British Journal for the History of Philosophy

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Separability and concept-empiricism: hume vs.

locke

Ruth Weintraub

To cite this article: Ruth Weintraub (2007) Separability and concept-empiricism: hume vs. locke,
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 15:4, 729-743, DOI: 10.1080/09608780701605010

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British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15(4) 2007: 729 – 743

ARTICLE

SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT-EMPIRICISM:

HUME VS. LOCKE
Ruth Weintraub

INTRODUCTION

Hume invokes the separability of perceptions to derive some of his most

contentious pronouncements. To assess the cogency of the arguments, the
notion must first be clarified. This clarification reveals that six different
separability claims must be distinguished (sections 2–6). Of these, I consider
the three that are rarely discussed. They turn out to be unacceptable
(sections 7–12). Locke espouses none of them.

CLARIFYING SEPARABILITY

‘[A]ll distinct ideas are separable’, Hume says (87).1 What does he mean?
What is it for an idea (or an impression) to be ‘separable’ or ‘distinct’? Is
‘distinctness’ a property that only some ideas have? Indeed, is it a property
or a relation?
The best way to proceed – by way of clarifying the claim – is to consider
how Hume uses it. It is not as if there is a fact of the matter as to how the
relevant terms (‘distinct’, ‘separable’) should be used, a fact which we could
fathom by looking to other philosophers’ usage, for instance; and even if
there is, Hume might be using the terms idiosyncratically.
When we examine closely the arguments in which separability is deployed,
we discover, I will show, that Hume invokes six distinct separability
principles:

SP1: Every two distinct perceptions are separable from one another:
each can exist – in the mind (at a given time) – without the other.

1
Unless otherwise stated, all quotes from Hume are from the Treatise (1739).

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

ISSN 0960-8788 print/ISSN 1469-3526 online ª 2007 BSHP
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09608780701605010
730 RUTH WEINTRAUB

SP2: Each perception can constitute the entire content of the mind (at a
given time); it is a (complete) image.2
SP3: Every perception is separable (in the mind) from (at least) one other
perception; i.e. no perception must accompany every other perception
(in the mind).
SP4: Each perception may exist outside any mind.
SP5: Each perception can exist without any ‘support’, substratum.
SP6: Each perception can exist alone in the universe.

Before considering Hume’s arguments, a few clarificatory points are

appropriate. First, Hume also invokes the converse claim, that ‘whatever
objects are separable [in thought] are also . . . different’ (18), but I will not
consider it.3 Second, only SP1 involves the (obscure) notion of distinctness.
The final, and most substantive, point concerns the logical relations
between the six principles. They are, to begin with, distinct: no two are
logically equivalent.4 But SP6 entails all the others.5 It may be wondered
why I impute to Hume six separability principles. Why not make do with
just SP6? After all, his arguments will remain valid if a premise is
strengthened!
The answer is that I am interested in the cogency of Hume’s conclusions,
and must, therefore, consider the weakest (because most plausible)
separability claim that renders an argument valid. In fact, most of Hume’s
conclusions do not require (the very implausible) SP6.
For the same reason, we must recognize SP1 and SP3 as independent
(Humean) principles, although the former is entailed by SP2, and the latter –
by SP1 (and, consequently, by SP2). This is because the converse entailments
do not obtain. A perception might need to be accompanied by some
perception or another, but not by any particular one, so we will do well to
construe Hume as invoking SP1 in some of his arguments, and there may be
two perceptions that are inseparable from one another (violating SP1)
without there being a perception which is inseparable from every other
(which the violation of SP3 requires). Therefore, we will do well to construe
Hume as invoking SP3 in some of his arguments.

2
Hume uses the term ‘image’ broadly, as applying to anything which can be given in, or copied
from, experience. This is a plausible construal, albeit at odds with modern usage, which restricts
the term to the visual. The term ‘impression’ applies to ‘all our sensations, passions and
emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul’ (1, my italics), and ideas are ‘the faint
images of these’ (1).
3
It follows from Hume’s conceivability criterion of possibility: what is conceivable is possible. If
one can conceive of x and y apart from one another, each can exist without the other; so of
course, they are different.
4
For instance, SP1, SP2, SP3 and SP4 are compatible with the supposition that perceptions –
whether in the mind or outside it – require a substratum, whereas, SP5 and SP6 are not. So none
of the first four entails either of the latter two. The other claims of logical independence can be
(tediously) established too.
5
Except, perhaps, SP4. If a perception can exist alone, it might still have to be a mind.
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 731

Here, then, is a detailed examination of the arguments in which

separability plays a role, with a view to showing that Humean separability
has several (six, to be precise) faces.

