David Hume 's Copy Principle

I believe that ideas are not innately formed within the mind. From the time we are born, we are surrounded by impressions of the world. Inspired by our own desire for self-discovery, we come up with concepts that derive from the experiences of everyday life. Not only can we create these ideas from external occurrences, but they can be created internally as well. All the same, the emotions that we feel in different contexts such as love, anger, sadness, even the general way we feel towards someone, are based on interactions. For instance, when a child tries vegetables for the first time and discovers that they do not like it. This child could not have had an idea of what the vegetable would taste like without experiencing it first. David Hume believes in the copy principle, which states ideas come from impressions. According to Hume, we cannot form ideas without impressions. Ideas themselves are simply less vivid impressions or compounded impressions formed by the mind.

Even so, there was an instance Hume’s copy principle was questioned. In the case of the man that goes blind after thirty years, who has never had the impression of a certain shade of blue, may be able to have an idea of what it would look like. At the time, Hume did not think it was something of significance that could go against this idea of the copy principle. Nancy Kendrick uses this missing shade of blue to show that this counter example actually provides Hume with an empiricist and non-nativist example of an idea’s priority to experience and, therefore, vitalizes, rather than diminishes his most key empiricist purposes. Moreover, Kendrick also uses John Lock as a reference in support to Hume’s claims in rejecting innate ideas, and in turn understanding the mi...

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...having no experiential counterpart (Kendrick, 2009). The concept of ideas, not coming from the corresponding impressions makes the missing shade of blue a slight exception in a way, yet there is not enough grounds to expand on it. Hume suggests the idea of the missing shade can result from imagination. Kendrick takes from the Treatise as a suggestion to argue the missing shade of blue; imagination, when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue, even when its object fails it, and like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse.

Hume’s Copy Principle is intertwined with many aspects of comprehending individual’s understanding. The impressions we receive throughout our life is the driving force the ideas we create. Though not every idea may be based in the same impression, it is derived from our everyday experiences.