RESEMBLANCE IN DAVID HUME S TREATISE Ezio Di Nucci

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1 RESEMBLANCE IN DAVID HUME S TREATISE Ezio Di Nucci Introduction This paper analyses Hume s discussion of resemblance in the Treatise of Human Nature. Resemblance, in Hume s system, is one of the seven philosophical relations, a relation of ideas. Hume names resemblance among the natural relations too. The paper, throughout an investigation of the difference between philosophical and natural relations, tries to see how and if resemblance can be both a philosophical and a natural relation. The remaining part of the paper discusses how resemblance, which is in Hume a faculty of the mind, is grounded in the physical world. This is done drawing a distinction between what I have called epistemological resemblance and metaphysical resemblance. 1. The place of resemblance in Hume s system Hume builds association, the principal faculty of human understanding, on three natural relations: resemblance, contiguity in time and space and causality. Association is the faculty which allows us to associate impressions to ideas and ideas to ideas. Every idea is the exact copy of the corresponding impression. We are able to associate two ideas because they resemble each other. That is how resemblance enables association. Is that a satisfactory explanation? It is not, unless we obtain a satisfactory account of resemblance. We can t explain the resemblance between two ideas in terms of association, since the argument would go circular. How does Hume explain resemblance? Does he need to appeal to the external world? Here philosophical relations enter the game. Resemblance is a philosophical relation, one out of seven recognised by Hume. When Hume introduces the seven philosophical relations, here s what he says about resemblance: The first is resemblance: And this is a relation, without which no philosophical relation can exist; since no objects will admit comparison, but what have some degree of resemblance. But tho resemblance be necessary to all philosophical relation, it does not follow, that it always produces a connexion or association of ideas. When a quality becomes very general, and is common to a great many individuals, it leads not the mind directly to any one of them; but by presenting at once too great a choice, does thereby prevent the imagination from fixing on any single object. 1 To have a relation, you need a resemblance. This is what Hume seems to be saying. So every relation is built on resemblance, as far as association needs resemblance to work. Still we don t have an explanation of resemblance itself. 1 David Hume (1739), A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge (1976), OUP, p.14 1

2 2. Natural relations and philosophical relations Clarifying the distinction between natural relations and philosophical relations will help to understand the role of resemblance in Hume s system. There are seven philosophical relations: resemblance, identity, contiguity in space and time, quantity, quality, contrariety, causation. Three of those relations are natural ones, and are resemblance, contiguity in time and space and causation. So resemblance is both a philosophical and a natural relation, being one single relation. There are not two different kinds of resemblance in Hume. This is not very helpful if we don t get clear on what Hume takes natural and philosophical relations to be. But before that there is another aspect of the relation of resemblance to state: resemblance is a relation of ideas. The seven philosophical relations are to be divided in relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas are: resemblance, quantity, quality and contrariety. Matters of fact are: causation, identity and contiguity in time and space. One question arises: how can resemblance be a natural relation and a relation of ideas at the same time? This question can be answered, if it can, only by giving an account of what Hume takes natural relations to be, giving that relations of ideas are such relations who are independent from experience. There might be a different interpretation of natural and philosophical relations. It could go like this: there are natural relations, the three already mentioned, and there are philosophical relations, the seven stated above. Natural relations are different from philosophical ones, and so, being resemblance both a natural relation and a philosophical one, there would be two different accounts of resemblance. The qualities, from which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner conveyed from one idea to the other, are three, viz. RESEMBLANCE, CONTIGUITY in time and space, and CAUSE and EFFECT. 2 The word RELATION is commonly used in two senses considerably different from each other. Either for that quality, by which two ideas are connected together in the imagination, and the one naturally introduces the other, after the manner aboveexplained; or for that particular circumstance, in which, even upon the arbitrary union of two ideas in the fancy, we may think proper to compare them. 3 These passages seem to support the second interpretation. Natural relations and philosophical ones are different. We may have had shown how natural relations and philosophical ones are different, but we still need to explain what they are, and most of all how resemblance can be both a natural and a philosophical relation, or how can there be two different kinds of resemblance. The difference between natural relations and philosophical relations may be found in this; that natural relations are a matter of association, and philosophical relations are a matter of comparison. There may two definitions be given of this relation, which are only different, by their presenting a different view of the same object, and making us consider it either as a 2 Treatise, p.11 3 ibid, p.13 2

