Simple Impressions Research Articles

Sedimentological and ecological significance of a biodeformational structure associated with an unusual feeding behavior in gulls (Larus sp.)

Shorebirds produce a range of biogenic sedimentary structures related to their feeding behaviors, the most common of which are probing behaviors that result in morphologically simple impressions or indentations on the surface of a sedimentary substrate. Here we describe an unusual biodeformational structure made by a feeding gull (Larus sp.) produced as the tracemaker kneaded the sediment by moving its feet back and forth in place. This process liquified the sediment making it easier to catch invertebrate prey — the most common of which is the varnish clam (Nuttallia obscurata) — that are advected to the top of the liquified sediment. The bird retreated slowly backward as the sediment was liquified, an effort that is interpreted to represent continued and ongoing feeding in the sediment of prey-rich substrates. The resulting structure comprises a series of nested, concavo-convex sediment mounds and a terminal bowl-shaped impression. The aim of this paper is to document the trace–tracemaker association and provide a means of comparison with similar structures. Most notably, the structure bears similarities to Piscichnus, which represents ray feeding traces produced by hydraulic jetting (fodichnia) or nesting behaviors (calichnia) in fish. Piscichnus, however, lacks the nested mounds that result from the tracemaker systematically moving backward as it searches for food.

The Mesolithic – Neolithic transition in the Upper Volga region resulted from the stone industry analyses

The paper deals with a phenomenon of neolithisation in the Upper Volga basin. The author studies the results of culture processes in the region based on: 1) the investigation of the stone assemblages from reference sites with non-ornamented ceramics or pottery with simple puncture impressions; 2) the tools types comparison over the final Mesolithic and initial Neolithic; 3) mapping of the non-ornamented/notch-ware pottery in European Russia. The transition to the Neolithic is associated with infiltrations of some puncture-ware pottery makers into the indigenous Mesolithic populations. It is most likely that the first vessels were imported into the region by migrants. The untraceable differences between the Final Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic stone industries may indicate a scarcely noticeable infiltration of newcomers from neighboring territories to the Upper Volga region. The manufacture tradition of the ceramics either non-ornamented or decorated by simple puncture impressions was formed in the regional culture environment. This event should be regarded as a particular transition time from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. The later rise of the Neolithic was marked by shifts in the economy and by the local ceramic manufacture development accompanied by thin biface technique appearance in the stone assemblages. These changes give evidence of a transition to the Neolithic in the Upper Volga signalized by the progressive replacement of populations.

Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation by David Landy

Reviewed by: Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation by David Landy Emily Kelahan David Landy. Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. Pp. 278. ISBN 978-1-138-50313-7, Paperback, $48.95; Hardback, $160.00.* As the title suggests, David Landy’s Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation defends a staunchly realist interpretation of Hume on scientific explanation. Landy’s forward-looking view sees Hume’s methodology in the Treatise as anticipating developments much later in history. He gives Hume a Sellarsian update, making his philosophy of science more impactful and contemporary than previously thought. The motivation for his view is twofold. First, he wants to respond to the long line of Hume critics who think his “science of human nature” is hardly science at all. According to this interpretive tradition (the Deductive-Nomological view), Hume’s “science” is merely the collection of empirical generalizations with no explanation involved. Far from deploying this lazy, shallow method, Landy’s Hume has a sophisticated methodology at the heart of which is a “perceptible model.” Just as Bohr proposed that we understand the structure of an atom (not directly observable) as analogous to the solar system (directly observable), Hume is best understood as treating simple ideas as theoretical posits in an experiential model based on purely descriptive phenomenology that both resemble and differ from direct experience. Secondly, Landy wants to distance himself from other recent attempts to update our understanding of Hume on scientific explanation, most notably the New Humean view. While Landy and the New Humeans agree that [End Page 109] Hume intends to do more than collect generalizations, the New Humeans think Hume concludes that a satisfying explanation is impossible, as the explanans is unknowable. The Deductive-Nomological view sees Hume as failing to reach for substantial explanation. The New Humean view sees Hume as failing to grasp substantial explanation. Landy’s interpretation has Hume reaching for substantial explanation and it aligns Hume’s grasp with his reach. Chapters 1 and 2 lay out Landy’s perceptible model-based interpretation. He begins with Hume’s theory of mental representation, introducing the basic distinctions between simple and complex perceptions and between impressions and ideas, but then quickly treks into controversial territory. Landy elucidates something about which Hume is not explicit but which he likely cannot deny. We never experience simple ideas as simple. Experience is always complex. Simple impressions always enter the mind as parts of complex impressions. Because experience is always complex, our revival set for “simple idea” consists exclusively of complex ideas. What does this mean for the status of simple ideas? Simple ideas are like atoms. We cannot see them but we commit to them as theoretical posits because they make sense of what we do see. Landy sees us as having a choice. Explain the novelty of human thought and give up strict nominalism or give up a satisfying explanation of the novelty of human thought and keep strict nominalism. Experience alone licenses only nominalism, but to properly explain experience, you cannot be a strict nominalist. Landy opts to give up strict nominalism by construing simple ideas as unobservable theoretical posits. By basing them on a perceptible model, he minimizes the risks posed to Hume’s naturalism. As for substantial explanation, Landy argues that Hume takes no issue with substantial explanation per se. His problem, Landy explains, is with substantial explanation of inappropriate putative objects of explanation. Hume rejects and strongly condemns non-empirical methods. If a substantial explanation is explaining a bona fide empirical phenomenon, there is no problem by Hume’s lights. Chapter 3 offers a deeper analysis of Hume on substantial explanation and explores the role of reason. Because Hume’s science of human nature is so rich and covers such an array of experience, it can be difficult to track Hume’s own ontological commitments. The vulgar and especially the false philosopher often talk of the substance undergirding human experience, but Hume clearly denies the legitimacy of their claims. They are not advancing anything like an acceptable substantial explanation of descriptive...

Subjetividad, Intersubjetividad y Corporalidad en la teoría humeana de las pasiones indirectas

El trabajo es un estudio de la teoría humeana de las pasiones indirectas. Pretende señalar el vínculo con un campo intersubjetivo que oficia de marco para el desarrollo afectivo del sujeto y el carácter irreductiblemente encarnado del mismo. Para ello: a. se reconstruye esquemáticamente la clasificación humeana de las pasiones; b. se discute la idea de que las pasiones indirectas son impresiones simples y se sostiene que esto no impide a Hume poder pensar las condiciones circundantes como causalmente necesarias para la aparición de estas impresiones dentro de haz de percepciones que conforman la mente; c. se defiende la tesis de que estas condiciones causales son de carácter cognitivo: a medida que se incorporan diversas mediaciones cognitivas, nuestras pasiones adquieren progresivos grados de sofisticación que permiten pensar el refinamiento y desarrollo gradual de la estructura afectiva (y cognitiva) del individuo.

Hume on the Stoic Rational Passions and "Original Existences"

I argue that Hume's characterization of the passions as original existences is shaped by his preoccupation with Stoicism, and is not (as most commentators suppose) a ridiculous or trifling remark. My argument has three parts. First, I show that Hume's description of the passions as original existences is properly understood as part of his argument against the possibility of passions caused by reason alone (rational passions). Second, I establish that Hume was responding to the Stoics, who claimed that a rational passion is caused by a special type of impression that accurately represents its cause—the divine reason administrating the cosmos—in virtue of resembling it. Third, I argue that Hume rejects the Stoics' claim by appeal to the following feature of his general account of impressions and ideas: for Hume, ideas are exact copies or representations of the impressions that caused them, but simple impressions are originals that do not represent in virtue of resembling their external or physiological causes. On my reading of Hume, the 'original existence' passage therefore signals his rebuke of a key claim in the Stoics' theory of rational passions.

Simple Ideas and Hume’s Missing Shade of Blue

This paper provides support for the unorthodox view that Hume’s simple ideas are most fruitfully understood as theoretical posits by showing that adopting this interpretation solves a lingering interpretive difficulty, the missing shade of blue. The missing shade of blue is thought to pose a serious challenge to the legitimacy of Hume’s copy principle (the thesis that all simple ideas are copied from simple impressions). Thinking of Humean simple ideas as theoretical posits reveals a dialectical mismatch between Hume and his envisioned reader that, once understood, makes it clear that the case holds little sway against the copy principle. The solution developed and defended has some significant advantages over extant solutions.

