Hume's Imagination

This book proposes a new and systematic interpretation of the mental nature, function and structure, and importance of the imagination in Book 1, 'Of the Understanding', of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature . The proposed interpretation has deeply revisionary implications for Hume's philosophy of mind and for his naturalism, epistemology, and stance to scepticism. The book remedies a surprising blindspot in Hume scholarship and contributes to the current, lively philosophical debate on imagination. Hume's philosophy, if rightly understood, gives suggestions about how to treat imagination as a mental natural kind, its cognitive complexity and variety of functions notwithstanding. Hume's imagination is a faculty of inference and the source of a distinctive kind of idea, which complements our sensible representations of objects. Our cognitive nature, if restricted to the representation of objects and of their relations, would leave ordinary and philosophical cognition seriously underdetermined and expose us to scepticism. Only the non-representational, inferential faculty of the imagination can put in place and vindicate ideas like causation, body, and self, which support our cognitive practices. The book reconstructs how Hume's naturalist inferentialism about the imagination develops this fundamental insight. Its five parts deal with the dualism of representation and inference; the explanation of generality and modality; the production of causal ideas; the production of spatial and temporal content, and the distinction of an external world of bodies and an internal one of selves; and the replacement of the understanding with imagination in the analysis of cognition and in epistemology. Cover Hume’s Imagination Copyright Contents Preface and Acknowledgements A Note on References 1. Introduction: A Magical Faculty 1.1 An Interpretive Blind Spot and a Philosophical Problem 1.2 The Imagination in Hume’s Treatise 1.2.1 The Works of the Imagination 1.2.2 Hume’s Problem: Cognitive Gaps 1.2.3 Imagination and Inference 1.3 Imagination, Naturalism, and Scepticism 1.3.1 Imagination and the Science of Human Nature 1.3.2 A New Foundation of Science 1.3.3 Scepticism 1.4 The Scope of the Discussion 1.5 Summary PART I. THE ELEMENTS OF THIS PHILOSOPHY 2. The First Principle 2.1 Kinds of Perceptions 2.1.1 Phenomenology 2.1.2 Elements 2.2 Two Viewpoints and Hume’s Ontology of Perceptions 2.2.1 Two Viewpoints 2.2.2 Perceptions as Mental Existents 2.2.3 Impressions as Objects, Objects as Impressions 2.2.4 Hume’s Ontological Pluralism 2.2.5 Equivalence 2.3 The First Principle 2.3.1 Content 2.3.2 Point and Status 2.4 Existence and Reference 2.4.1 Representing Existence 2.4.2 Manners of Conception 2.4.3 Representation, Reference, and Reality 2.5 Summary 3. Our Second Principle 3.1 The Natural Limits of Object Representation 3.1.1 Enter Imagination: The Missing Shade of Blue 3.1.2 Cognitive Gaps and the Natural Mind 3.1.3 Cognitive Gaps: A Taxonomy 3.1.4 Representational Naturalism, Scepticism, and the Imagination 3.2 The Second Principle 3.2.1 The Liberty of the Imagination 3.2.2 Perfect Ideas 3.2.3 Principles of Association and Transitions of Ideas 3.3 The Nature of Hume’s Imagination 3.3.1 The Structural Principle: ‘In the larger or more limited sense’ 3.3.2 Natural and Philosophical Relations 3.3.3 Cognitive Gaps and the Structural Principle 3.4 Inferentialist Naturalism 3.4.1 Non-Mixture 3.4.2 Inference and the Structural Principle 3.4.3 Transitions and Conceptions: The Important Footnote 3.5 Summary PART II. THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD OF IDEAS 4. As if It Were Universal 4.1 Concerning Abstract or General Ideas 4.1.1 A Cognitive Gap: Representational Naturalism and Generality 4.1.2 Hume’s Abstraction: Resemblance, Naming, Custom 4.1.2.1 Resemblance 4.1.2.2 Naming 4.1.2.3 Custom 4.1.3 Generality and the Structural Principle 4.1.3.1 Names–Ideas Inferences 4.1.3.2 Revival of Custom 4.1.3.3 Custom-revival and Generality 4.1.3.4 Generality and Inference 4.1.4 Application in Reasoning and Possibility of Error 4.2 We Accompany our Ideas with a Kind of Reflection 4.2.1 Distinctions of Reason 4.2.2 The Readiness, with which the Imagination Suggests Its Ideas 4.3 Summary 5. Nothing we Imagine is Absolutely Impossible 5.1 Whatever the Mind Clearly Conceives Includes the Idea of Possible Existence 5.1.1 The Cognitive Gap of Modality 5.1.2 The Established Maxim: Content and Point 5.1.3 Imagination and Modality: Separability and Determination 5.2 Hume’s Philosophy of Modality 5.2.1 Metaphysical and Physical Possibility 5.2.2 Absolute and Epistemic Possibility 5.2.3 Humean Modalities and Sceptical Realism 5.3 To Consider the Matter A Priori 5.3.1 Hume’s A Priori 5.3.2 From Metaphysical Necessity to the A Priori 5.3.3 Explaining A Priori Maxims 5.4 Summary PART III. A NEW SYSTEM OF REALITIES 6. A Just Inference 6.1 The