INVOKING SP1

Hume invokes SP1 just once: in one of the arguments he adduces to show
that we have no idea of objective necessity. The idea of a necessary
connection, he argues, is impossible. ‘Such a connexion wou’d amount to a
demonstration, and wou’d imply the absolute impossibility for the one
object not to follow . . . upon the other’ (161–2). However, there can be no
such inference, he claims, since ‘all distinct ideas are separable . . . When we
pass from a present impression to the idea of any object, we might possibly
have separated the idea from the impression, and have substituted any other
idea in its room’ (87, my italics).
SP1 is here the relevant version. SP3 is too weak: cause and effect might be
inseparable from one another even if each is separable from some other
perception. SP4 and SP5 are clearly irrelevant: if both ideas can exist outside
the mind and require no ‘support’, still, they might need to exist together.
SP2, on the other hand, is needlessly strong. Hume’s argument merely
requires that the two ideas (of cause and effect) be separable from one
another. He can then infer that the conjunction C&*E is conceivable, and
therefore possible, and the inference from cause to effect is not valid. There
is no need to suppose that the ideas of cause and effect both satisfy (the
logically stronger) SP2;6 and, of course, there is no need to suppose that each
idea can exist alone in the universe, as SP6 guarantees.
It is clear what Hume means when he says that two ideas are separable
from one another: each can appear in the mind without the other; but how
are we to construe the (relational) term ‘distinct’ so as to know which pairs
of ideas are separable? It cannot simply mean ‘different’: not every two
(different) ideas can be separated. The imagination cannot separate the
horse-and-head from the head, and these are different ideas.7

6
Stroud (1977: 49) conflates the first and second separability claims. In discussing the causal
inference, where the first claim is at stake, he claims that the idea of being a straight line cannot
be separated from that of being one inch in length. However, it can – in this (weak) sense. A line
must have a length, but it can be a different one.
7
Of course, one can have just the idea of the head. I have chosen – on Hume’s behalf – to
employ a symmetrical notion of separability, more consonant with his wording: ‘all distinct
ideas are separable’. This (symmetrical) notion is appropriate if one is concerned with logical
independence (as in the case of cause and effect). If, alternatively, one is interested in logical
entailment, the appropriate notion, one idea being inseparable from another, is not symmetrical.
The latter notion is more basic. Logical independence can be defined in terms of logical
entailment, but the converse is not true.
732 RUTH WEINTRAUB

Should we, perhaps, restrict the principle to simple ideas? Thus restricted,
it will not be violated by pairs of ideas, one of which properly includes the
other: the former will not be simple, and Hume himself restricts the principle
to simple ideas when discussing the formation of complex ideas from simple
ones: ‘all simple ideas may be separated by the imagination, and . . . united
again in what form it pleases’ (10, my italics). The restricted claim suffices to
show that any combination of simple ideas is, in principle, possible. Hume
then invokes his associative laws to explain why, despite this seemingly
boundless freedom of the imagination, ‘the same simple ideas should fall
regularly into complex ones (as they commonly do) . . . nature in a manner
pointing out to every one those simple ideas, which are most proper to be
united into a complex one’ (10–11).
However, this restriction is inappropriate when it comes to causal
inferences: cause and effect need not be simple, and when they are not,
Hume will not be able to apply SP1 to the inference.
Should we, instead, follow Owen (1999, 105), and construe ‘distinct’ as
applying to pairs of non-overlapping ideas (those that have no common
constituents)? The answer is ‘No’. The ideas of the cause and effect may
overlap: when one billiard ball causes the motion of another, the two ideas
may be very similar, and hence overlapping. A different remedy is required
here: construe distinctness as applying to pairs of ideas, neither of which is
included in the other.8
In marked contrast with Hume, Locke rejects SP1: ‘Many ideas require
others as necessary to their Existence or Conception, which yet are distinct
Ideas. Motion can neither be, nor be conceived without Space . . . and they
are very distinct ideas’ (II.xiii.11).9

INVOKING SP2

The most obvious invocation of SP2 by Hume is in the argument he adduces

against the intelligibility of an infinitely divisible space (27). If we had
indefinitely small ideas, he argues, they would be separable, constituting
possible images, which is contrary to the ‘imagination reach[ing] a
minimum’.10 Anything which cannot constitute the entire content of the
mind, SP2 guarantees, is not a perception.

