Abstract
In this chapter, I discuss the first implication of the Idealist reading, pertaining to the (dis)unity of space. I consider both the spatial relatedness of bodies existing at any one time and of bodies existing at different times. My conclusion is that Idealist space is both synchronically and diachronically fragmented, more pronouncedly so in the diachronic case, there being no diachronic (cross-temporal) spatial relations at all. This is radically at odds with common sense. We all believe that there is a single (unified) space in which all bodies that ever exist – ancient Rome, Churchill’s desk and the apple I will eat tomorrow, to name but a few – are located.
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Notes
- 1.
This constitutes evidence for the Materialist reading. But, as I explained in the introduction to the book, it is weak, because the remark is incidental, neither part of a larger argumentative move, nor involved in a systematic discussion of “bodies”.
- 2.
It might be thought that diachronic spatial relations are reducible to synchronic ones. Ancient Rome being to the north of modern Cairo concerns the two spatial sites, which are co-existent. But talk about spatial sites goes against Hume’s relationism about space, his claim that we cannot think of spatial points as distinct from bodies. Furthermore, the proposed reduction doesn’t eliminate cross-temporal spatial relations. To say that ancient Rome was in some presently existing site, S1, is spatially to relate two non-contemporaneous sites: that which ancient Rome occupied, S2, and S1.
- 3.
The suggestion that comes to mind is that in a unified space, there is a path between any two points. But what is a “path”? It is not enough that it be possible to reach from any point in it to any other, because that only requires that it be possible to be at the two points at two different times. And this is not the notion of spatial relatedness I have in mind. To require that two points in a path must be spatially related is to render the definition circular.
- 4.
Only visual and tactile perceptions, Hume thinks, are spatially located. “[A]n object may exist, and yet be no where: and I assert, that this is not only possible, but that the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this manner…[T]his is evidently the case with all our perceptions and objects, except those of the sight and feeling…[Those of the other senses], so far from requiring any particular place, are absolutely incompatible with it, and even the imagination cannot attribute it to them” (T 1.4.5.10; SBN 235–6, original italics).
- 5.
Falkenstein (1997), too, interprets Hume in this way.
- 6.
Falkenstein (2006, p. 68) suggests the problem engendered by the separability principle is that it is not clear how a red point can be separated from a blue point if their “manner of disposition” isn’t a distinct impression. By way of a solution, he suggests that there are here three distinct impressions: the red point, the blue point and the (complex) impression of the red point to the left of the blue one. But the problem engendered by the separability principle pertains to the relation, not to the relata. The former cannot exist on its own, whereas the latter two can.
- 7.
This is Descartes’ definition: “By ‘substance’”, he says (CSM I, p. 210), “we can understand nothing other than a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence”.
- 8.
Inukai (2010, n. 22) notes that compositionality doesn’t allow for a distinction between asymmetric relations: aRb and bRa have the same constituents, yet one might hold without the other. But this seems to me a subtle problem of which Locke was unaware. So it doesn’t constitute evidence against the imputation to him of the compositionalist view.
- 9.
Inukai cites (2010, p. 203) another Humean reason against the existence of an impression ‘to the left of’. She points out that Hume explicitly says that there is no additional impression to the impressions of notes from which our idea of time is derived. Rather, the idea of time “arises…from the manner, in which impressions appear to the mind” (T 1.2.2.10; SBN 36). There being no relevant difference between time and space, she argues, Hume would say that there isn’t, in addition to “the impressions of colour’d points disposed in a certain manner” (T 1.2.2.4; SBN 34), another impression from which our idea of space is derived. Although x can be to the left of y, there is no impression ‘to the left of’. I think this is not an additional Humean reason against the existence of an impression ‘to the left of’, but rather, textual evidence for the imputation of the claim to Hume.
- 10.
Waxman’s attribution (1994, p. 291, n. 34, my italics) is explicit. He ascribes to Hume the claim that “perceptions are either simple or compounded of the simple”.
- 11.
Hume’s treatment of the apple example (T 1.1.1.2; SBN 2), designed to illustrate the distinction between simple and complex perceptions, is perfunctory. He says, “a particular colour, taste, and smell…[are] all united together in this apple”. But he is here contravening his own claim, made subsequently, that the colour of an object isn’t a perception, because it cannot appear on its own without some shape. Hume is more circumspect in his attitude to the shape of the apple, which he omits from the list of its constituents.
- 12.
My (interpretive) claim pertaining to compositionality is restricted to the Treatise. In the first Enquiry, Hume endorses compositionality. “Complex ideas may, perhaps, be well known by definition, which is nothing but an enumeration of those parts or simple ideas, that compose them” (EHU 7.4; SBN 62). But his endorsement here makes sense, since compositionality is simple and elegant, and is precluded in the Treatise by Hume’s allegiance to separability, which he relinquishes in the Enquiry.
- 13.
This is a mixed blessing for Hume. The break from compositionality thwarts one of the arguments he adduces (T App.2; SBN 623) in support of the claim that belief is a “peculiar feeling or sentiment”. Hume argues that “We have no abstract idea of existence, distinguishable and separable from the idea of particular objects… ‘Tis impossible, therefore, that this idea of existence can be annex’d to the idea of any object, or form the difference betwixt a simple conception and belief”. But without compositionality, the argument by elimination is fallacious. That there is no separable idea of existence does not entail that the idea of X is phenomenally identical with the idea of X existing. The complex idea of X to the left of Y, which doesn’t have ‘to the left of’ as a constituent, is phenomenally different from the idea of X above Y. To make his argument, Hume should argue that, unlike time, e.g., belief makes no phenomenal difference (other than vivacity). The second argument Hume adduces in support of the claim that belief is a “peculiar feeling or sentiment” is not impugned by the break from compositionality. Even without compositionality, Hume can argue that if there was an idea (even non-compositional) of X existing, then, since the mind “can…vary [its ideas] as it pleases…it would be in a man’s power to believe what he pleas’d”.
- 14.
In Foster’s (1982) construal of Berkeley’s Idealism (Sect. 5.2.2), God’s impressions seem to make a crucial difference to the unity of space. Unlike their human counterparts, there is no limit to the details God’s perceptions can include. So it seems that the space of Berkeley’s theological Idealist is unified. But the interpretation is very contentious and fraught with philosophical and theological problems. Does (active) God have (passive) perceptions? And if, as Berkeley thinks, we perceive “bodies” directly, do we share God’s perceptions?
- 15.
Hume thinks that a complex perception, like any plurality, is ontologically secondary: it depends for its existence on that of its constituents. “But the unity, which can exist alone, and whose existence is necessary to that of all numbers, is of another kind, and must be perfectly indivisible” (T 1.2.2.3; SBN 31). But the complex perception is real, nonetheless.
- 16.
This is very crude, since I only wish to illustrate the suggestion. We could develop a more nuanced way of spatially relating non-simultaneous objects.
- 17.
- 18.
I am grateful to Avital Hazony for pressing me to consider this point.
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Weintraub, R. (2024). Consequences of the Idealist Interpretation for the Unity of Space. In: Humean Bodies and their Consequences. Jerusalem Studies in Philosophy and History of Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50799-1_5
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