A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF DAVID HUME'S NOTION OF IMPRESSIONS AND IDEASA

Abstract

 The thrust of this paper lies within the philosophical analysis of TDavid Hume's notion of impressions and ideas. Impressions as Hume argues, are immediate and vivid sensations while ideas are faint images of impression present in our thinking and reasoning which provides us with the knowledge of experience. This work seeks to address the problem of how we can have knowledge of ideas that are not based on direct sense impression and experience, and how our sensory impressions relate to the ideas we form in our mind. This work is guided by the objectives of examining the nature of Hume's impressions and ideas, and understanding the role of impressions and ideas in knowledge formation. The study, which is significant from both a theoretical and practical standpoint, explains how impressions and ideas play a fundamental role in shaping our experience of the world. The method this research adopts is analytic method, this method helps to properly analyse how impressions and ideas connects together to form knowledge from Hume's view. This research finds that through sense experience, we learn things about the physical world, but our knowledge does not end there and there is need to further develop our sense data. It is the conclusion of this paper, while empirical knowledge is certainly important, it is limited in its scope and may not be able to provide a complete understanding of a complex phenomenon which may require other forms of knowledge.