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Hume on Existence & External Existence
Epistemic buckshot.

Hume on Existence & External Existence

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Posted 10/14/09 - 05:56 PM: Subject: Hume on Existence & External Existence	#1
Hume argues in the Treatise Bk. II S6 that "...the idea of existence, then, is [identical to] the idea of what we conceive to be existent. So reflect [conceive of] any thing simply, and to reflect on it [conceive of it] as existent, are nothing different from each other. That idea, when [added] with the idea of any object, makes no addition to it." In summary, then, his conclusion is: the property "exists" or "does not exist" does not add information, or are properly not predicates, of ideas. On this, I can agree: if we have an idea, and an impression of an idea (i.e., I conceive an idea, hence I perceive the idea of which I formerly had an impression, by the copy principle), then it is logically contradictory to deny the existence of either my impression or idea. Insofar as we accept that impressions or sensa are ontologically primary entities, they exist. However, Hume's remark that existing and conceiving as existing are identical is interesting, because it raises the following question: in what other ways can I conceive an object? I can, for instance "conceive my impression as an elephant," in which case the term "elephant" denotes a set of paradigmatic impressions (hence ideas) of "elephants" and uses only the intersection of those sets "elephant" and "current impression" to conceive of the current impression, excluding anything not in the intersection of "elephant" and "current impression." I read Hume's commentary on "substance" in light of Pt. I S. VI (on external existence). Is the following conclusion acceptable: that pragmatically when one "conceives an object as existent" they are "conceiving the object as a substance," and attempting to conceive the object as the intersection of the idea "the object as substance" and the present idea of the object, which are identical notions, and hence the substantial being of the object is in conception the set of impressions denoted by the term for the object?
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Posted 10/14/09 - 06:30 PM:	#2
We are reading Hume in class, so I only have experience (!) with the first three books of the Treatise. What I find interesting is that the following account seems plausible given Hume's arguments: The only things which exist are impressions or ideas of impressions. We have a positive idea of everything which exists. Something of which we only have a relative idea cannot be said to exist; and if it is, then only insofar as it is formed relative to positive ideas of existents. Therefore, an external world is only known relatively; but because it is known relative to positive ideas, there is no reference to an idea of an external world which is not in reference to a positive idea of an existent. However, we do not have an idea of an internal world; because an internal world must be known in reference to an external world, and we do not have an idea of an external world as existent. Thus, we only know of one world, which is the world as it exists. Substance is the totality of existents; but all that exists are impressions. Thus, substance is neither external nor internal, because we only have relative ideas of externality and internality. However, we have relative ideas of external and internal existents. Therefore, we can discuss external and internal objects as separate, but have no positive idea of their specific existences. Thus, substance as impressions and ideas is known through two sets of relative attributes, viz. mental or inner and material or external. Thus, "Hume's buckshot." He is able to reduce the number of entities in naive ontologies to one (or a plurality of particulars) which are all of the same nature, i.e. impressions and ideas, whose primary difference is magnitudinal. Thus, we have an ontology which is monistic and two attributes through which we understand substance pragmatically. He is able to attenuate criticisms of psychologism by denying the existence of a positive conception of mens vis-a-vis a positive conception of materia. I feel this position is defensible and a possible reading of Hume. On the other hand, it isn't a standard interpretation, and I am worried that I am reading "Spinoza" or "deconstruction" (not to be conflated) into his account.
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