8
Stroud (1977: 47) thinks ‘distinctness’, as applied to (pairs of) ideas, can only be construed as
‘logical independence’, thus rendering circular Hume’s argument from the distinctness of cause
and effect to their logical independence. However, he is failing to take seriously Hume’s
phenomenal (imagistic) conception of ideas.
9
All quotations from Locke are from his Essay (1690).
10
This is not an epistemological claim about our inability to notice below the threshold. Rather,
there is no idea which is smaller than the threshold: ‘since all actions and sensations of the mind
are known to us by consciousness, they must necessarily appear in every particular what they
are, and be what they appear’ (190).
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 733

SP1 is here useless. It cannot rule out an idea that is smaller than the
threshold. Such an idea violates SP2 (it cannot constitute a complete image),
but it is not necessarily conjoined to any other particular idea, and
conforms, therefore, to SP1. SP4, and SP5, too, are ineffectual here. Even if a
perception needs no ‘support’ and can exist outside the mind (as they
guarantee), it might still require the (simultaneous) company of other
perceptions when it belongs to a mind; and, of course, SP6 is needlessly
strong. The argument works equally well if we suppose (in contravention of
SP6) that perceptions necessarily belong to a mental substance, so long as
each perception can inhere in it on its own.
I already noted (section 3) that Locke (implicitly) rejects SP2, since he
disavows (the logically weaker) SP1. This is manifest in his attitude to the
divisibility of space. He thinks the mind is able ‘to shorten any Line . . . by
taking from it ½ or ¼, or what part it pleases, without being able to come
to an end of any such Divisions’ (II.xiii.6). He does not require each idea to
constitute a (complete) image; it is enough, he thinks, that sufficiently many
like it together constitute one.
SP2 is also deployed in the second argument Hume adduces against
indeterminate ideas (19), but here its role is less easily discerned. Hume
infers that ideas must be determinate, since impressions are. This, of course,
is an invocation of the Copy Principle, according to which ‘all ideas are
deriv’d from impressions, and are nothing but copies and representations of
them’ (19). Why are all impressions separable? This is where SP2 is
(implicitly) invoked. Hume equates an impression with an object appearing
to the senses. Objects, he assumes, are determinate; but even if objects
appear as impressions, and appear as they are, i.e. fully determinately, it does
not follow that all impressions are determinate. If a non-separable
constituent of one’s visual field – the triangularity, say – is an impression
(one which is not the appearance of an object), it will constitute a counter-
example to Hume’s assumption about impressions: it is not determinate with
respect to the relative lengths of the sides, for instance. Correlatively, the
appeal to the Copy Principle will be rendered ineffectual. However, SP2 rules
out this possibility. Triangularity cannot be perceived on its own, so it is not
an impression.11
Note that (the weaker) SP1 will not suffice to rule out redness or
roundness (as indeterminate ideas): roundness (redness) does not need to

11
The invocation by Hume of this argument lends further support to Garrett’s (1997, ch. 3)
interpretation of Humean simplicity as against that of most other commentators. According to
Garrett, Hume’s simple spatial perceptions are minima sensibilia (or minima imaginibilia): the
smallest perceptions that can appear on their own. This makes sense of Hume’s assumption that
non-separable aspects of impressions are not themselves impressions. We have no general idea
of manhood, only ideas of particular, fully determinate men, because there is no impression of
(just) manhood. Locke, whose conception of simplicity commentators often impute to Hume,
could not endorse this argument. For him, there may be an impression (an idea of sense or
reflection, to use his terminology) of manhood.
734 RUTH WEINTRAUB

