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The "Mirror of Nature" and of Others in David Hume

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020

Abstract

The article interprets Hume's theory of association of ideas, primarily with respect to resemblance as one of the principles of association and to general ideas (or concepts) as a principal consequence of association. On the basis of this interpretation, the author argues that Hume's conception of resemblance and general terms is not conditioned by the acceptance of the so-called "myth of the given".

As a result of accepting this as-sumption, however, new questions arise; in particular, why is it that just those general concepts arise that in fact arise and how are they intersubjectively shared. These ques-tions lead to the need to supplement the image of the mind as a "mirror of nature" from the beginning of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, book I, with the image of the mind as a "mirror of others" from book II.