Abstract
Proto-objects, I claim, are the necessary conceptual building blocks for an idea of an object that admits of perfect identity. Also, ideas of objects that admit of perfect identity, must, according to Hume, be imagined. In this chapter, we examine Hume’s somewhat implicit first account of perfect identity, given in 1.3.2. In the course of doing so, we begin to see how and why proto-objects enable us to imagine objects that admit of a perfect identity. However, the reader should note that this chapter merely serves as an introduction to Hume’s theory of imagined causes and perfect identity, while Chaps. 6, 7, and 8 provide us with a more fully-developed version.
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Notes
- 1.
However, to keep matters straight, recall from our discussion in Chap. 1, that throughout the Treatise, Hume also uses ‘perception’ as a noun, which, as such, sometimes ranges over bothimpressions and ideas and sometimes just impressions. In this case, however, to “perceive” is to be in a state where we are apprehending just impressions.
- 2.
As we will see further on in this book, this process is similar to the way in which Hume thinks we conceive of abstract ideas (see Chap. 7).
- 3.
Recall, once again, the entire passage: “According to this way of thinking, we ought not to receive as reasoning any of the observations we may make concerning identityand the relations of time and place; since in none of them the mind can go beyond what is immediately present to the senses, either to discover the real existence or the relations of objects” (T1.3.2.2; SBN73).
- 4.
Recall that in Chap. 4, we concluded that the property of uninterruptedness is interchangeable with the property of continuity. We also saw that according to Hume, continuity implies distinctness. Thus, if we conceive of an object as being uninterrupted, we must also conceive of it as being distinct.
- 5.
However, as will be shown in Chap. 12, it is not the case that we must imagine ideas that we think have a perfect identity in order to think in terms of natural causal relations. However, our ability to think in terms of philosophical and indirect causal relations does seem to presuppose our ability to imagine ideas of objects that we think admit of a perfect identity.
- 6.
Recall that Price argued that we cannot imagine causes (1940, p. 26).
- 7.
As well as, continuity (i.e. contiguity) and distinctness (i.e. remoteness), assuming that these pairs of properties are roughly interchangeable. See the summary of Part II of this book for more detail.
References
Hume, D. (1978). A treatise of humannature (2nd ed.), (L.A. Selby-Bigge ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press; abbreviated as SBN.
Hume, D. (2002). A treatise of human nature(D. F Norton & M. J. Norton ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press; abbreviated as T.
Price, H. H. (1940). Hume’s theory of the external world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilbanks, J. (1968). Hume’s theory of imagination. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
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Rocknak, S. (2013). The First Account of Transcendental Perfect Identity: The Foundation of Secret Causes. In: Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2187-6_5
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