appear in any particular colour (shape). Note, too, that SP4 and SP5 are
useless here. Even if the perception of roundness needs no ‘support’ and can
exist outside the mind (as they guarantee), it may not be able to appear on
its own in a mind. Again, SP6 is needlessly strong.
SP2 is also relevant in Hume’s distinctions of reason. ‘[W]hen a globe of
white marble is presented, we are [not] able to separate and distinguish the
colour from the form’ (25). The wording might suggest that Hume has SP1
in mind: he seems to be concerned with the separation of two ideas.
However, thus construed, the claim is simply false. The whiteness can be
separated from the roundness; it can be conjoined with squareness instead.
If, instead, we construe Hume’s example in terms of SP2, it will make
perfectly good sense. The roundness cannot be conceived (perceived) on its
own: it must have some colour.12 Therefore, it is not an idea (although it
may be distinguished by a distinction of reason). As before, SP6 is needlessly
strong. We do not have to suppose that whiteness can exist on its own so as
to rule it out.
The final invocation of SP2 is in the argument Hume adduces (36) to show
that time is not a ‘distinct idea’, but rather, a ‘manner’ in which perceptions
‘appear to the mind’. Since time cannot ‘be conceiv’d without our conceiving
any succession of objects’, Hume argues, ‘it can[not] alone form a distinct
idea in the imagination . . . The idea of time is not deriv’d from a particular
impression mix’d up with others, and plainly distinguishable from them’
(36). This is guaranteed by SP2, but not by SP1: ‘Five notes play’d on a flute
give us the impression and idea of time’. However, five violin notes would
have done equally well. Some sequence of objects is required, but no
particular one.

INVOKING SP3

The argument Hume adduces to show that we have no (distinct) idea of

existence explicitly invokes SP1, but (the weaker) SP3 is, in fact, sufficient.
An idea of existence, Hume argues, would be inseparable from every other
idea ‘of which we have any consciousness or memory . . . since [t]o reflect on
any thing simply and to reflect on it as existent, are nothing different from
each other’ (66–7). He continues, citing SP1, ‘I do not think there are any

12
Matters are more problematic in the case of colour. Hume says, on the one hand (25, my
italics), that
when we wou’d consider only the figure of the globe of white marble, we form in
reality an idea both of the figure and colour . . . [a]nd in the same manner, when we
wou’d consider its colour only, we turn our view to its resemblance with the cube of
white marble.
But he also says (34) that a visual atom is coloured. And plausibly, a visual atom is shapeless: a
shape has parts. This means that whiteness (say), unlike roundness, can be conceived on its own.
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 735

two distinct, impressions which are inseparably conjoin’d’ (66). So, he

concludes, ‘[t]he idea of existence . . . is the very same with the idea of what
we conceive to be existent’ (66).
SP3 is here the relevant version. SP4 and SP5 are insufficient: if every idea,
including that of existence, can exist outside the mind and requires no
‘support’, still, the idea of existence might exist in the mind whenever any
other idea did. SP2 and even SP1, on the other hand, are needlessly strong:
Hume’s (reductio) argument merely requires that every idea be separable
from one idea; and, of course, there is no need to suppose that each idea can
exist alone in the universe as SP6 guarantees.
Locke, unlike Hume, denies SP3. The ideas of ‘existence and unity’, he
claims, ‘are suggested to the Understanding, by every . . . Idea’ (II.vii.7,
italics mine).

INVOKING SP4, SP5 AND SP6

Hume invokes SP4 in his attempt to show that the (mistaken) vulgar belief in
the continued existence of objects is not contradictory. Since the vulgar
think that objects are perceptions, they are committed to the seemingly
paradoxical view that perceptions can exist unperceived.13 SP4 dispels the
absurdity. Since ‘every perception . . . may be consider’d as separately
existent; it evidently follows, that there is no absurdity in separating any
particular perception from the mind ’ (207, my italics).
SP5 is invoked in Hume’s review of the arguments for and against the
account he has given of personal identity. ‘All perceptions are distinct.
They are, therefore . . . separable . . . and may exist separately . . . without any
common simple substance or subject of inhesion’ (634, my italics).
Here, it might seem as if the separability claim is restricted to ‘distinct’
perceptions. In fact, the term does not figure in the content of the principle,
but, rather, in its justification. Every perception can exist without support,
Hume thinks. This is because perceptions can be subsumed under a more
general principle (pertaining to ‘distinct objects’).
Hume invokes SP6 when he attempts to undermine the philosophers’
definition of the Self, which they put forward by way of a substitute for a
preceding impression (233). A substance is defined as ‘something which may

