Humes Copy Principle - Essay Example

Hume’s Copy Principle Module Introduction For many years, the issue about knowledge, its source and formation has puzzled many philosophers, both in the ancient and modern times. Many people have sought to understand what it means ‘to know’. How does one get to ascertain that the knowledge they have about a phenomena is true and factual? What constitutes knowledge and how is it formed? What is the exact origin of knowledge? These are some of the questions that philosophers have attempted to answer in t their study on human nature. The topic however has brought up so many philosophical arguments and debates with different perspectives rising up to give an account from diverse angles. Rene Descartes, a French philosopher is popularly known for his sceptical questioning about the true existence of self. The doubting criteria he formed in trying to ascertain if indeed he had knowledge about his existence formed the base through which many other philosophers have grown scepticism about claimed knowledge of the environment. New arguments that have falsified, modified or contributed to the prior philosophical positions have come up bringing a whole new enlightenment about the exact occurrences in regard to knowledge. The epistemological framework of the ‘science of human knowing’ is all-inclusive having demonstrated great tolerance it showed in accommodating diverse opinions and arguments. The study on the mind; how it operates, its synthesis of materials and percept and how it produces meaningful responses has been at the centre of focus by many philosophers. John Locke, Berkeley, David Hume among others have significantly contributed to the subject. In their attempts, the philosophers have forwarded various conceptions and principles that account for the operation of the mind and subsequent behaviour. Locke’s conceptualisation about idea formation and knowledge construction was the fundamental baseline through which Berkeley and Hume built up their arguments. Locke, in his understanding, argued that knowledge primarily originates from the experience that we have in the environment. What influences and informs our comprehension and grasp of the surrounding is the sensory and perceptual experiences that we have had with the objects and objects within the surrounding. It is from this that the mind is supplied with simple ideas once the environmental detection or sensation has taken place. The mind then gets into a process of synthesising the simple ideas through conversion and combination so they may produce compound ones. The products of this process are complex ideas according to Locke. To John Locke, the alignment and synchronisation of the complex ideas (what we did experience) that have been formed with what exist in our minds in idealistic forms of the object that is being interpreted will determine whether we accept that as the truth or not. Locke’s argument is that to know that an object is what it is claimed to be, we experience it and then compares it with what exists in our mind as it. If the idea of what we have in our mind contrasts the experienced object then it is not what is claimed. For example, to know if a certain thing is black or white, we must first experience it directly through observation. Once we have seen it, the images (simple ideas) are taken to our minds where they are joined to form complex ones. The complex ones are counter-compared against the ideas we have on what a black image should be. We will, therefore, conclude based on the agreement or disagreement between the ideas in our minds and the experiences, if the object is black or not. Locke’s conceptualisation about knowledge formation through experience was not satisfactorily convincing. He was criticised for his explanation about belief he had and the account he gave on how mere ideas in the memory can be used to determine the certainty of real items in the world. One cannot make meaning of an object until they have an ‘idea’ about what the object is, yet again it is the same idea that they want to make meaning of interpret. It is for this reason that many other perspectives rose up to give a more persuading explanation. Among other David Hume attempted to give a more realistic and advanced explanation about formation of knowledge. Although his ideas were generated from the conceptualisation of Locke, he used different terms to refer to his concepts. The general approach and perspectival evaluation was a little bit different from that of Locke. In what he dubbed as ‘copy principle’, Hume took a more advanced, comprehensive and modernised approach in going about this issue. The first thing that he did was to alter the wordings that John Locke used in his presentation of concepts and arguments. Instead of the simple ideas that Locke used, Hume uses ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’ to refer to the sensory and conceptual items respectively. To Hume, what we detect from the environments he calls it impression. Those that are generated in the minds are ideas. Fundamentally, it is the interplay of these two that knowledge about the environment is generated and formed. One thing he discredits right from the beginning is the possibility that ideas are solely dependent on impression to complete the process of knowledge formation. This, he reaches at by considering the fact that it is possible to have an idea about something even without having an experience with that particular object. For example, one can imagine how New York City looks like even without going to the city. However, he admits that there are some ‘simple ideas’ that can be formed from the impressions one has had. For example, one