3. Philosophers with opposing views about the
origination of ideas
DAVID HUME
RENE DESCARTES
• Ideas can be held before the • Descartes believed
mind simply as meanings, and imagination could not help
their logical relations to one
humans.
another can then be detected by
rational inspection • Descartes'
definition of ideas was, only
• Hume, on the other hand, things which exist in the
believed ideas came only from mind and represent other
one thing, impressions. things are called ideas.
4. Hume’s idea
• All simple ideas are copies of impressions
– Complex ideas may be copied from or constructed out of
impressions
• Our knowledge of the world is based on sense
impressions.
5. Against Descartes
• We can be mistaken about what we’re thinking
– though it’s easier to be mistaken about ideas than
impressions, since they’re less vivacious
• Descartes is wrong to think there are pure ideas of
the understanding. All ideas are ideas of the
imagination
• It follows that we cannot think about something we
couldn’t experience!
