De los Roles de Directivos y Jefes Departamentales

132 contact. He divided perception into impressions and ideas and with his theory of impression;

he denied the existence of the physical world.

So from the above clarification, this work will be dealing with the phenomenalysis of Hume‟s epistemology as a phenomenalitic epistemology to buttress that his epistemology is all about the perception of the phenomena of the senses; that all our ideas are from impressions which he claimed is the limit of human knowledge. Our knowledge for Hume and other empiricists begins and ends in Sense experience. We shall start with the discussion on Hume‟s notion of sensism.

133 matters of fact. Relations of ideas has to do with mathematical conceptions like geometry, algebra, arithmetic, and every affirmation which is intuitively or demonstratively certain, that is, by mere operation of thought, their certainty is established because of the relationship between ideas which they express.

Accordingly to Walsh M. J,

Knowledge of impressions is either empirical knowledge of “matters of fact” or a priori knowledge of “relations of ideas” (images). This distinction is also called the distinction between “probability” and “knowledge” (cf. Treatise 1, 3; Enquiry 4, 1). It is the distinction which exists between contingent truths (e.g. one town is five miles or eight and necessary truths (as in mathematics). Empirical “matters of fact” can be discovered by -observation and non-demonstrative inference based on the relation of cause and effect. These empirical

“facts” or “probabilities” can always

be conceived to be false without contradiction. A priori knowledge or “relation of ideas”, as in Euclidean geometry, can be discovered by intuition and by demonstration. It is knowledge of the relations of “resemblance, contrariety, degrees in quality, proportions in quality and number.¹³

The consequence of that which has been submitted above is that all necessary truths must be formal, this means that they should be determined by the relations of identity and exclusion between ideas and the thinking that our knowledge of things is caused by them has to be given up. In the case of matters of fact truths, there is no part of matter in reality that by its sensible qualities discovers any power or gives us the ground to imagine that it would be possible that it is capable of producing anything. Then, „„When we look about us towards external objects and consider the operation of causes we are never able in a single instance

134 to discover any power or necessary connexion, any quality which binds the effect to the cause and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other we only find that the one does actually follow the other.‟‟¹⁴

From the above, it is discernible that for Hume, whatever that cannot be qualified either as an abstract reasoning or experimental reasoning must remain without meaning. Everything that qualifies in terms of abstract reasoning gives no knowledge of the world. “The only abstract objects of the abstract sciences of demonstration are quantity and number, and all attempts to extend this more perfect species of knowledge beyond these bounds are mere sophistry and illusions.”¹⁵ The things qualified in terms of matters of fact gives knowledge although the problem of the justification of induction poses a challenge.

This assertion of Hume stemmed from his position that all we know are impressions of things which we derive through perception with the senses. Since knowledge constitutes the basis of the new science of man, this science is to examine the extent and powers of human understanding. Like Locke, Hume derived all the contents of knowledge from experience.

Though Hume did not use the term „perception‟ precisely the same way as Locke did, but he used it to cover the mind‟s content in general, and divided perception into impressions and ideas. „„All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kind- impressions and ideas.‟‟16

He took impressions to mean the immediate data of experience such as sensation, that which takes effect at the time of direct contact with the object, and later as ideas when mind reflects on the impressions or the copies of faint images of impression in thinking and reasoning. Hume explained ideas as true representation of impressions in thought. Ideas and

135 impressions appear always to correspond to each other. He described the differences between impressions and ideas in terms of vividness.

The difference between these consists in the degree of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind and make their way into our thoughts and consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions, and, under this name, I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning.‟‟¹⁷

We have perceptions of which forms ideas in our minds; which may be simple or complex.

What led to Hume‟s radical position that sense experience is the only possible guide to the acquisition of knowledge that is certain, we however discovered that it is not unconnected to the fact that the search for knowledge that is certain, which Aristotle shifted to concrete objects through experimentation and which also cut through the time of John Locke and George Berkeley who laid emphasis on sensation and reflection respectively, influenced Hume to a great extent. So, by building on the philosophy of Locke and Berkeley, Hume came to develop his radical position about sense perception as the limit of human knowledge. For him, “the only true knowledge is experiential; any concept that is not available to sense perception is mere fanciful thinking.”¹⁸

From the fore going, it becomes obvious that Hume‟s position is that our sense experiences furnish us with knowledge of the physical world external to us. Having discovered however, that Hume divided the objects of human reason into relations of ideas and matters of fact and perception into impressions and ideas which involve sense experience for the proof of its certainty, we therefore sum up Hume‟s epistemological paradigm this way; statements about physical objects can be known to be true through sense experience and that by means of our senses, we perceive the physical world as it is, thus, the sense experience we have of

136 physical things are generated by those physical things themselves. Therefore, the sense data generated by physical objects and which we get as impressions are what guarantee the existence of these objects and through which we have knowledge of them (phenomenalism).

This indicated that for Hume, impression is the guarantor of knowledge. From this, Hume maintained his radical stand that there can be no knowledge of anything beyond experience.

He denied the existence of the external world or physical objects claiming we can only have impressions of them like in hardness, softness, whiteness, shape, etc. There is no idea that does not come from sense experience in the form of impression; every of our idea must correspond to an impression, even when we feel that some of our ideas do not correspond to our impressions. Hume argued that it is as a result of the ability of the mind to form complex ideas through the faculty of compounding transposing, augmenting or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. Moreover, It was also noted that Hume‟s sensism led him into denying innate truth of the rationalists on the ground of his belief that the so called “truths of reason” are dependent on “truth of facts” which derives from sense experience because as he claimed, they (truths of reason) are not innate, for all men are not aware of possessing these ineffable truths and so Hume took sense experience to be superior and prior to reason. This gave rise to the popular maxim of the empiricists that “nothing can ever be in the intellect without first being in the senses”. Hume argued that the so called

“innate truths” cannot be innate because the ideas about which they are, can by no means be supposed to be so.

Hume‟s theory of perception which he divided into impressions and ideas is purely phenomenalism. His submission that we can only have perception of sensory /physical objects which make impressions to the mind and ideas formed from them; also his claim that

137 the impressions we have of any physical objects are derived from the physical objects themselves but the knowledge or reality of those objects are not given rather their impressions and so are not known. This invariably is the denial of the existence of the physical objects and ultimately, the external world. This is phenomenalism in Hume‟s theory that the physical world cannot be said to exist in themselves but as a perpetual phenomena. We can only have knowledge of impressions given to us from perceptual or sensory objects. However the understanding of Hume‟s theory of ideas will help to note the philosophical undertone of his metaphysical rejection.

Over now to the discussion of Hume on association of ideas.