Cognitive Gap of Causation 6.1.1 Causal Reasoning and Causal Content: Inferring the Unobserved 6.1.2 The Missing Idea of Cause: Necessity 6.1.3 From Necessity to Inference 6.1.4 From Inference to Experience 6.1.5 From Experience to the Imagination 6.2 The Nature of that Inferenc 6.2.1 Causation as a Natural Relation 6.2.2 Customary Transitions 6.2.3 Causal Ideas 6.3 Summary 7. That Intelligible Quality 7.1 The Missing Idea of Necessary Connexion 7.2 Imagination and the Necessity of Causes 7.2.1 From Causal Inference to Necessary Connexion 7.2.2 From Necessary Connexion to the Imagination 7.2.2.1 The Inferential Core 7.2.2.2 The Impression of Determination 7.2.2.3 Causal Necessity and the Imagination 7.2.3 Transitions and Conceptions: Spreading in the Mind, Spreading on the Objects 7.2.3.1 Conceiving Connexions 7.2.3.2 Spreading in the Mind 7.2.3.3 Spreading on External Objects 7.3 Hume’s Philosophy of Causation 7.3.1 The Two Definitions: Structure, Rationale, and Implications 7.3.1.1 The Complexity of Causal Content 7.3.1.2 Inferentialism and the Two Definitions 7.3.1.3 The Ontology of Causation 7.3.2 True Meaning and Wrong Application 7.4 Summary PART IV. AN EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL WORLD 8. The Ideas which are Most Essential to Geometry 8.1 Representing Space and Time 8.1.1 Manners of Disposition of Visible and Tangible Objects 8.1.2 Finite Divisibility and Adequate Representation 8.2 Imagining Space and Time 8.2.1 An Abstract Idea of Time and Space 8.2.2 The Definitions and Demonstrations of Geometry 8.2.2.1 The Cognitive Gap of Geometrical Equality 8.2.2.2 Closing the Gap: Geometrical Equality 8.2.2.3 The Illusion of Perfect Equality 8.2.3 A Vacuum or Pure Extension 8.2.3.1 The Missing Idea of a Vacuum 8.2.3.2 We Falsely Imagine We Can Form such an Idea 8.2.3.3 A Vacuum is Asserted 8.3 Summary 9. The World as Something Real and Durable 9.1 The Missing Idea of Body 9.1.1 The Principle Concerning the Existence of Body 9.1.2 The Cognitive Gap of External Existences 9.1.2.1 The Senses 9.1.2.2 Reason 9.1.3 Refining the Individuation of the Gap 9.2 Imagining a Real and Durable World: Coherence and Spreading 9.2.1 ‘Spreading out in my mind the whole sea and continent’ 9.2.2 The Hysteresis of the Imagination 9.2.3 ‘A principle too weak to support so vast an edifice’ 9.3 Imagining a Real and Durable World: Constancy and Identity 9.3.1 The Cognitive Gap of Perfect Identity 9.3.2 The Cognitive Gap of Imperfect Identity 9.3.3 From Imperfect Identity to Continued and Distinct Existence 9.3.3.1 The Opposition of Two Principles 9.3.3.2 How to Reconcile Such Opposite Opinions 9.4 The External World: Perceptions, Bodies, Qualities 9.4.1 Perceptions without the Mind, Objects within the Mind 9.4.2 Bodies Existing with the Qualities of Impressions 9.5 Scepticism with Regard to the Senses 9.5.1 The Vulgar and the Philosophical Belief 9.5.2 The Sceptical Malady and Hume’s Realism 9.6 Summary 10. A Mind or Thinking Person 10.1 The Missing Ideas of Soul and Self 10.1.1 The Soul as Substance 10.1.2 Selfless Perceptions 10.2 Imagining the Self and Personal Identity 10.2.1 Identity of Successive Perceptions 10.2.2 The True Idea of the Human Mind 10.2.3 The Same Thinking Person 10.3 Hume’s Recantation 10.3.1 The Labyrinth 10.3.2 United in our Thought or Consciousness 10.3.3 A Difficulty too Hard for my Understanding 10.4 Summary PART V. THE IMAGINATION OR UNDERSTANDING, CALL IT WHICH YOU PLEASE 11. One of the Greatest Mysteries of Philosophy 11.1 Belief as Attitude: Assent 11.1.1 The Cognitive Gap of Assent 11.1.2 Assent, Sensible Representation, and the A Priori 11.1.3 Imagination, Probability, and Assent 11.2 Belief as a Mental State 11.2.1 The Missing State of Belief 11.2.2 Imagination, Belief, and Doxastic Deliberation 11.3 Scepticism and the Imagination 11.3.1 Hume’s Sceptical Concerns: Sources and Varieties 11.3.2 Reflection, Imagination, and the Possibility of Belief 11.3.3 The Dangerous Dilemma 11.4 Summary 12. The Ultimate Judge of All Systems of Philosophy 12.1 The General and More Established Properties of the Imagination 12.1.1 An Unjust Blame? 12.1.2 The First Question: ‘Principles, which, however common, are neither universal nor unavoidable in human nature’ 12.1.3 Rules of Judgement 12.2 Reasonable Foundations of Belief 12.2.1 The Test of the Most Critical Examination 12.2.2 The Truth and Fidelity of our Faculties 12.2.3 Truth, Imagination, and Belief 12.2.4 The Improvement of the Human Mind 12.3 Love of Truth 12.3.1 The Second Question: ‘In the same sense, that a malady is said to be natural’ 12.3.2 The Cognitive Gap of Value and Hume’s Naturalistic Sentimentalism 12.3.3 The Satisfaction We Derive from the Discovery of Truth 12.4 Oblig’d by Our Reason 12.4.1 The First Source of All Our Enquiries 12.4.2 The Title of Reason 12.5 Summary APPENDIX: Principles of Hume’s Theory of the Imagination Bibliography Analytical Index Index of Names