Impression Difference Between Intelligent Medicine Case and Small Service Robot in Self-Medication Support Situations

Medication management support systems were developed to prevent recipient’s mistakes such as forgetting to take medicine. The systems remind recipients to take medicine at the right time via a medicine case with a built-in speaker or display, and they must keep recipient motivation to continue doing so. In this research, the authors found factors to keep the motivation by evaluating recipient impression of a management support system. In addition to an intelligent medicine case, a small service robot was used as a reminder to supplement the above because some researchers reported that a robot has good features as a user interface. The authors defined three experimental situations and two conditions and compared the conditions in the situations based on a semantic differential. Questionnaires for overall evaluation and video analysis for objective evaluation were also used. Experimental results suggested that humane, friendly, flamboyant, sunny, and simple impressions improve recipient motivation and concentration.

Optimization of Low-Temperature Exhaust Gas Waste Heat Fueled Organic Rankine Cycle

Low temperature exhaust gases carrying large amount of waste heat are released by steel-making process and many other industries, Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs) are proven to be the most promising technology to recover the low-temperature waste heat, thereby to get more financial benefits for these industries. The exergy analysis of ORC units driven by low-temperature exhaust gas waste heat and charged with dry and isentropic fluid was performed, and an intuitive approach with simple impressions was developed to calculate the performances of the ORC unit. Parameter optimization was conducted with turbine inlet temperature simplified as the variable and exergy efficiency or power output as the objective function by means of Penalty Function and Golden Section Searching algorithm based on the formulation of the optimization problem. The power generated by the optimized ORC unit can be nearly as twice as that generated by a non-optimized ORC unit. In addition, cycle parametric analysis was performed to examine the effects of thermodynamic parameters on the cycle performances such as thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency. It is proven that performance of ORC unit is mainly affected by the thermodynamic property of working fluid, the waste heat temperature, the pinch point temperature of the evaporator, the specific heat capacity of the heat carrier and the turbine inlet temperature under a given environment temperature.

Why Hume's Counterexample is Insignificant and Why It is Not

The idea of the missing shade of blue presents a difficulty for Hume's first principle that ‘all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspond...

Simple and speedy impressions

Simple and speedy impressions

Hume's First Principle, His Missing Shade, and His Distinctions of Reason

Hume's First Principle, our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent, is not only the fundamental principle of his theory of mind; it is also his criterion of significance.1 Given that all ideas can ultimately be traced to preceding simple which they exactly resemble, to understand an idea, Hume claims, we must examine its corresponding impression (or, if the idea is complex, analyze it into its simple components and examine their corresponding impressions). To show that some putative idea is a fiction, we need only show that we lack the corresponding impression(s). Hume employs the Principle as his criterion of significance when he argues that we have no idea of necessary connection (as a quality of bodies), of substance, or of the (simple) self, among other things. Quick work could be made of both Hume's psychology and these attacks on our ideas if a counterexample to his Principle could be found. Curiously and infamously, after arguing on behalf of the Principle, emphasizing its importance, and even challenging us to find a counterexample, he introduces one contradictory phaenomenon, which may prove, that 'tis not absolutely impossible for ideas to go before their correspondent impressions (T 5).2 He

Hume on Qualities

There is another division of our perceptions, which it will be convenient to observe, and which extends itself both to our impressions and ideas. This division is into SIMPLE and COMPLEX. Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these, and may be distinguished into parts. Tho' a particular colour, taste, and smell are qualities all united together in this apple, 'tis easy to perceive they are not the same, but are at least distinguishable from each other. (T 2)

