BY C. D. BROAD Feiiow O! Tlu Acadcm2

BY C. D. BROAD Feiiow O! Tlu Acadcm2

By Baroness Onora O'NeiI I Pi^esident of the eri ti sh AcademY From: http : / /vtwtt.bri tac. ac. uk/ reports/copyri ght /foreword . html As the U.K.'s national academyfor the humanities and social sciences, the eritish Academyis well R]lced.to consider how the current copyright system is affecti.ng research in these disciplines, especially since Academy rei iows are both producbrs and users of bri gi na'l copyri ght work. Becauseour pellows have these dual roles, they are esoeciallv conscious of the need for balance which is inherent in copyriqht. Creative activity requires protection of the moral and economic rights of the creators of oriqinal material , otr the one hand, and the opportuni ty to lse and develop exi sti.ng materi al i n new ahi oriqinil forms, otr the other hand.-The maintenance of that baTance is a difficult and delicate task, and the Academybel i eves that i n recent years the bal ance has swunq too far in the direction of protecting existing riteii at at the expense of faci 1i thti ng the- devel opment of original material. fhi s i s one of a number of reports by the lcademy fgcusi ng policy on current policy questions.-comp-l An earlier Rcademy report, "Thht fui I ement of ri ches: the contri buti ons of' the arts, humaniti e-s and soci al sci ences to the nati on's weil th" , demonstrated the vi tal contri buti ons made by these di sci pl i nes to the UK's economiS advantage, soci al - development hnd cul tu ral enri chment. The difficulties that researchers in these disciplines are experieniing, which are the result of the way i1 which the 1airy i s st ruEiu red and i mp-lemented , has i mp-li cati ons therefore for the UK's wbll-being. This report illustrates these prob'lems and contai ns speci fi c proposal s for considbration by government and other bodies- "' t.f , i;!$ 1.'l:" ',.,-., ".":1: .'1,.', - ,,,1?+,, HUME'S DOCTRII,{E,OF ..,i. - :':ia',F. ':I .1'_.:_ . ' SPACE . ':i: I_' .: BY C. D. BROAD FeIIow o! tlu Acadcm2 DAWES HICKS LECTURE oN Pirlosopltv BRITISH ACADEMY rq6r ':i +i Price 4s.net . .\. : _.i-I FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, VOLUME XLVII LONDbN : OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS r- : " 'AMEN HotisE, E-c.4 c- .\ \4rl tl I- DAWES HICKS LECTURE ON PHILOSOPHY HUME'S DOCTRINE OF SPACE Bv C. D. BROAD Fellow of the Academlt Read3 May 196r Lf UME devoted Part II of Book I of his Treatiseon Human L L Nature' to what he calls 'The Ideas of Space and Time'. He added certain remarks in the Appendix to vol. III of the first edition of that work. These are incorporated in the text in the edition of Green and Grose.The whole doctrine is printed continuously in T.H.N. (I), pp. 33+-7r. It is very queer stuff indeed, and presumablyHume becamedissatisfied lvith it, for it does not reappear in the Enquiry.He treats Space and Time together, and he professesto come to the same conclusions mutatis mutandisabout both. But he goes into much greater detail about Space than about Tirne, and it is easier to see what his theory amounts to in the former casethan in the latter. Here I shall consideronly what he has to say about Space. Hume gives a summary of his doctrine of Space in Treatise, bk. I, part II, sect.iv g.H.N. (I), pp. 345-6).I shall, however, summirize it in my olvn way. But before doing so, I will make the following introductory remarks: (r ) Hume talks in this part of his work in a quite realistic common-senseway about bodies emitting or reflecting light to one's eyes and thus eventually giving rise to visual sensations. All this woild, of course, need to be analysed in terms of his account of material-object propositions and of causal proposi- tions, if his doctrine were to be made into a coherent whole. (z) What he here calls 'space'would be more accuratelycalled discussionto the notions ,1 'extension'. For he confines his of 1l not discussin any detail 1 extensionand of shape,and does the t notion of the location of all physical things and events in { t a single three-dimensionalphysical space. (3) Much of the i I the following doctrine of ideas' To have $ argument presupposes I t All quotations and referencesare from Vol. I o[the two-volume edition t of Humels Treatiseon HurnanJ{ature, edited by Green and Grose, published by Longmans in t8go, and here denoted by T.H.N, (l). l*r /, 162 PROCEE,DINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY an idea of something answering to the description 'X' just consists in having a mental image which answers to that description. Thus, for example, to have an idea of a red