13
Why is Hume concerned to absolve the vulgar from a contradiction? Does he not relish the
ascription of false beliefs to them? The answer that comes to mind is that Hume’s theory cannot
countenance contradictory beliefs: we can believe only what we can conceive, and we cannot
conceive the impossible. And Hume says the vulgar ‘suppose their perceptions to be their only
objects’ (205). But as Stroud (1977: 105–6) points out, if the vulgar explicitly thought the things
they perceived were perceptions, they would never be tempted to ascribe to them a continued
existence; and if they merely fail to draw the distinction between objects and perceptions, there
is no contradiction in thinking that objects exist even while they are not perceived.
736 RUTH WEINTRAUB

exist by itself’.14 But this definition, Hume retorts, applies to perceptions

too, and fails to distinguish them from the soul. ‘[S]ince our perceptions are
different from each other, and from every thing else in the universe’, he
argues, ‘they are also . . . separable . . . and may exist separately, and have
no need of any thing else to support their existence’ (233). If perceptions
are to satisfy the definition of substance, the relevant separability
principle must guarantee that they be capable of existing on their own.
This is the only occasion in which SP6 comes into its own: the others are all
too weak.

JUSTIFYING SP1?

I propose to consider the three separability principles pertaining to

perceptions in the mind, SP1, SP2 and SP3, which are rarely discussed.15
Such philosophically explosive principles must be rigorously grounded. In
fact, I will argue, they are indefensible.
Consider, first, SP1. Hume notes, by way of citing supporting evidence,
that the ‘fables we meet with in poems and romances [where] . . .
[n]ature . . . is totally confounded, and nothing mentioned but winged
horses, fiery dragons, and monstrous giants’ (10), and concludes that
‘[w]here-ever the imagination perceives a difference among ideas, it can
easily produce a separation’ (10). However, do the fables really show that
any two (distinct) ideas can be separated? Are pitch and timbre, for
instance, not (distinct) ideas? Yet they are inseparable from each other.
No particular timbre must be conceived with pitch; but every sound must
have a timbre. What about the examples Locke cites? ‘Motion can neither
be, nor be conceived without Space . . . and they are very distinct ideas’
(II.xiii.11).
According to Garrett (1997, 69), Hume can reject these putative counter-
examples. To begin with, Garrett claims (on Hume’s behalf), ‘the making of
a distinction is a cognitive operation that depends essentially on the
separation of ideas in the imagination’. And, second, ‘Hume has successfully
explained these apparent counterexamples away, by showing that they
involve only the distinction . . . of classes of resembling objects’.
The first claim is a reiteration of the separability claim, rather than an
argument for it. As to the second, there is, I will show, a (high) price to be

14
This is Descartes’s definition: ‘By ‘‘substance’’’, he says (CSM I, 210), ‘we can understand
nothing other than a thing which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its
existence’.
15
The exceptions are Laird (1932), Church (1935), Kemp Smith (1949), Cook (1968),
Mandelbaum (1974), Tweyman (1974), Bricke (1980), Wright (1983), Waxman (1994) and
Garrett (1997). SP4, SP5 and SP6, which play an important role in Hume’s account of the
external world and personal identity, are often discussed (although they are not distinguished
from one another).
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 737

