Abstract
In this chapter, I continue to explore the consequences of the Idealist Interpretation for Hume’s Science of Man. Here, I consider how the two interpretations impinge on Hume’s nominalism, his account of the way general terms (‘dog’, ‘man’, e.g.) function in the absence of abstract ideas. (General terms apply to several objects, unlike proper names (‘Fido’, ‘Napoleon’), which (typically) apply to only one.) My main claim will be that the Materialist reading renders Hume’s nominalism a total failure, whereas on the Idealist reading, it is moderately successful.
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Notes
- 1.
Berkeley thinks he is offering an alternative to Locke’s account, which he harshly criticises. Some commentators (Mackie, 1976, p. 110; Ayers, 1979; Winkler, 1989, p. 39) think that Locke, too, holds a selective attention view of abstraction. If, as these commentators think, Locke is a nominalist, Berkeley’s problem (which I will shortly discuss) impugns Locke’s account as well.
- 2.
Pitcher (1977, pp. 75–6) interprets Berkeley as claiming that the proof applies to all triangles since no mention in it is made of the angles or lengths of the sides. He objects, correctly, that although these are not mentioned verbally, they are “mentioned” in the diagram, and one cannot assume that the proof does not rely on them implicitly. I think the selective consideration construal of Berkeley is preferable, because it is less easily rebutted and better fits the text. Selective attention is the mechanism by which “neither the right angle nor the equality nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration”.
- 3.
Pearce (2017, p. 72) suggests, on Berkeley’s behalf, that “one forms a habit by performing a certain action repeatedly”. So the response of his Berkeley to the question as to how I know which features are relevant is that after repeatedly associating some features with a word, I form a habit of so doing, a habit that determines which features I will then associate with the word. (The “features” play no part in the explanation, so there is no need to account for a particular choice.) But the habit seems random. And on Pearce’s proposal, Berkeley cannot explain why different people form similar habits. Clearly, Hume’s explanation is superior. The relevant aspects, he suggests, are those possessed by all the members of the revival set of the word, whose formation Hume explains.
- 4.
Descartes (CSM I, p. 212, my italics) is more circumspect in invoking selective attention: “When we see two stones…and direct our attention to the fact that there are two of them, we form the idea of the number which we call ‘two’”. The abstract idea arises, he says, when we direct our attention to something external, the idea being engendered as a result. Unlike Berkeley, Descartes isn’t assuming that one can selectively attend to an aspect of an idea in the mind, leaving the idea intact in the mind. He is aware, it seems, that this is only possible in the case of an external object.
- 5.
Waxman (1994, p. 91) claims that even if we can focus (say) on the features of a particular triangle that are common to all triangles, this does not make for a general thought, referring to all (possible) triangles. I simply do not see this.
- 6.
The label is Garrett’s (1997).
- 7.
If we suppose, more realistically, that each general term requires a different resemblance idea, the objection is somewhat more complicated. To acquire the idea of one such resemblance, an idea of another resemblance relation is acquired. So this possibility engenders an infinite regress (or a circle), again, leading to the conclusion that no revival set can be formed.
- 8.
Since Garrett doesn’t elaborate beyond suggesting that we needn’t note the similarity, it is more accurate (but more cumbersome) to call this a suggestion in the spirit of Garrett.
- 9.
Johnson (1995, p. 74) claims Hume’s explanation of our successfully applying general terms is (implicitly) committed to our possessing abstract ideas. For instance, we know not to apply the general term ‘triangle’ to a particular square that resembles triangles (in many ways) only because we possess the abstract idea Triangle. But on Garrett’s proposal, no abstract idea is required.
- 10.
He is, perhaps, relying on Hume’s suggestion (but not in the Treatise) that a relative idea of power is the unknown quality of an object that causes (is constantly conjoined with) a known effect: “When we consider the unknown circumstance of an object, by which the degree or quantity of its effect is fixed and determined, we call that its power” (EHU 7.29n17.1; SBN 77, original italics). And because Berkeley thinks the relation of “support” is not clearly understood in the case of material substance, we have no idea, not even relative, of material substance, as that which “supports” accidents, whereas because it is clearly understood in the case of immaterial substance, we do have a relative idea of immaterial substance (soul).
- 11.
In alluding to Hume’s scepticism, Flage presumably has in mind his claim that “[i]mpressions…[arise] in the soul originally, from unknown causes” (T 1.1.2.1; SBN 7).
- 12.
The Materialist account wouldn’t work in the next stage, in which the nominalist correction mechanism uses an idea from the revival set to correct an erroneous generalisation (‘All dogs are brown’, for instance). For the Idealist, an individual idea of a black dog, assuming there is such an idea in my revival set, will correct my error. But on the Materialist reading, no relative idea can “crowd in upon us” to correct the error: none has positive characteristics. But since the Materialist cannot explain why we ever generalise, there is no room for correcting over-generalisations.
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Weintraub, R. (2024). How the Two Interpretations Impinge on Hume’s Nominalism. 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_9
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