PHIL 250 Lecture 16: Hume on Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact; Causation
10 Mar 2017
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Hume on relations of ideas and matters of fact; causation: hume"s discussion of the association of ideas concern the (often involuntary) workings of the imagination. Hume divides all the objects of human reason into two kinds : relations of ideas and. A belief claim is warranted in virtue of either (a) relations that hold between the ideas which comprise the belief, or (b) the recognition of some matter of fact (some state of affairs). To claim that some belief is true in virtue of relations of ideas is to claim that the belief expresses a truth merely in virtue of the content of the ideas that comprise it. Hume"s examples are from geometry and maths, but the old chestnut, all vixens are female foxes is another such truth. It"s true merely in virtue of the meaning of the terms that comprise it, or, of the contents of ideas of vixens and female foxes.
