On Hume’s Critique Of Abstract Ideas

Hume’s critique of abstract ideas is a very important ideological theory in his empiricism epistemology.In this theory,Hume thoroughly applied the principle of empiricism,thus proving the impossibility of abstract ideas.But in fact,he does not deny the existence of universality but acquiesces to it in a psychosocial way,which creates obvious difficulties for his theory.In the Middle Ages,the theory of nominalism insisted that the special phase precedes the common phase on the issue of the universal and the different.It believed that only individual things had real existence,while the universal was only a kind of sign,which influenced the later Berkeley and Hume.Hume’s critique of abstract ideas is directly derived from Berkeley,but Hume’s method is different from Berkeley’s.Hume uses his unique epistemological principle,the principle of replication,to classify the source of ideas into the category of experience,and abstract ideas have no source of experience,so there is no legitimacy,which strongly excludes the generation of abstract ideas.At the same time,Hume believed that although every idea in consciousness is special and specific,there is a psychological "habit" in our daily life,which can use some special ideas as representations and make them have the ability to refer to universality within a certain scope.In the last paragraph of his discussion of abstract ideas,Hume refers to the distinction of reason that medieval scholasticism debated so much.The distinction of reason actually refers to the distinction between modes and entities,and it refers to the Scholastic "problem of distinction".In the problem of distinction,it is generally recognized that there are two kinds of distinction--the distinction in reality and the distinction in thinking.However,due to the influence of the theoretical environment at that time,philosophers believed that there was a distinction between reality and thinking,that is,the distinction between modes and the entity they belong to.This distinction is embodied in Scott’s formal distinction and Suarez’s modal distinction,and the modal distinction of Descartes later.Hume’s real aim is to oppose this kind of distinction,because this distinction admits the concept of ‘entity’,and the concept of ‘entity’ seems unreasonable in empiricism.Hume refuted the distinction between modes and entities through the principle of separability,but he did not object to the distinction between modes and modes.Subsequently,Hume makes a psychological interpretation of rational distinction based on selective attention,in order to answer why we find differences between ideas in our thinking.At the same time,in this interpretation,Hume pointed out that the similarity relationship is another way for him to recognize the existence of universality.In academic circles,some scholars think that Hume’s psychological interpretation of rational distinction is not satisfactory.They attack Hume’s "separable principle" and "similarity relationship",but some scholars defend Hume’s psychological position.In fact,Hume’s argument caused the internal collapse of his theory.As Husserl said,Hume recognized universality by similarity relation on the basis of his opposition to abstract idea,which caused the contradiction and conflict in theory.Most importantly,Hume did not answer the reasons for the similarity relationship,and used the conclusion which needs to be summarized and abstracted as the premise to form a circular argument.From the perspective of philosophy history,this is not only Hume’s problem,but also the inevitable logical result of the development of British empiricism in the development of its theory of common phase.Because empiricism philosophy,which is based on the principle of individuality,cannot recognize the existence of the common phase itself,the common phase theory of British empiricism will form the inevitable process of development,turning and decline,while Hume only plays the role of dispelling the empiricism theory.