The Objects of Hume's Treatise

Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 163-177 The Objects of Hume's Treatise MARJORIE GRENE Objects have no discoverable connexion together; nor is it from any other principle but custom operating upon the imagination, that we can draw any inference from the appearance of one to the existence of another. (T 103) ...let us remember, that as every idea is deriv'd from a preceding perception, 'tis impossible our idea of a perception, and that of an object or external existence can ever represent what are specifically different from each other. Whatever difference we may suppose betwixt them, 'tis still incomprehensible to us; and we are oblig'd either to conceive an external object merely as a relation without a relative, or to make it the very same with a perception or impression. (T 241) 1. What does Hume mean by the term 'object'? To those who follow the once standard reading of Hume as the arch subjectivist, 'object' can either be given a "phenomenalist" reading, as the second passage here quoted strongly suggests, or be decried as anomalous and inconsistent. The German idealists read Hume that way: the Philosophisches Journal, for example, is full of articles by Fichte (under the pseudonym Anaesidemus) about how wonderful it is that all we know is our own minds, and our own minds as little inner bits. Russell Marjorie Grene is at the Center for the Study of Science in Society, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg VA 24061-0247 USA. 164 ΜαήοήÎμ Grene read Hume that way, too: see Enquiry and Human Knowledge. And there is certainly something in this reading: in challenging, and defeating, the dragon Reason, Hume is seeking to reduce all our inferences to their ground in experience . But experience reduces in the last analysis to simple impressions: little colored bits (or little sounds and smells and feels?). On this foundation, and with moderately calm determinations of the passions to guide us, we can stop short of extravagant speculations about immaterial substances and immortal souls and the miseries associated with such ill-grounded beliefs. We can get on with the business of everyday life in the way that reasonable men (not Rationalists or Theologians) rightly like to do. Yet, as Passmore has classically shown, such a subjective treatment of experience is not the single, unambiguous theme of Hume's Treatise.1 There is surely a real world we are all living in, and are part of. Only we are treating that world here in terms of moral rather than natural philosophy; we are starting with our perceptions, not with the anatomy or physiology that would attempt to describe their causes. The superiority of moral philosophy (in the eighteenth century, and Scottish, sense) consists in the obvious fact that even anatomy or physiology, or more broadly, the mechanical philosophy of Newton, has to be built experimentally (constructed, in the now fashionable jargon) on the ground of those very human perceptions the moral philosopher studies. Sometimes Hume sounds positively Kantian in his self-conscious effort to pay attention only, or primarily, to the appearances of things, without denying that "external" things are the causes of those phenomena. But that is not quite right: the bodily events, movements of the "spirits" and the like, that presumably cause our perceptions can indeed be studied—elsewhere and by others. They are not mysteriously "things-in-themselves" exempt from human investigation. Even in such studies, however, the natural philosopher, if he is wise, will follow the rules of causal reasoning that the moral philosopher has discovered (in T I 3 xv); and these rules, in turn, are rules for connecting impressions and ideas—not for connecting impressions and/or ideas with "objects" beyond experience. The latter habit, though unavoidable, is the product of imagination's inventiveness, not of proper causal reasoning. So, again, even when we place ourselves in the "real" world, we acknowledge the priority of moral to natural philosophy. Sometimes, however, Hume does talk, in the Treatise, about "objects" as other than perceptions, and about "external objects," and sometimes he does—though occasionally with apologies—treat perceptions "anatomically," with reference to the movement of the spirits and such like...

Hume's System: An Examination of the First Book of his "Treatise." (review)