cir- cular surface just consists in having a mental imagc '"vhich is red and circular, in the sensein rvhich such qualities can belong to mental images. Similarly, to have an idea of an empty spherical volume rvould be to have a mental image which was voluminous and spherical, but had no imaginal quality corre- sponding to colour or temperature or texture or any other sense-givenquality. All this being presumed, we may say that Humc is mainly concerned in his discussionof extension with two questions, viz. (I) the question of the diuisibiliry of extended particulars, and (II) the question rvhcther anyone has or could have an idea of a length or an area or a volume uithout an2 sensalqualities, such as colour, temperature, texture, ctc. He describes this second question as the question whether there is or could be an idea of a uacuum. As regards tire first question, r,vhat he really discussesunder that head could be more accurately described as follorvs. In the first place, he confines the question to certain sense-data,viz. visual and tactual ones. And what he asksabout such sense-data is this. What are the ultimate constituents of which an ordinary finite extended visual or tactual sense-datum is composed? Are they themselves extended or are thev literally punctiform ? Is the number of such ultimate constituents in a finite visual or tactual sense-datum finite or infinite? His ansrversto these questions are as follorvs. (r) There are literallt puitctiformvisual sense-data, i.e. sense-givenparticulars which have colour, and position in the visual fielcl, but no extension. Similarly, there are literall2 punctiform tactual sense- data, i.e. sense-givenparticulars rvhich have sensible hotness or coldnessor sensibletextural qualities, and position in the tactual field, but no extension. (z) Any extended visual sense-datum consists of a fnite number of punctiform coloured sense-data aggregated in a unique kind of way. We might call this rela- tionship'extension-generating aggregation'. Precisely similar remarks apply rnutatismutandis to any extended tactual sense- datum. (3)Just as we are presented in sensationwith punctiform coloured sense-data, so we can imagine punctiform coloured visual images. These resemble, and are ultimately derived from, our earlier sensationsof punctiform coloured sense-data.The same is true mutatis mutandis of tactual images. ,:\ HUME,SDOCTRINE OF SPACE 163 So much for Hume,s answers to euestion I. His answer to II, viz. the question euestion whichTe put;i;;;dr_: Can there be an idea of a vacuum ?, is obvious o" rri, o*'., the question f.irr.ipr.r. For would come to this: can trr... b. u.rt.*t..ra.a mental iTage, composed of punctifo.- which have no-imaginal quality correspondingto -.rr,uii_."., either *"J"ir. colour or sensible temperatur.. or- urry oth-er sensal q";ii,y ? The answerseems pretty obviouslyto be: No ! I will now considerHume,s argumentsfor theseconclusions, and will take in turn the two qirestionsof oi"iriu'iiy and of Idea of a Vacuum. I. DIVISIBILITY, Ijnder the head of 'Divisibility' I shail consider first his argument for the_exist-encc of punctifor- ,ui.rri urrd ,u.,rut sense-data. Then I shail deal r,vith his doctrin. in*lrainary finitely extended visuar and tactual sense-data are aggregates of punctiform sense-d ata. rt will be needlessto'-Jir.i,r, tn.r. questionsseparately for visual and for tactual sensation,and I confine so yill my_selfin what lollows to uisualr..rrurio.r. punctform Q). .Tlte ereme-nts-${,r-.holds that under suitable conditions one can actuaily ,dnr. u singrepunrctifb.; coroured sensum,i.e. a sense-giv^en_particula. *f,i.f, has colour, and location in the visuai field, but no. extension)H.".-luims to establish.this. by the following experiment, which o'yo.r. .u' try for himself. Supposethat you put-? spot of ink on a bit of white paper; fix.the^ puprl on the wail al the level or y*. .y.rl-."a ,rr." walk slowly backwards from the wall, t..iri"f V1"1.1., n*.a on the spot- There is a certain rimiting aiit"ri.! doubt, 1aidJr.rr,, ,ro for differenr persons.andperhapi ro. ttr.-*r\i.^p"..ro'o., different occasions)f such that, if V9".move arry fartter back, you simply ceaseto see the:p9;-._tull, i... there ceasesto be any sense-datumin your visual- field which can u. lo".rt.d as a visual rpp.uruni. of the aot. H"-. thinks it obvious that the sense-datumwhich yo.us.eTe. wl_re.n you just ..u.fr-ifri, ii*iairrg distance must be unextended. And it i, ..ituirrly ,otoirri, for it is a blue-looking dot on a white-looking backgroun;."d" it is a punctiform blue sense-datum.

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