Question

According to Hume, there are two types of perceptions. What are they? Then, give an example of each. Finally, in your opinion, why does Hume explain them in this way?

Answer 1

• ‘Perceptions’ are divided by Hume into ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’, the difference between the two being by marked by a difference of ‘forcefulness’ and ‘vivacity’, so that impressions relate roughly to ‘feeling’ (or ‘sensing’) and ideas to ‘thinking’.
• ‘Feeling’ here should be understood broadly, and Hume, again following Locke, divides impressions into those of ‘sensation’ and those of ‘reflection’. Impressions of sensation derive from our senses, impressions of reflection derive from our experience of our mind, e.g. feeling emotions.
• Impressions come through our senses, emotions, and other mental phenomena, whereas ideas are thoughts, beliefs, or memories that we connect to our impressions. We construct ideas from simple impressions in three ways: resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect.
• So, our impressions include all of the sensations, passions and emotions that we experience when we engage in sensory perception, feel painful or pleasurable sensations in our bodies, or feel passions like love and hatred. He equates having ideas with thinking: in his view, thinking about an object, or thinking that a certain state of affairs obtains, involves forming an idea that represents this object or state of affairs.
• Impressions are more forceful and lively than ideas: for example, actually feeling a pain is more forceful and lively than merely thinking about a pain.
• An impression first strikes upon the senses, and makes us perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or pain of some kind or other. Of this impression there is a copy taken by the mind, which remain after impression ceases; and this we call an idea.
• Impressions and ideas, as we mentioned previously, can be simple and complex. Simple ideas and impression admit of no distinction or separation, they cannot be broken down or be analysed any further. Complex ideas on the other hand may be divided into parts. A complex impression is composed of a group of simple impressions.
• An apple, for example, is a complex impression. It has a particular colour, odor, a certain taste, etc. Or to take another example, the concept RED PENCIL is complex and contains the concept RED and PENCIL. Likewise, complex impressions have simple impressions as their parts.