding outward experience that affects all persons the same. Since I'm sure of my conclusion in the former scenario and unsure in my second, I will go with the sure conclusion that could be true for either scenario and call it at that.

A note:
"When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea, we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived?"

---------------------------------------------------------Enquiry, pp 13

PHIL 4040 - Week 1

     This week begins my slow descent into Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, as well as the very first post on this blog. By the end of PHIL 4040, this blog will amount to credit towards my graduation from William Paterson University. Yet, I have a slight yearning to continue this blog for some years to come, since I may want somewhere to record my potentially philosophical thoughts.

...

   Section 1 is titled "Of the Different Species of Philosophy." Human understanding amounts to two different types: doing and reasoning. One example of the relation between each comes from page 4 of the Enquiry, wherein Hume describes a painter painting the goddess Venus. The painter, let's say Raffy, needs both types of human understanding to perform his task. Raffy needs to actually know how to paint, and Raffy needs to have some mechanical understanding of the human anatomy; how many arms, legs, and heads there will be in order to properly depict Venus. The latter type of understanding explains why, when Raffy finishes his painting, Venus has two arms, two legs, and one head. Raffy has some understanding of what a human (or goddess) should look like, so he uses this in conjunction with his brilliant painting skills that he has developed since he was a young adolescent in order to conjure a finished product. Both of these types of understanding are imperatives to the finished product. If Raffy knew only how to paint, but has never seen a human before, he would not know how to paint Venus. If Raffy knew only what Venus looked like, detail to detail, but (like many of us) did not know how to paint, then he could only depict her in his mind's eye.

     Another example of the above process that our professor seemingly forced on us is the method by which students ate fruits that were distributed to the class for any who wanted a snack. Students who ate bananas did not use paper plates while students who ate oranges did use paper plates. It is a given that students are capable of eating--this is doing. Reasoning is the students' knowing that oranges are juicy and make messes of things when they are eaten, while bananas are relatively tidy due to their having much less juice, and having a skin that can contain the eatable parts while they are being eaten. It then stands to reason that if one is to eat an orange in a classroom and a plate is available, then the plate ought to be used, whereas a plate is not needed for a banana. If students did not know the latter, they would certainly learn from experience. If students did not know the former, then we'd have a serious problem.

     Hume declares that one needs to experience something before fully understanding it. For instance, if almonds ceased to exist today, how would one describe the taste of almonds to someone born after the fact? That person would have to have tasted almonds in order to know what they taste like, which is impossible, therefore that person can never fully understand almonds. This is partly true for all things. Only "partly true" because there are some things science has allowed us to understand, purely through reason and experimentation, without directly experiencing those things, such as atoms and the way light behaves. By the way, the difference between experimenting and experiencing is that the first tests hypothesis over and over again until proven correct, and experiencing is the acquisition of knowledge via the senses through particular events. To make this clear, say we wanted to know whether or not Spider Man was part spider. We could do one of two things: we could see that he spins webs, see that he climbs up walls with his appendages, and see him exert the same proportionate amount of force on objects when taking into account the difference between his mass and that of a spider. The conclusion that Spider Man is part spider based on the above inductive reasoning would be to understand Spider Man's "spiderness" through experience. Experimentally, we could extract some DNA from Spider Man, and compare it to the composition of a spider's DNA using the proper equipment to see if both DNAs share enough qualities. Both methods would reach the same conclusion, but Hume favors the first method because, for whatever reason, Hume distrusts DNA and anything else a person cannot directly experience.

Enjoy them while they last.

    So far, I'm not convinced that Hume's philosophy about human understanding is sound, since, as I have proven, there are more ways to understand things than only direct experience. This applies particularly to the things that cannot be directly experienced. Needless to say, atoms, the behavior of light, and DNA were hardly considered "things" in the 18th century. Strikingly, this flaw in Hume's philosophy seems incredibly obvious, so I'm also convinced that I either do not fully understand the reading, or Hume will fill this gap in future readings.