Uncle David Hume

Hume being an empiricist, believes that we cannot have any ideas that don’t come from experience. Even when it comes to imagination and making up something that hasn’t been experienced, it ultimately breaks down into different individual elements that have been experienced. Hume created a model of mental activity comprising of impressions being copied and processed into simple ideas, which are then joined together by one or more of the principles of association (resemblance, continuity and cause/effect), resulting in the joining to become complex ideas. Hume explains his two types of arguments: relations of ideas and matters of facts. Relations of ideas being claims that are subject to the test of noncontradiction requiring to pass the test before being considered certain and matters of facts, which are based on cause/effect experience. In Section IV of Hume’s Inquiry, he …show more content…
Uncle Dave, who relates with Hume’s views of the mind and mental activity, is faced with the task of telling Melinda that she is wrong based on Hume’s views. Dave opens the Inquiry to the last paragraph, “… let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion” (Hume). Based on this excerpt, in Dave, and Hume’s view, any belief not based directly on sensible experiences are wrong and should be “committed to the flames” for lack