David Hume's "Of the Origin of Ideas"

David Hume’s “Of the Origin of Ideas”
In his “Of the Origin of Ideas,” David Hume, an empiricist philosopher, explores the fundamental differences between impressions and ideas, in other words perceptions and reflections of perceptions. According to Hume, an impression is “when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will,” while an idea is merely “when we reflect on any [impression]” (Furman 203). Hume further distinguishes between impressions and ideas by stating that impressions are “strong and vivid,” while ideas do not begin to encompass the sensory experience of impressions (205). Hume argues that human ideas stem directly from impressions, meaning that, in general, humans are incapable of original thought. He does, however, provide an example of a possible situation in which a human might be able to create an idea without an impression; theoretically, someone looking at multiple shades of a color could conjure a shade that had been purposely left out. Although Hume acknowledges the possibility of such a circumstance, he makes it clear that, most often, humans mistake the melding of separate ideas and genuine creativity (by combining ideas, you can make something new, but it is not truly original). Hume also raises the point that, when questioning an idea, we must ask what impression caused said idea to form.
By and large, Hume argues that humans cannot understand what they have not experienced. In order to test this concept, we discussed how to explain what snow and ice are to someone who had never experienced snow or ice because of their climate. While we were able to generate analogies and words to describe snow and ice, we found that none of our examples gave a true representation of the experience of snow or ice. This exercise illuminated that language is essential in communicating ideas of impressions, as Hume had said. While discussing the inevitable barriers of language, we concluded that, as individuals, we attach meaning to words based on our own experiences (for example: one person’s definition of love varies from another person’s based on how deeply each of the people loved another person/thing).
Talking about language and the difficulties encountered when communicating with others reminded me of Francesco DiCaprio’s (’13) senior speech, in which he discussed how he could not possibly convey his emotional attachments/reactions to words to other people, mirroring the concepts that Hume’s philosophy brought forward in our discussion. Besides being a very eloquently written and delivered speech, Francesco captured language’s true inability to communicate impressions with other people.
I really enjoyed Hume’s empiricist philosophy; it aligns with my personal beliefs of how humans acquire knowledge. Although it is a little depressing to think that humans are incapable of producing truly creative and original thoughts (except in small, inconsequential scenarios), Hume’s ideas seem accurate. Most modern inventions merely build off of what has come before, keeping them from being original. Even innovations such as the first iPhone came from Steve Jobs manipulating a phone to possess the aesthetically pleasing look that he had found in calligraphy.  Hume’s philosophy made me re-appreciate the beauty of the Harkness tables at SPA, because, as we said in class, the point of Harkness discussions is to try to learn from other people’s impressions. While such a task is taxing and probably impossible, it is an exercise worth undertaking in order to gain more knowledge and perspectives. Hume’s ideas are important, because they highlight humans’ ineptitude at possessing original thought and communicating experiences with other people, both of which are viewed as fundamentally important aspects of our modern society.

Here is a link to Francesco’s speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1XvsKDlELs&list=PLDECED15C93F92E91&index=4