Lecture 8

Question 1

Who was David Hume?

Answer 1

Radical skepticist, developed the theory of meaning and causality

Question 2

What is the Causal theory of perception?

Answer 2

The philosophical position that our perceptual experiences are caused by external objects in the real world.

Question 3

What is the Representative theory of perception?

Answer 3

The idea that our percepts resemble these external objects, or represent them to us.

Question 4

The belief that our perceptions are the external objects, that they are one and the same.

Answer 4

Naive realism

Question 5

On what point did Hume disagree with Locke?

Answer 5

• Hume sees a problem in Locke’s realism.
• If our ideas are representations and our thoughts are simply copies of those representations, then we can never know how accurate our sensory representations are, nor can we ever form any ideas of the real world, outside of our impressions of it.

Question 6

What is Hume’s epistomology?

Answer 6

• For Hume, there are no innate ideas.
• All ideas are derived from sensory experience, or from inner feelings.
• We cannot conceive of anything that is fundamentally different from the things we have experienced.

Question 7

What is epistomology?

Answer 7

No statement of fact can ever be proved by reasoning a priori. The only way to establish the truth of a factual statement is through experience.

Question 8

What is Hume’s theory of meaning?

Answer 8

1. they can be derived from empirical facts
   (matters of fact)
2. they can be derived analytically, based on the relationships among the ideas they contain (relations of ideas)

Question 9

What creates the link between cause and effect?

Answer 9

1. no necessary link between cause and effect 2. habitual association
2. feeling of necessity (natural belief)

Question 10

• For Locke, _________ _________ like triangle, motion, and redness are constructed by a process of ____________.

Answer 10

general concepts, abstraction

Question 11

_________ _______ derived from _______ ________ are combined to arrive at general ideas, which represent all of the things held in common by all the examples, and omit the features they do not share.

Answer 11

Particular ideas, sensory experience

Question 12

According to Hume, what abstract concepts are derived from experience (List 4 examples)

Answer 12

Space
Time Math truths
Causality

Question 13

What did Berkeley say about abstract concepts?

Answer 13

if you eliminate all the features that are unique to a triangle, chair, or a person, you have nothing left behind. There are no abstract ideas.

Question 14

What did Hume say about abstract ideas?

Answer 14

agrees with Berkeley and proposes that a general idea is used to stand for a set of particular ideas as a result of a process of habitual association.

Question 15

Hume’s view of free will is linked to what and why?

Answer 15

linked to theory of causality.

• there is no logical necessity in events
• the feeling of necessity is an illusion
• the illusion has great utility for everyday life

Question 16

Describe Kant’s theory of causality

Answer 16

Rejected Hume’s theory, said that causality is fundamental to science and human knowledge.

• relationship not based on logic
• imposed by the structure of the human mind