paid for thus explaining away the counter-examples. The resulting theory of
ideas, incorporating SP1, is far less perspicuous – in two distinct ways – than
the alternative which countenances Hume’s distinctions of reason as genuine
ideas.
First, Hume’s theory precludes the identification of ‘ideas’ with concepts.
The terms ‘pitch’ and ‘timbre’ have different meanings, but they denote, for
Hume, the same (general) idea. Any particular instance of the former is also
an instance of the latter. The two terms have the same ‘revival set’ (Garrett,
1997).
Secondly, SP1 misrepresents the nature of logical inferences. Even if A
and B are logically equivalent, they may be different propositions: ‘x is an
isosceles triangle’, ‘x has two equal angles’, for instance. In such (non-trivial)
cases, the inference involves a mental process; but according to SP1, there is
here just one idea, no gap for the mind to straddle!
A defence of SP1-separability may be suggested by Bennett (2001, 56). ‘[I]f
every example of either idea is equally an example of the other’, he asks
rhetorically, ‘what makes them two ideas rather than one?’. We can answer
straightforwardly on Locke’s behalf. Ideas are learnt through selective
attention to the perceived world. Therefore, two ideas may be distinct even if
they always go together. The possibility of attending to one while ignoring
the other suffices.

JUSTIFYING SP2?

Hume says nothing to justify SP2, according to which each perception can
constitute the entire content of the mind (at some time). This omission is
worrying, because there seem to be counter-examples. We cannot perceive
(or conceive) just motion or roundness; and are they not ideas?
Maybe this is not a factual question. Rather, Hume has in mind a
definition of the term ‘perception’, which includes SP2 as a necessary
condition. The definition might be intended either to reflect ordinary usage
or to introduce a new, ‘technical’ term, and can be invoked to reject putative
counter-examples to SP2. Shape and motion, Hume will claim, are not ideas,
since they do not satisfy the definition: they are not SP2-separable.
This strategy for upholding SP2, I will now argue, is not successful; but
how, it might be wondered, can a definition be faulted? Consider the
following analogy. We could define the word ‘gold’ in terms of appearances,
thereby including within the term’s extension fools’ gold. Indeed, that may
have been its ordinary meaning before the advent of modern chemistry. This
definition is theoretically inferior to the chemical one, based on microscopic
structure. Superficial similarities notwithstanding, the proposed definition
does not pick out a natural kind; the chemically-based one does. If we
classify things in terms of microscopic structure, we can much better predict
and explain their behaviour.
738 RUTH WEINTRAUB

One’s attitude to SP2 should be analogous. It embodies a proposal as to

which entities one should take as basic in one’s (psychological) theory. Thus
viewed, it can be rejected as inauspicious if the entities that it selects do not
constitute a theoretically significant kind, or if it is needlessly complicated.
This, indeed, is the case. There is, I will show, an alternative to the theory
incorporating SP2 that is better on both counts.
The terms ‘round’, ‘loud’ and others of the same ilk do not denote SP2-
separable ideas. Of course, they are perfectly meaningful, as Hume readily
admits. They acquire their meaning, he suggests, through distinctions of
reason: ‘even in . . . simplicity there might be contain’d many different
resemblances and relations . . . we view [the figure and colour] . . . in different
aspects, according to the resemblances, of which they are susceptible’ (25).
According to Hume, then, terms are meaningful not only if they denote an
idea, but also if they denote aspects of images, which can be compared and
found to be more or less resembling. So is it not better to give up SP2, count
as an ‘idea’, in addition to Hume’s (SP2-separable) ideas, any ‘aspect’ of an
idea that allows for a comparison of (phenomenological) resemblance with
another idea, thereby obtaining a better fit between meaningful terms and
ideas, and endowing the term ‘idea’ with greater theoretical significance?
By way of a second reason for rejecting SP2 as a constraint on
perceptions, I will show that it forces us to construe the distinction between
simple and complex ideas in a way that engenders exceptions to the Copy
Principle, exceptions the accommodation of which renders Hume’s theory
more complicated than an available alternative.

AN EXAMPLE

Consider the idea of the sound of an oboe B (of a given loudness). This,
according to SP2, is a simple idea, since the timbre, pitch and loudness are
not SP2-separable; we cannot, for instance, conceive (or hear) just the pitch,
or the pitch and loudness. The Copy Principle allows for its acquisition only
through the hearing of this precise sound. This is implausible. Surely one
can acquire it by hearing an oboe A (of this level of loudness), and the entire
scale played on a violin!
The oboe B constitutes an exception to the Copy Principle; it is a simple
idea acquirable without a preceding impression. Perhaps, like the associative
laws of ideas, the Copy Principle must be thought of as ‘a gentle force which
commonly prevails’ (10). Just as the mind can join ideas which are not
related by the three natural relations, so too, it can form simple ideas without
having had the corresponding impressions. Well, perhaps; but we should
only adopt such an attitude toward the Copy Principle as a last resort.
Hume wants to explain ‘all effects from the simplest and fewest causes’
(xvii, my italics). Given this (laudable) aim, exceptions to the Copy Principle
count against it, rendering it incapable of accounting for the acquisition of
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 739