David Pears. Hume's System:An Examination ofthe First Book ofhis " Treatise." Oxford: University Press, 1990. David Hume's appeal that the Enquiries "may alone be regarded as containinghisphilosophicalsentiments andprinciples" 2 is once again denied in Hume's System: An Examination of the First Book of his "Treatise,"hy David Pears. In his postscript Pears explains his neglect ofthe Enquiries: the Ught that it [Enquiry ConcerningHuman Understanding] does throw is softer and more diffuse, whereas the Treatise is a young man's book in which the structure of his thought emerges more starkly and with sharper outlines, (p. 199) While tracking the main themes of his rigorous treatment of Hume, I will show that the gratitude we owe Pears is qualified by some minor difficulties. In at least one case, when dealing with Hume's account ofperception, Pears ought to have consulted the softer light of the Enquiry. Pears' account of the first book of the Treatise constitutes an attempt to redress the balance upset by past Hume scholarship. He maintains that Hume's theory ofmind addresses both ofthe questions that have served as platforms for opposing interpretations of the Treatise. Some commentators have concentrated solely on Hume's theory ofidea derivation as it responds to the question, What ideas may we legitimatelyhave? Others have explored Hume's account ofthe role of ideas in thought as it responds to the question, What may we legitimately believe? When we succumb to the temptation tofavour one of these questions, we fail to appreciate the relationship between Hume's account ofmeaning and his account oftruth. The temptations are admittedlypowerful. As apsychological version ofsemantic theory, Hume's account ofmeaning is strikingly similar to that of the Logical Positiviste. But the failure of such interpretations to account for the bulk of Hume's discussion in any but dismissive ways can lead us to consider Hume's notion ofidea derivation an "inherited framework on which he constructed his naturalistic system" (Pears, 9). Pears insists that these two thrusts, meaning and truth, occupy positions of equal importance in Hume's theory. Hume answers both questions, and his answers are related. Neither a sceptical positivist nor an unqualified naturalist, Hume is something in between, a "cautious naturalist" (ibid., viii, 64). Volume XIX Number 1 227 CHRISTIAN K. CAMPOLO In his first four chapters Pears separates and exposes the two strands of Hume's theory of mind. Along the way he pauses to patch several inadequacies which his treatment reveals. He then applies this two-pronged theory to the three central problems of the Treatise: causation, personal identity, and perception. Hume himself addresses each of these problems without abandoning his deceptively simple theory ofidea derivation: all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.* If we substitute 'word' for 'idea' and 'thing' for 'impression', we arrive at a formulaverymuch like Russell's atomism. In a sense, Humeis also an atomist. The simplicity of his 'simple' perceptions is that of phenomenologicalindivisibility. YetHume's concerns are broader than Russell's. ForHume's principle accountsevenforthemeaninglessideas (images) that occur as mere data. Whatever their status, all ideas are caused by impressions of which they are exact replicas. Tidy though it may be, this theory can account neither for ideas not derived from impressions nor for the variety ofways in which ideas participate in thought. Pears suggests that Hume need not worry about impressionless ideas ifhe will both restricthis theory ofidea derivation to meaningful ideas and allow that meaningless ideas can be derived laterally from other ideas. Pears recognizes that such measures would cost Hume his atomism, while he takes it for granted that Hume's empiricism would be left intact (p. 27). But I suspect that such measures would challenge Hume's empiricism by altering the sort of simplicity exhibited by 'simple' perceptions. If simple ideas can be derived from other ideas, can the parent ideas still be phenomenologically indivisible? The other problem is more troublesome. Nothing intrinsic to an image tells us whether it is meaningful or meaningless, general or specific, a memory or a fantasy, a beliefor a conjecture. Hume's theory ofidea derivation accounts onlyforcontent...

