In David Hume’s an Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Hume explains the connection and distinction between impressions and ideas. Impressions are our perceptions of our senses; “hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will” (539). Ideas are our perceptions that reflect on those sensations. One big difference between ideas and impressions is that ideas can be things that do not exist, like unicorn or space aliens (539). He states in his Principle of Empiricism that for every idea there is a corresponding impressions and simpler ideas. His arguments explain the relationships between impressions and ideas.
First argument in defense of the principle, “when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment” (539). He uses the “idea of God” as an example. Where God he is intelligent, powerful, and perfect, but is that our impressions of who God is and is argued that he has endless “qualities of goodness and wisdom” (539). …show more content…
He argues that even if we cannot have a curtain sense that we can still have the idea of it. He gives the example of “a blind man can form no notion of color” (540) and of a deaf man cannot form the notion of sound (540). When they are given back those senses, they are still able to conceive of the objects they were missing when lacking their senses. It can also be that when an object has never been exposed to those senses. If we cannot conceive of it, it does not mean that it does not exist. We just have not been exposed to it
First argument in defense of the principle, “when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment” (539). He uses the “idea of God” as an example. Where God he is intelligent, powerful, and perfect, but is that our impressions of who God is and is argued that he has endless “qualities of goodness and wisdom” (539). …show more content…
He argues that even if we cannot have a curtain sense that we can still have the idea of it. He gives the example of “a blind man can form no notion of color” (540) and of a deaf man cannot form the notion of sound (540). When they are given back those senses, they are still able to conceive of the objects they were missing when lacking their senses. It can also be that when an object has never been exposed to those senses. If we cannot conceive of it, it does not mean that it does not exist. We just have not been exposed to it