the idea of the oboe B (and other ideas of its kind). This is a theoretical flaw,
Hume’s seductive terminology notwithstanding. Gentleness here is not an
advantage. What a theory does not predict, it cannot explain (Hempel,
1965). In contrast, Newtonian mechanics, the theory which Hume’s
purports to emulate, is deterministic, and capable (if true) of explaining
all the phenomena in its domain.
Perhaps the idea of the oboe B may be formed by distinctions of reason
(24–5). We distinguish, on the one hand, the timbre from the pitch in the
idea of an oboe A, and – on the other – the pitch from the timbre in that of
the violin B. We can then conjoin the oboe timbre with the violin pitch, thus
obtaining a new simple idea – the oboe B.16
There is an obvious objection to this suggestion. We have now added
distinctions of reason as a proviso to the Copy Principle so as to account for
the indirect acquisition of the idea of the oboe B and others of its ilk, and we
have already encountered a simpler way of achieving the same effect: count
as an ‘idea’, in addition to Hume’s (SP2-separable) ideas, any ‘aspect’ of an
idea which allows for a comparison of resemblance with another idea. If
these ‘aspects’, which ‘[a]fter . . . practice . . . we begin to distinguish . . . by a
distinction of reason’, count as ‘ideas’, the ‘idea’ of the oboe B will be
complex, having as component ‘ideas’ its timbre, pitch and loudness. Being
a complex ‘idea’, its acquisition (without a corresponding impression) will
not violate the Copy Principle. Of course, we will not require a
corresponding (separable) impression for every simple ‘idea’, but rather, a
corresponding ‘impression’: a phenomenological ‘aspect’ – possibly one
which is not SP2-separable – of an impression. This requirement is clearly
satisfied in our case.
We now have a simpler principle (every simple ‘idea’ is acquired through a
corresponding ‘impression’) than Hume’s disjunction (every simple idea is
acquired either through distinctions of reason or as a result of a
corresponding impression). SP2 is seen to embody a theoretically inauspi-
cious definition, and Hume will do better if he accords a central role in his
theory to entities that do not satisfy it. This will much better promote his
‘attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral
subjects’.

HOW THE OBOE B DIFFERS FROM THE MISSING

SHADE OF BLUE

The problem of the oboe B is reminiscent of the one engendered by the

(infamous) missing shade of blue (5–6), both involving ideas which we think

16
I have not used the idea of a white circle as an example, because it is not uncontentiously
simple. According to Garrett (1997: 61), it is constituted from minima sensibilia, spatially
indivisible white atoms.
740 RUTH WEINTRAUB

can be acquired – in violation of the Copy Principle – without a preceding

impression. However. there is a crucial difference. Russow (1980), Williams
(1992) and Stanistreet (2002, 52) think the idea of the missing shade can be
acquired through distinctions of reason, but they are mistaken. To be sure,
‘two . . . shades of blue . . . must have multiple qualities, properties, or
aspects: at least one which justifies the claim that the two are similar, and
another which explains how they are different’ (Russow, 1980, 344).
However, this is not enough. The missing degree of saturation is nowhere
present in the gappy spectrum, and cannot, a fortiori, be extracted from it,
in the way the missing pitch can (from the violin scale).
This means that only in the case of the oboe B (and other ideas of its ilk)
can the recalcitrant idea be brought into line by giving up SP2. Without SP2,
the missing shade can, to be sure, be construed as a complex ‘idea’,
constituted from hue, intensity, brightness and saturation. However, since
one of its components lacks a preceding ‘impression’, it will still constitute
an exception to the Copy Principle.
Plausibly, the idea of the missing shade can be acquired through the
appreciation of the systematic similarity relations obtaining between the
different (available) elements in the range (Fogelin, 1984; Pears, 1990, 25;
Garrett, 1997). However, this requires the extrapolation from, or interpola-
tion into, elements given in experience; mere combination is not enough. By
giving up SP2 we will not obtain an exceptionless principle, but we will
improve on Hume’s.