Reply to Flage

Reply to Flage Lesley Friedman "The chiefexercise of the memory," Hume tells us, "is not to preserve the simple ideas, but their order and position."1 On Daniel Flage's interpretation ofHume, however, it is the only exercise ofthe memory (1985a, 1985b, 1990). Flage's account can accommodate onlymemories of complex ideas; he disallows the possibility of 'preserving* a simple idea in its simplicity. Yet there is an example of a purely simple impression in the Treatise; and since for every impression there is in principle a corresponding idea which we can later recall, this example establishes the existence of a purely simple memory-idea. In what follows I will provide support for this claim, Flage's counterarguments (this volume) notwithstanding. Flage argues that given any perceived object, say a coloured dot, there is a visual field in which we perceive it. This field and the impression we receive from it, "must be a complex impression, that is, an impression that is composed of indefinitely many colour points. In this respect it is analogous to a pointillist painting or, to use a more contemporary example, a computer array composed of pixels" (1993, 190). Flage is probably right about this; from our point of view, it is implausible to suggest that there is any purely simple background, or worse, that there is no impression ofa background at all. Nonetheless, my concern is with what Hume thought and not with what is plausible orimplausible; and Hume does give an example ofa "background" that is notcomplex, namely, the scenarioinwhichwe perceive points oflight in darkness. We may observe, that when two bodies present themselves, where there wasformerly an entire darkness, the onlychange, that is discoverable, is in the appearance ofthese two objects, and that all the rest continues to be as before, a perfect negation oflight, and of every colour'd or visible object. This is not only true of what may be said to be remote from these bodies, but also of the very distance; which is interpos'd betwixt them; that being nothing but darkness, or the negation of light; without parts, without composition, invariable and indivisible. (T 57, bold italics added) I originally considered the ink spot experiment and theidea ofred in the dark as examples ofpurely simple impressions. Let me try this Volume XLX Number 1 199 LESLEYFRIEDMAN again, elaborating a bit more on the latter (what I take to be Hume's example of a version of the ink spot experiment). Early on in the Treatise Hume speaks of"that idea ofred which we form in the dark" (T 3). Let us then consider a red spot in complete darkness. Flage and I agree that this spot is qualitatively simple. Our disagreement is rooted in the nature ofthe "background," in this case the darkness. Flage claims that "the sighted-person sitting in the dark has an impression or impressions, namely, an impression of darkness" (1993, 190); and therefore the impression we have of the spot of red in darkness is not purely simple. In support of this claim he cites the followingevidence: Hume's remarks that (1) "the sighted-person sitting in the dark "receives no other perception ... than what is common to him with one born blind' " (ibid., 189; T 55-56), and (2) "the idea of utter darkness can never be the same with that of vacuum" (T 56). Let me take each ofthese in turn. Presumably, the first quote is cited in order to estabUsh that the blind person does indeed have a perception (impression) of darkness. This cannot be right; ifsuch a person had an impression ofdarkness, he would also have an idea of darkness, and if we look to the part of the sentence which Flage leaves out of his quotation, we find the following: "and 'tis certain such-a-one [that is, a blind person] has no idea either of light or darkness" (T 56). Hume's point is simple: the reason that the blind person has no idea ofdarkness is because he has no impression of darkness; and we are in the same position as him when we are sitting in the dark. Nor does the second quote provide evidence for the...

Is Hume's shade of blue a red herring?

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the ‘exception’ to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade ‘marjorie grene’. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature.

Hume, Motivation and Morality

HUME, MOTIVATION AND MORALITY Hume remarks, in the Abstract, that his account of the passions in Book II of the Treatise has 'laid the foundation' (A 7 Ì1 for his theory of morals. Pall Ardal has shown how Hume's theory of certain indirect passions (pride, humility, love, hatred) underpins his theory of the evaluation of character. I propose to explore the links between Hume's account of motivation and his treatment of an agent 'ß moral assessment of prospective action. Where Ardal stresses the moral spectator, my focus is on the agent. Hume himself attends primarily to the moral spectator, but the agent's perspective is central in two of his chief arguments concerning morals, that for the thesis that moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense, and that for the artificiality of justice. I shall take it that the argument of Treatise II, iii, 3 ("Of the influencing motives of the will") provides the framework for analysis: acting for moral reasons is like acting for any other reason; citing his moral principles to explain a man's actions is like citing his desire to preserve his health as an explanation of his taking exercise; deliberating about moral matters is like pondering the purchase of a pair of shoes. Of course there are differences; I shall look to them shortly. It is essential, however, to begin with the similarities . To a first approximation, the central doctrine is that the reasons that explain actions are rational causes of those actions. Reasons for actions are constituted by suitably related desires and beliefs; volitions are somehow implicated in intentional actions. Reasons are causes: the desires and beliefs that constitute reasons cause volitions, and thus actions. They are rational causes: there are links of special kinds between the contents of the desires and beliefs that constitute an agent's reasons for what he does, and the content of the volitions implicated in the actions done. Hume is at pains to deny that "reason [here: belief] alone can ... be a motive to any action of the will" (T 413). But he insists there are "two principal parts [of human nature], which are requisite in all its actions, the affections and understanding' (T 493). I suggest that by "affections" he here means specifically (if broadly) desires, and so both the "direct passions" of desire and aversion and such "indirect passions" as benevolence, anger, pity, compassion and malice. Hume's official doctrines both of desires and of volitions are unsatisfactory as they stand; he treats each as simple impressions. To be sure, these simple impressions are said always to be accompanied by thoughts of (in Hume's phrase) their objects. Even such complex states, however, can play no satisfactory role in psychological theory. The insights that Hume's official doctrines mishandle can, I suggest, be incorporated into more defensible, and more-or-less Humean, analyses of the internal structure of desire and volition. Having made efforts along these lines elsewhere, however, I shall here concentrate on other features of desire and volition that are germane to Hume's moral psychology. Desires and volitions are alike in two linked respects, among others: neither takes a truth value (and so each differs from belief); each is a conative , not a cognitive, psychological state (and so, again, each differs from belief). Because desires and volitions are not capable of "an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact" it is "impossible ... they can be pronounced either true or false" (T 458). Their general functional role is that of "propense and averse motions of the mind" (T 574). To be sure, there are differences. The principal difference is that of specific functional location: desires are constituents in reasons for acting: volitions are constituents of (or otherwise implicated in) actions done for such reasons. This functional difference is tied to differences of content. To grasp the many relations among belief, desire and volition, when the first two serve as 4 reason for (and so cause of) the third, it is useful to plot their causal relations onto the elements in an Aristotelian practical syllogism. Desires function as causally salient major premises...

