Hume on Force and Vivacity and the Content of Ideas

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Hume on Force and Vivacity and the Content of
Ideas

• David Banach
• Department of Philosophy
• St. Anselm College

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The everlasting universe of things Flows
through the mind, and rolls in rapid waves,
Now dark -- now glittering -- now reflecting
gloom -- Now lending splendour, where from
secret springs The source of human thought
its tributes brings
P. B. Shelley, Mont Blanc
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The Theory of Ideas

• Concepts or Ideas are mental representations
  entertained in the mind.
• Thought involves the causal relations of these
  ideas.

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Pragmatic or Conceptual Role Theories

• Concepts do not directly have representational
  content in themselves but only in the context of
  a judgment, proposition, or conceptual scheme.
• Ideas get their meaning in the context of a
  system of dispositions to classify and act with
  respect to objects.

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Ideas

• Ideas are copies of impressions.
• They differ only in force and vivacity, not in
  content.
• Impressions transmit their force and vivacity
  (what I call their impetus) to ideas.
• Quote 2 Impressions and ideas differ not in
  content but only in impetus
• The first circumstance, that strikes my eye, is
  the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and
  ideas in every other particular, except their
  degree of force and vivacity.

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Belief

• Belief is a habit associated with an idea. This
  habit is manifested in the force and vivacity
  with which the idea is held.

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Quote 3 Belief an impetus

• Thus it appears, that the belief or assent, which
  always attends the memory and senses, is nothing
  but the vivacity of those perceptions they
  present and that this alone distinguishes them
  from the imagination. To believe is in this case
  to feel an immediate impression of the senses, or
  a repetition of that impression in the memory.
  'Tis merely the force and liveliness of the
  perception, which constitutes the first act of
  the judgment, and lays the foundation of that
  reasoning, which we build upon it, when we trace
  the relation of cause and effect.

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Quote 6 Impetus does not change content. Belief
an impetus

• All the perceptions of the mind are of two kinds,
  viz. impressions and ideas, which differ from
  each other only in their different degrees of
  force and vivacity.' Our ideas are copy'd from
  our impressions, and represent them in all their
  parts. When you would any way vary the idea of a
  particular object, you can only increase or
  diminish its force and vivacity. If you make any
  other change on it, it represents a different
  object or impression. The case is the same as in
  colours. A particular shade of any colour may
  acquire a new degree of liveliness or brightness
  without any other variation. But when you produce
  any other variation, 'tis no longer the same
  shade or colour. So that as belief does nothing
  but vary the manner, in which we conceive any
  object, it can only bestow on our ideas an
  additional force and vivacity. An opinion,
  therefore, or belief may be most, accurately
  defined, A LIVELY IDEA RELATED TO OR ASSOCIATED
  WITH A PRESENT IMPRESSION.

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Thought the transmission of impetus.

• Impressions and ideas convey their impetus
  according to three basic laws of (human) nature.
• 1. Resemblance
• 2. Contiguity
• 3. Cause and Effect
• Thought is merely the flow of this force and
  vivacity as it is carried along the succession of
  ideas.

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Quote 7 Impetus something felt but mysterious.

• An idea assented to feels different from a
  fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to
  us And this different feeling I endeavour to
  explain by calling it a superior force, or
  vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or
  steadiness. This variety of terms, which may seem
  so unphilosophical, is intended only to express
  that act of the mind, which renders realities
  more present to us than fictions, causes them to
  weigh more in the thought, and gives them a
  superior influence on the passions and
  imagination.
• ... I confess, that 'tis impossible to explain
  perfectly this feeling or manner of conception.
  We may make use of words, that express something
  near it. But its true and proper name is belief,
  which is a term that every one sufficiently
  understands in common life. .

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Abstract Ideas

• All ideas are particular and determinate. Ideas
  became general by bringing to mind an indefinite
  number of other ideas according to a custom of
  habit associated with the word or idea.