JUSTIFYING SP3?

Hume says nothing to justify SP3, according to which each perception is

separable (in the mind) from at least one other. We should, again, construe
the principle as a definitional constraint on ideas (and impressions). How
does it fare when thus viewed?
The term ‘existent’ does not denote an SP3-separable idea, because
‘[t]here is no impression nor idea . . . that is not conceiv’d as existent’ (66).
Of course, it is perfectly meaningful, Hume thinks. Indeed, he invokes
this assumption in the argument he adduces to show that it there is not a
(distinct) idea of existence: ‘[w]hatever we conceive, we conceive to be
existent’ (67). The notion is not just intelligible; there is no thought
without it!
Again, is it not better to give up SP3 so as to make ‘ideas’ better correlated
with meaningful terms?17
A reason for thinking that SP3-separability is required may be suggested
by Bennett’s discussion of innateness (2001, 56). Without it, Bennett thinks,

17
The fit is still imperfect. There are, familiarly, meaningful terms the understanding of which is
not at all related to images: logical connectives, for instance.
 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 741
18
an idea could not be acquired experientially. ‘The idea of existence, for
example’, he claims, ‘could not be learned through selective attention to the
perceived world’. Why not? Its acquisition would be problematic if concepts
were learnt by encountering positive and negative instances. If they are
acquired, as both Hume and Locke think, by encountering positive
instances (having the requisite impressions), their acquisition is particularly
easy to explain: positive instances are ubiquitous!19

SEPARABILITY AND THE COPY PRINCIPLE

Is SP2 not required for the application of the Copy Principle? Hume explains
the difference between impressions and ideas in terms of vivacity. This way
of drawing the distinction is intelligible if perceptions are (complete) images,
which can be faint or vivid. It does not make sense to characterize the
roundness (of an object) or the pitch (of a sound) as ‘forceful’ or ‘faint’ (1).
If these are – in contravention of SP2 – perceptions, they cannot be classified
as impressions or ideas. How, then, are we to show that the terms conform
to the Copy Principle (so as to vindicate them)?
Initial appearances to the contrary; it is possible to apply the Copy
Principle to the term ‘round’ and others of its ilk. Certainly, it does not
denote an image, but we can look – by way of vindicating it – for a (vivid)
image in which roundness is an aspect (a blue sphere, for instance). Of
course, we must restrict ourselves to aspects (of images) that can be
compared and found to be more or less resembling so as to rule out bogus
ideas, substance and necessity, for instance. There is nothing corresponding
to necessity or substance in the image, Hume will claim.

CONCLUSIONS

Here are my two conclusions. First, Hume invokes six distinct separability
claims, therefore the term ‘Hume’s separability Principle’ (Garrett, 1997) is a
misnomer.
My second conclusion pertains to the first three separability principles.
Waxman (1994, 290, n33) thinks Locke fails to see the ‘problem in treating
solidity as a distinct idea even though it could never appear separately from
extension’. Locke’s ‘admission of aspects as full-fledged ideas’, Waxman

18
Because existence and unity are not SP3-separable, Bennett thinks they cannot be acquired
experientially, and adduces this as a point against empiricism.
19
Hume seems to think that every object is presented as existing (66–7): ‘there is no impression
nor idea of any kind . . . that is not conceiv’d as existent . . . Whatever we conceive, we conceive
to be existent’. Perhaps it is more plausible to suppose (with Kant) that no object is presented as
existing; that existence is not a phenomenal property. But then its acquisition will become quite
mysterious from an empiricist point of view.
742 RUTH WEINTRAUB

claims, ‘plunged the notion of a simple idea into a morass of confusion’, and
he commends Hume for upholding separability so as to rectify Locke’s
‘morass of confusion’. However, this diagnosis can now be seen to be
mistaken. It is Hume who engenders a problem by upholding SP1, SP2 and
SP3, and Locke who should be commended for rejecting them.20

Tel-Alviv University

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20
Locke is inconsistent in the way he draws the distinction simple/complex, sometimes
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 SEPARABILITY AND CONCEPT EMPIRICISM 743

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