Understanding the effectiveness of computer graphics for decision support: a cumulative experimental approach

A total of 840 junior and senior-level undergraduate business students particpated in three experiments that compared computer-generated graphical forms of data presentation to traditional tabular reports. The first experiment compared tables and bar charts for their effects on readability, interpretation accuracy, and decision making. No differences in interpretation accuracy or decision quality were observed for the two groups, although tabular reports were rated as "easier to read and understand" than graphical reports. The second experiment compared line plots to tables for their effects on interpretation accuracy and decision quality. Subjects with graphical reports outperformed those with tables. There were no meaningful differences in interpretation accuracy across treatment groups. The third experiment compared graphical and tabular reports for their ability to convey a "message" to the reader. Only in situations in which a vast amount of information was presented and relatively simple impressions were to be made, did subjects given graphs outperform those using tables. This program of cumulative experiments indicates that generalized claims of superiority of graphic presentation are unsupported, at least for decision-related activities. In fact, the experiments suggest that the effectiveness of the data display format is largely a function of the characteristics of the task at hand, and that impressions gleaned from "one shot" studies of the effectiveness of the use of graphs may be nothing more than situationally dependent artifacts.

Perchance to Dream: A Reply to Traiger

173. PERCHANCE TO DREAM: A REPLY TO TRAIGER1 In "Hume on Memory and Causation" I argued that Hume took ideas of the memory to be relative ideas corresponding to definite descriptions of the general form "the complex impression that is the (original) cause of a particular positive idea m and which exactly (or closely) resembles m, " where 'm' is a variable ranging over positive ideas (mental images). My argument was based primarily upon what I called Hume's formal criterion, i.e. , Hume's contention that, unlike the imagination, memory preserves "the same order and form with the original impressions" (T9), it preserves "the original order and position of its ideas" (T85). Saul Traiger has recently taken exception to my interpretation of Hume, suggesting that my interpretation suffers from at least four defects. First, Traiger maintains that there is evidence that Hume took some ideas of the memory to be simple, while my account requires that they are all complex. Secondly, he maintains that my interpretation will not allow Hume to remember dreams or the contents of his imaginings, and Traiger contends that this provides at least prima facie evidence against my interpretation. Thirdly, he maintains that my account of the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination. Finally, he raises several questions regarding the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. I do not believe that any of Traiger's points require a significant modification of my account. I shall begin by discussing his third and fourth points and then focus 2 on his first and second points. 1. Memories and fictions. Traiger suggests that if my account of the formal criterion is correct, the formal criterion is not sufficient to distinguish 174, ideas of the memory from ideas of the imagination, "because there are complex ideas which are caused by resembling complex impressions but which are not memories" (FHAM, p. 170). He illustrates this by appealing to a writer of fiction who might appeal to some of his memories in constructing his fictitious world. Why, then, would not the resulting ideas of fiction count as ideas of the memory, since they meet both the causal conditions and the order and position requirements? The answer is that in the case of an idea of fiction one does not conceive of one's positive idea as a representative of some other perception. It is only because one conceives of the positive idea of which one is aware in memory as a representative of some other particular perception or perceptions that questions of form and order come into play. 2. Temporal reference. At several places in his paper, Traiger raises questions concerning the temporal reference of ideas of the memory. He suggests, first, that Hume's concern with "order" was with temporal order, rather than the order and arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory (FHAM, p. 168), and, secondly, that "when we remember, we place an impression in its temporal context, its place among a temporal sequence of perceptions" and this "temporal reference is generally not secured by the causal and resemblance relations an idea bears to an antecedent impression" (FHAM, p. 171). Regarding the first of these claims, it is clear that an idea of the memory can be "true" only if it represents a past impression or event, and since Hume construed representation in terms of resemblance (T233), this indicates that at least part of his concern with "order" must be with the arrangement of simple ideas in the complex positive component of an idea of the memory. Were it not for 175. such a correspondence between the "order" of simple ideas in the positive component of one's relative idea of the memory and the "order" of the simple impressions in the original impression, one's idea of the memory could not represent the original impression. Resemblance, however, plays no role in determining what the temporal position of the original impression was, and this brings us to Traiger's second point. Since Hume's account of time would seem to require that one locate a past impression within a series...

