A Treatise of Human Nature · Chapter
Section V: Of Relations explained
Hume distinguishes between natural relations, which connect ideas in the imagination, and philosophical relations, which are arbitrary comparisons.
What happens
Hume distinguishes between natural relations, which connect ideas in the imagination, and philosophical relations, which are arbitrary comparisons. He enumerates seven fundamental philosophical relations: resemblance, identity, space and time, quantity/number, degrees of quality, contrariety, and cause and effect. He notes that resemblance is essential to all relations, and that difference is a negation rather than a positive relation.
Themes in this chapter
Association of Ideas
Hume distinguishes natural relations that connect ideas in the imagination from philosophical relations based on arbitrary comparison.
Empiricism and the Primacy of Impressions
The classification of relations is grounded in empirical observation and the comparison of objects.
Characters to notice
- David Hume
Author and narrator, presenting the classification of relations.
Key passages
“The word Relation is commonly used in two senses considerably different from each other.”
The term 'relation' has two distinct meanings: one referring to the natural connection of ideas, and the other to any basis for comparison.
Hume sets up the distinction between natural and philosophical relations.
“The first is resemblance: And this is a relation, without which no philosophical relation can exist; since no objects will admit of comparison, but what have some degree of resemblance.”
Resemblance is the foundational relation; without it, no comparison is possible.
Hume emphasizes the primacy of resemblance in all relations.
“All other objects, such as fire and water, heat and cold, are only found to be contrary from experience, and from the contrariety of their causes or effects; which relation of cause and effect is a seventh philosophical relation, as well as a natural one.”
Contrariety among objects is learned through experience and is tied to cause and effect, which is both a natural and philosophical relation.
Hume connects contrariety to causal reasoning, a key theme.