英文摘要 |
Faculty psychology is a crucial but ignored aspect in Hume's philosophy of human nature. From this perspective, this paper discusses the "conception", which is an important mental ability in Hume's Treatise. Conception has three different ways of operation, which are pure conception, comparison, and reflection. Pure conception produces and changes ideas, and is closely related to sensation. Comparison is the activity of discovering the relations between ideas. Reflection is the second-order activity of conception, which is also pure conception and comparison in fact, but regards the activities of pure conception and comparison as its objects. This discussion shows that we can have some deep understandings on Hume's Treatise, which can be acquired nowhere but from the perspective of faculty psychology. It manifests the great potential of the perspective of faculty psychology for interpreting Hume's Treatise. |