Hume's Missing Shade of Blue, Interpreted as Involving Habitual Spectra

109 HUME'S MISSING SHADE OF BLUE, INTERPRETED AS INVOLVING HABITUAL SPECTRA David Hume claimed that his hypothetical case of the unseen shade of blue posed no fundamental problem to his general empiricist principle. But I believe it well may show exactly what he denied it showed — viz. , that his empiricism rests on a mistake. Hume says: Suppose ... a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds, excepting one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be plac'd before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; 'tis plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will be sensible, that there is a greater distance in that place betwixt the contiguous colours, than in any other. Now I ask, whether 'tis possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, tho' it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can.... Sometimes one is surprised by the colour which emerges when one mixes paints, powders or lights of different hues, in the sense that one is unable to imagine this resulting colour until one actually sees it. I often have analogous experiences when sightreading music on the trombone. If there is a large, unfamiliar interval between the note I am playing and the one to be played next, so I cannot 'hear' the next note inwardly, I bring the slide to the correct position, set my lips at approximately the right tension, and presto! the correct note appears, despite 110 my inability to predict what it was going to sound like. Only after I have heard it can I also 'hear' it, i.e, predict its occurrence in this melodic line. Cases like these are not puzzling philosophically, because in them, the note, colour, etc. arises primarily from the equipment used — e.g. , paints, powders or lights, the trombone and tension of the lips, and so on — rather than from the mind of the person who uses these things. But in Hume's example, no extra-mental objects or events play a direct role in creating the imagined colour. In fact, this colour never appears at all outside the subject's mind, and he never sees it. Therefore here the imagined colour is produced entirely by the subject himself, without his having copied it from anything in the external world. Yet this contradicts the maxim Hume laid down at the beginning of the Treatise that all simple ideas arise from correspondingly simple (sense) impressions. Two points perhaps mitigate the seriousness of the problem set by the missing shade of blue. First, Hume saw clearly, as Locke did not, that "innate" does 2 not mean the same as "justified." He was not so much concerned with the question of where ideas come from, as with how these ideas can be shown to be legitimate. His answer to the latter question is that experience alone is competent to show this. Second, strictly speaking, no idea is itself a piece of knowledge, but only something with the help of which one constructs knowledge-claims; and it is necessary for a person to justify knowledge-claims which are composed of innate ideas, by checking them against experience, just as much as knowledge-claims composed of non-innate materials. For example, suppose I possess innately the idea (visual image) of blue and the idea (tactile image) of cool. To say that these ideas are innate means that they are merely triggered or activated in my Ill mind by experiences I happen to have, but are not created by these experiences, and are not necessarily copies of them. Nevertheless, in order for me to know something which involves these ideas, I first must put them together in a judgment, and then confirm that judgment by appeal to experience. For instance, I might use these ideas to make the judgment...