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Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 1, April 2004, pp. 3-31 Hume's Theory of Simple Perceptions Reconsidered DANIEL A. SCHMICKING I Hume's division of perceptions into simple and complex has been criticized for being vague and perfunctory. Often the division is considered to be a rather weak (even though fundamental) part of his system, yet there is no agreement on its particular shortcomings and no consensus that it is totally impracticable. At the same time, the division between simple and complex perceptions has not attracted strong interest or attention from commentators. Most accounts consist of short paraphrases, some of which suggest a connection with Locke. The few attempts at a systematic explanation include the accounts of Baier,1 Frasca-Spada,2 Garrett,3 Pears,4 and Waxman.5 The central aim of this paper will be to show how Hume's concept of simple perceptions can be explicated against the background of Husserlian mereology and psychology of perception. This kind of approach, I will argue, sheds the right light on essential aspects of Hume's theory of perceptions. (I will use the teimperception in the Humean generic sense, to comprehend both impressions and ideas. The faculty or process of perceiving I will call sense perception, or, where there is no danger of confusing it with the Humean term, simply perception.) The outcome is a defense of Hume's concept of simplicity relying primarily on mereological categories and on experimental evidence. According to the reading to be offered, Hume considers a perception to be simple if it is impossible for a subject to distinguish or separate any proper part of the perception by operations of sense perception Daniel A. Schmicking is at the Department of Philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Jakob Welder-Weg 18, 55128 Mainz, Germany, e-mail : schmicki@mail .uni-mainz. de 4 Daniel A. Schmicking or imagination. This does not contradict the possibility of apprehending, by a distinction of reason, inseparable parts (Hume's aspects). It is undeniable that there is a certain discrepancy between Hume's statements in part 2 of Book 1 of the Treatise6 and the texts outside this part. Part 2 of Book 1 provides textual evidence for what I will call the minima reading or the minimist view, an interpretation that identifies simple perceptions with minima sensibilia (or imaginabilia), and does not allow for perceptions that are simple without being minima. The texts outside this part hardly corroborate such an interpretation, however. Rather, Hume seems to take perceptions of mesoscopic objects and several types of passions to be simple, even though they are structured and have diverse aspects. Most of his examples of simple perceptions are clearly above the threshold of being just noticeable and possess both form and extension. Can we harmonize this apparent incoherence in Hume's text, and merge what appear to be incompatible interpretations together? I shall propose a reading of simplicity, and of the attendant division of perceptions into simple and complex, that tries to do justice to the whole Treatise (by taking account of passions, and of perceptions belonging to different sense modalities) and tries as well to save what is worthwhile in the minimist view by interpreting Hume's concept of simplicity as embracing minima sensibilia as a particular class of simple perceptions. Moreover, I will argue that Hume, contrary to strictly atomistic pictures of his philosophy, even endorses an analogue or precursor of the concept of a (temporal and spatial) gestalt. Thus, another facet of Hume's system might emerge, one in which Hume rebuts some of the strongest arguments of the Gestaltists against atomistic psychology. While Hume's concept of simplicity will be shown to depend on mereological distinctions (distinctions Hume seems to take for granted, without expressly explaining them), the Humean gestalt concept can be assigned to what Robert Paul Wolff has characterized as a theory of mental activity. Both components—the mereological and the Gestaltist—are embedded in, or rather, disguised by, Hume's associationist framework and terminology . Thus, I also consent to Wolff's claim that Hume "is forced to express his best ideas in language totally unsuited to them."7 I shall begin with an account of...

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