can distinguish a house from a car simply because they have seen a car showing totally different features dissimilar to those of a house. He asserts and holds it tight that all ‘simple ideas’ constitute ‘simple impression’ in which the latter build up to form the former. It is from this conceptual foundation that David Hume generates his copy principle to explain more comprehensively how knowledge is formed1. In a nutshell, the principle explains the simple ideas are a copy of the simple impression. In his own words, he says “all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent’’2. This is to say that ‘simple ideas’ are replica of the ‘simple impressions’ that one has or simple concepts are formed from simple sensational experiences. To argue out this, he forwards different propositions that support his stance. First, he maintains that, although he may not evidentially verify, there is a direct link existing between ‘simple ideas’ and ‘simple impressions’. Hume says he is not to prove this link because it is practically not possible to evaluate the hypothetical constructs such as ideas from one person to the other and find and accurate evidence to ascertain this fact. This conception is held tightly by Hume that asks anyone doubtful to bring a situation where anyone has had a simple idea without prior formation of simple impression. He concludes that there exists a continuous concurrence between the two elements. Second, he argues that the continuous concurrence that is observed between is significantly widespread that he digs deep into understanding what causes what3. His second argument is that there is one that causes the other; either simple ideas causing simple impressions or the other way round. In his explanation, Hume argues that impressions (simple) form the simple ideas. The causal connection between the elements is mutually influential. In this view, although Hume does not want it to seem like, there is no equal measure of the two. One is overly dependent on the other. Sensations we get from the environment have great impact on the idea we get. The point of consideration in this argument is the weight of empiricism Hume gives with this conception. It has been challenged that this argument gives little emphasis on the empirical processes that humans engage in while forming ideas. Hume goes on to present more justifications to his position by using various instances. Among them include the ‘missing shade of blue’ in which he claims that a person would immediately form an idea about the nature of the missing item (blue shade) if they are given a series of items that are similar even without having had an impression with the item4. Another example he uses is a situation where a person wants to make a child have a feeling of what some fruits taste like. He explains what the person will do is to let them bite the fruit so they feel the taste. In so doing, the child is presented with an impression of what the fruit tastes like which in turn makes them have a concept about what that particular fruit is. Similarly, he supports his arguments by giving another example of a person born blind. He claims that such people completely have no ideas about colours and they can hardly comprehend what it means ‘to be blue’. An analysis of the arguments and conception of Hume arguments shows they are still not adequate enough to base a conclusion upon. One thing that raises question marks about his principles is the way he expects people to merely believe them without proper explanation. A criticism of his ‘blue shade’ example makes him saw him in an unsatisfactory manner. He says the example is just particular case that cannot be used to dismiss his conception. How does one use an example to explain a phenomena and yet they cannot appropriately respond to a question on the same case? This poses more questions than answers to the theory. Although he gives an explanation about the causes of simple ideas, the account he gives about the origin of impressions are outrageous, hypothetical and incomprehensible. In combination, the conceptions are slightly sufficient and convincing. They leave certain knowledge gaps that are not well filled with proper responses. Conclusion The walk towards finding the true nature of knowledge was started in the ancient times with early philosophers setting the pace. It has continued to modern times and philosophers like John Locke and David Hume among others have extensively contributed. Locke set the basis for most modern philosophers. An analysis into the modern epistemology reveals that the process has been a build-up of the Locke’s initial ideas about the interplay of experience and ideas in structuring knowledge. A twist however has been taken with numerous modifications as seen in Hume’s case. Hume presented a number of arguments in his copy principle to convince the world of philosophy that indeed simple ideas are direct representations of simple impression that exist in the world. This, he did by use of different cases and examples that were practical in order to bring out a justifiable argument. Some of them include the ‘missing shade of blue’ which received a lot of criticisms. Generally, his conception was practically convincing except for some evidential inadequacies that he failed to provide. His responses were also not so convincing; something that has pulled his whole principle back. Bibliography Brown, C. R. & Morris, W. E., Starting with Hume, New York, Continuum, 2011. Fodor, Jerry A, Hume Variations, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2003. Hume, David, L. A Selby-Bigge, & P. H Nidditch, A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1978. Read More