ヒュームにおける対象同定の問題

Abstract

I read Hume's argument about our opinion of the continued existence of objects as an account of our fundamental assumptions in identifying them through temporally distinguishable occasions of observation. He distinguishes in the external existence of objects the continued and the independent one. The former logically implies the latter. In thinking of the externality of objects, we tend to have in mind only their independence of our observing them. We can even say that independence is the primary meaning of externality. But, though continuity is implicit in the opinion of externality, we can get to the opinion of independence only in having that of continuity. Namely, we recognize external objects as such only in making the fundamental assumptions in identifying. These assumptions concern mainly the spatio-temporal framework of the external world. This framework makes constancy and coherence of appearances the cues to recognition of external objects. In seeing the objects with constant appearances as unchanging, spatially stable ones, we take time, not as dependent on successive impressions, but as the framework in which continuous objects exist. And in seeing the objects with coherent appearences as ones changing in a qualitatively and spatially continuous manner, we take space, not as a screen of fleeting sense-impressions, but as the framework in which in-dependent objects locate. It is the imagination that provides this framework in forcing us to make those assumptions in identifying. Namely, the imagination makes the world appear to us as such.