Humezzzzzzz

Describe Hume’s theory of the perception of the mind?
How adequate is Hume’s theory of perception?

  a. Hume’s ultimate aim of his theory of the perception of the mind is to gain certainty through empiricism and a posteriori knowledge. To do this, he first explains what his perception of the mind is. Hume describes perceptions as any content of the mind in which we are conscious of. His idea of a perception is an entity rather than a mental process. It’s more an item of the mind than a sense of sensory operations. This definition contrasts to todays idea of the word. For Hume, the perception of an experience is completely different from the thought of it later therefore, he arrives at two different types of perceptions: impressions and ideas. Impressions are what we take on from the operation of the senses, it is the actual experience. It’s a result of direct experience. These, according to Hume, are matters of fact. There are two different types of impressions; outward and inward. Outward impressions are experiences from the sensations of the brain, they are external whereas inward impressions are feelings experienced and are internal. An example of an outward experience would be punching someone in the face. An example of an inward experience would be feeling relief once punching someone. Hume claims these initiate from ‘inward sentiments’. Impressions are dominant and don’t take any effort to think about. Ideas on the other hand, according to Hume, are a memory of an impression. Hume claims that ideas cannot exist without an initial impression. Their immediacy and strength diminish over time. Ideas are a copy of the original impression and require effort on our part to think about it. Like impressions, ideas are also broken down into two categories; simple and complex. Simple ideas are the result of an impression and we refer to these as memories. An example of a simple idea would be the memory of eating your favourite food at a restaurant. Complex ideas...