3 philosophical or as a natural relation; either as a comparison of two ideas, or as an association betwixt them. 4 Here Hume is talking about causation, but causation has the same puzzle than resemblance. It is both a philosophical relation and a natural one. Hume seems to be saying that it is a single relation (same object) seen from different views. We should be authorised to apply what Hume says on causation to resemblance. So the distinction seems to lay on the difference between two activities of the mind: association and comparison. When the mind simply associates two ideas, it builds a natural relation between them. And this natural relation can be of resemblance. When, on the other hand, the mind compares two ideas, it creates a different relation among them, a philosophical relation. This philosophical relation can also be of resemblance. Hume seems to describe the activity of comparison as in some sense more active than the one of association. Association seems to be almost inevitable for the mind. The problem seems now to be: is the resemblance between two ideas associated by the mind the same than the resemblance between two ideas compared by the mind? It could not be, since the former is a natural relation and the latter is a philosophical one. But Hume has also said that those are two different interpretations of the same relation. The resemblance that Hume calls philosophical relation looks very similar to the Wittgensteinian noticing an aspect. In the comparison between two faces, the subject notices the resemblance. The subject so builds a relation, a philosophical one. It sounds good. But how does this work together with resemblance to be a relation of ideas, taking relation of ideas to be independent from experience? The activity of comparing ideas/impressions/objects does not seem independent from experience. It seems hard to keep the necessary aspect of relations of ideas together with this activity of the subject of comparison or noticing an aspect. 3. Epistemological resemblance and metaphysical resemblance It may be useful to draw a distinction within resemblance: one thing is resemblance as a relation among objects; different thing is resemblance as the faculty to notice similarities among objects. The latter seems pretty close to what Ludwig Wittgenstein called noticing an aspect. I contemplate a face, and then suddenly notice his likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience noticing an aspect. Its causes are of interest to psychologists. We are interested in the concept and its place among the concepts of experience. 5 Wittgenstein s example can help us drawing the distinction: a subject a is in front of two people. He looks at their faces. Then he is told that they are brothers. Suddenly he realizes how the two 4 ibid, p Investigations, p.165 3

4 resemble each other. For example their noses could be pretty similar. But he didn t notice the similarity at first sight. But the similarity was there, before he noticed. Otherwise he would have anything to notice. Is it so? Was the similarity already there for someone to notice it? Or do they resemble each other only in so far as one notices it? Here is where the other sense of resemblance should come in, if it can. We could call the Wittgensteinian noticing an aspect epistemological resemblance. Then we could call the other one, the relation among objects, metaphysical resemblance. Saying that metaphysical resemblance is a relation among object does not really help, since even epistemological resemblance could be defined as a relation among objects. In fact, once a subject notices the resemblance, he builds a relation among the objects in question. Does it? In a weak sense, he does. He does it in the sense that Hume was going for. The subject associates the two objects. And since association is a faculty of the mind, he builds this relation in his mind. The relation is in the mind of the subject, not in the world. But still, it is a relation. This seems to be the resemblance Hume was going for. At least this seems to be one of them. What about metaphysical resemblance? Metaphysical resemblance is pretty much what the debate on The Problem of Universal has been always going for. A way to read the realism-nominalism debate on universals is to interpret it as a search of explanation for resemblance. Why do two objects resemble each other? Because such and such, or because such and such; and the debate goes for ever. When we start analysing resemblance in terms of properties, then we are speaking of metaphysical resemblance. For example: I have on my desk Wittgenstein s Investigations and Hume s Treatise. The resemble each other. Why? They do because they both have the same shape; or at least a similar one. Or they do because they are both books. Or because because This is what we called metaphysical resemblance. Now two questions come to mind: (1) Can we just refute metaphysical resemblance and give an account of knowledge only in terms of epistemological resemblance? (2) Is there room in Hume for our metaphysical resemblance? Both questions will be answered in the final paragraph. All we have been saying about resemblance in Hume leads towards what we called epistemological resemblance. Nothing in Hume seems to go for metaphysical resemblance. There is no talk of objects. Everything that is said about resemblance is in terms of activities of the subject s mind. The only way to build a bridge to get to metaphysical resemblance could be the following. Hume talks about resemblance as a relation of ideas, so as a necessary connection between two ideas. Those ideas could not be not in such relation. This connection could be moved from ideas to the objects perceived. So there would be a necessary connection of resemblance between two objects. And this relation would take its necessity from the natures of the objects. In virtue of their nature those two objects can t be not in the relation. This has been sometimes called internal relation. For example Wittgenstein uses it like that: 4

