All ideas are derived from sense experience which they copy Discuss:

One of Hume’s arguments for all ideas being derived from sense experience is the concept of a child’s acquisition of ideas. If a child were to be told about snow, they could form the idea of snow in their mind by combining the idea of the colour white and the coldness of white, forming the concept of snow. A child is never born just knowing what snow is, they formulate different ideas in their mind, by ‘combining, separating, augmenting and diminishing’ various impressions. Furthermore, people who lack certain senses, for example a blind person, lack all the ideas corresponding to their sense. So for example a blind person wouldn’t be able to understand what colour is, because even though they might know the name of a colour, they are unable to associate it with something that is that colour because they have never experienced it before. Also, in favour of Hume’s position, it is quite hard to come up with a genuine counterexample. The idea of God has been proposed as a counter example, but this too can be broken down into simple impressions. If we think of a person with a particular quality that is associated with God, for example a powerful man, then if we augment that power infinitely, we get to the omnipotence of God.

However, these arguments only establish that sense is necessary to activate our ideas. They don’t show that our ideas are formed solely through sense experience. An example for this is Leibniz’s block of veined marble theory. In his theory he claims that in a block of veined marble, there is already a statue inside it, you just have to chip away at the surface until you find the statue inside. The meaning behind this metaphorical example is that all ideas are present when we are born; however, we need experiences to trigger this memory.

Furthermore, there a few other problems with Hume’s theory of empiricism. Hume's notion of an impression does not account for the way that experience is related. When I see a red table, for example, I don’t just experience an impression of red by itself, but rather the redness of something. A "secondary quality" such as colour cannot be abstracted from the thing to which it belongs. Also it doesn’t appreciate the ability of our mind in shaping our experience. In a particular picture, some people see a rabbit at first, whereas other people see a duck. This illusion shows that our mind does have an active role in cognition, but for Hume’s empiricism the mind is just a passive receiver.

Although there are some reasonable arguments against Hume’s view of empiricism, the stark truth is that, it is difficult to come up with a good counter argument against the statement that “All ideas are derived from sense experience which they copy”. If we had any innate concepts then surely a blind person can have the idea of colour or shapes, however they don’t. Arguable the most complex idea known to man, the idea of God, falls as it is just various impressions “combined, separated, augmented and diminished”. Also, Leibniz’s theory that we are all born knowing absolutely everything is not very plausible either as humans don’t have the capacity to know absolutely everything. Therefore I agree with Hume that all ideas are derived from sense experience which they copy.