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Quote 4 Meaning of general idea a custom

• A particular idea becomes general by being
  annex'd to a general term that is, to a term,
  which from a customary conjunction has a relation
  to many other particular ideas, and readily
  recalls them in the imagination.
• The only difficulty, that can remain on
  this subject, must be with regard to that
  custom, which so readily recalls every
  particular idea, for which we may have occasion,
  and is excited by any word or sound, to which we
  commonly annex it. The most proper method, in my
  opinion, of giving a satisfactory explication of
  this act of the mind, is by producing other
  instances, which are analogous to it, and other
  principles, which facilitate its operation. To
  explain the ultimate causes of our mental
  actions is impossible. 'Tis sufficient, if we can
  give any satisfactory account of them from
  experience and analogy.

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Hume on Distinctions of Reason
We have no abstract idea of shape without
color. One single colored, shaped idea leads us,
according to custom, to other ideas that resemble
it with respect to shape, but not color.
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Distinctions of Reason
Nor do we have an idea of color without shape.
In this case, the very same single colored idea
of the sphere leads us, according to a different
custom to other ideas that resemble it with
respect to color but not shape.
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The power of the impetus associated with abstract
ideas

• a. Ideas of large numbers, such as 1000, do not
  have a clear and determinate image.
• b. An entire verse of poetry, though we can't
  recall it at the moment, can be brought back to
  us in a moment by one word.
• c. We have no clear image for our complex ideas,
  such as church, negotiation, or conquest.
• d. Knowing an idea bestows a marvelous ability
  to bring up relevant ideas at appropriate times
  without having a clear idea how we do so.

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Quote 5 Custom or impetus a mysterious power of
the soul

• The fancy runs from one end of the universe to
  the other in collecting those ideas, which belong
  to any subject. One would think the whole
  intellectual world of ideas was at once subjected
  to our view, and that we did nothing but pick out
  such as were most proper for our purpose. There
  may not, however, be any present, beside those
  very ideas, that are thus collected by a kind of
  magical faculty in the soul, which, tho' it be
  always most perfect in the greatest geniuses, and
  is properly what we call a genius, is however
  inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human
  understanding.

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Summary

• 1. Apart from the representational content of an
  idea there is another component its force and
  vivacity, its impetus.
• 2. The impetus of ideas is felt, part of the
  phenomenology of the idea, though it is distinct
  from the content of the idea and is not itself
  another idea. (Indeed, it would have been more
  consistent for Hume to consider emotions and
  sentiments as these types of impetüs than as
  separate ideas.)
• 3. The impetus of ideas, as the name suggests, is
  active, is connected with habit or custom, and
  directs the production and flow of ideas.
• 4. The meaning of general ideas is a custom, the
  un-represented meaning of an idea is its
  impetus, which is distinct from its definition,
  or list of instances, or explicit rules for
  producing these instances.

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The content of ideas are in the habits that
connect them, not their intentional content
itself.

• Once one sees the way ideas actually do their
  work for Hume, it becomes clear that they are
  merely tokens, along for the ride in the real
  business of the transmission of the force or
  impetus that thought involves. A consideration of
  Humes view of abstract ideas suggests that the
  real content of thought lies within the impetus,
  not the idea.

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Connectionism and the flow of information
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Neural Networks in a Laminar Cortex
Figure from Paul Churchland, A Neurocomputational
Perspective, 1989
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Quote 8 Impetus transmitted from idea to idea,
originates in object.

• I would willingly establish it as a general
  maxim in the science of human nature, that when
  any impression becomes present to us, it not only
  transports the mind to such ideas as are related
  to it, but likewise communicates to them a share
  of its force and vivacity.
• Now 'tis evident the continuance of the
  disposition depends entirely on the objects,
  about which the mind is employ'd and that any
  new object naturally gives a new direction to the
  spirits, and changes the disposition as on the
  contrary, when the mind fixes constantly on the
  same object, or passes easily and insensibly
  along related objects, the disposition has a much
  longer duration

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The Impetus of Ideas.

• 1. Arises from the object.
• 2. Is active
• 2. Is felt.
• 3. Is formal.
• It is felt as the form of our impressions of
  objects as they inform our habits of connection.

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The Flow of Ideas

• The secret strength of things
• Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
• Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!