5 The colour of the visual impression corresponds to the colour of the object (this blotting paper looks pink to me, and is pink) the shape of the visual impression to the shape of the object (it looks rectangular to me, and is rectangular) but what I perceive in the dawning of an aspect is not a property of the object, but an internal relation between it and other objects. 6 The internal relation holds between the objects. There is a resemblance, a metaphysical one, between the two objects. This is the aspect that I note. And my ability of noticing is what I ve called epistemological resemblance. That is because the metaphysical resemblance, since it is an internal relation, is there even if I don t notice it. The relation must hold. When I notice it, something changes, at least in my perception of it. It is this change in my perception of the two objects that I ve called epistemological resemblance. It is the resemblance that I build what Wittgenstein called noticing the aspect. How does that fit with Hume s use of resemblance? I don t see Hume s distinction between resemblance as an association and resemblance as a comparison in Wittgenstein s account. At the same time, Hume seems to be working without metaphysical resemblance. The difficulty seems to be, again, in holding together activities as association and comparison with the necessity of resemblance as a relation of ideas. The place in the Treatise where Hume discusses resemblance from a metaphysical perspective is the section Of Abstract Ideas, which will be analysed in the next paragraph. 4. Resemblance as a primitive In the section Of Abstract Ideas, Hume gives an account of resemblance which follows the traditional Problem of Universals. This is the closest thing in Hume to a discussion of what I have called metaphysical resemblance. On one hand, Hume accepts an analysis of resemblance in terms of properties as intuitive. On the other, he sees how this approach leads nowhere, and how better it would be to keep resemblance as a primitive relation (internal, in the terminology we used earlier on). Thus when a globe of white marble is presented, we receive only the impression of a white colour disposed in a certain form, nor are we able to separate and distinguish the colour from the form. But observing afterwards a globe of black marble and a cube of white, and comparing them with our former object, we find two separate resemblances, in what formerly seemed, and really is, perfectly inseparable. After a little more practise of this kind, we begin to distinguish the figure from the colour by a distinction of reason; that is, we consider the figure and colour together, since they are in effect the same and undistinguishable; but still view them in different aspects, according to the resemblances, of which they are susceptible. When we would consider only the figure of the globe of white marble, we form in reality an idea both of the figure and colour, but tacitly carry our eye to its resemblance with the globe 6 Ludwig Wittgenstein, (1953), Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Part II, xi, p.180 5

6 of black marble. And in the same manner, when we would consider its colour only, we turn our view to its resemblance with the cube of white marble. 7 Here I think is expressed the difficulty with resemblance altogether. We would like, with Hume, resemblance to be a simple relation. But, as it is shown in the example, this view is pretty counterintuitive, and maybe just wrong. On the other hand, if we try to analyse resemblance, in term of properties or qualities, like Hume does with colours and shapes, we encounter the regress. If I say that to globes resemble, and than I take one of them and I say that it also resembles a cube, and I am pretty justified in saying that, than I have to admit that they resemble in different respect, like the shape and the colour. So far I have not done anything wrong, but I m still short of an explanation. Why the two shapes resemble? Or why, in the other case, the two colours resemble? I take this to be the problem that Hume is trying to avoid insisting on resemblance to be a simple (primitive) relation. In this passage Hume talks of impressions and ideas, as always, and of objects. How do we apply our distinction between epistemological resemblance and metaphysical resemblance to this passage? If we switch from our talk of objects to our talk of impressions, then we don t seem to need metaphysical resemblance anymore. But epistemological resemblance does need some grounds in the world to work. The perfect ground would seem to be metaphysical resemblance, but, as we have seen, metaphysical resemblance is a mess. In virtue of what two objects resemble? We could say: in virtue of us noticing the resemblance. But that would seem a lot idealistic and not that much explanatory. We could also say: they partake in the same universal. But the problem of universals is tough. Otherwise we could answer: they have some properties in common. This is the answer Hume seems to go for. Nevertheless he is afraid of pursuing it, because it lacks explanatory power. Here s why: I have two objects, two globes. They resemble. Why? They do because they have the same colour. This would be the strategy. But how does one explain sharing the same colour? One does it again in terms of resemblance. So it is not the same colour. They are two colours which resemble each other. And this resemblance still needs to be explained. At this stage, the only way to close the explanatory chain is to give an account of resemblance as a primitive relation. But so doing I would have two different accounts of resemblance in the same explanation. I started explaining resemblance in terms of properties, and I finish explaining resemblance in terms of a primitive relation. So the property approach cannot stand alone. It needs some other explanation. Is this primitive relation what Hume calls relation of ideas? This point seems controversial. 7 Treatise, p.25 6