Impressions, Ideas, and Ontological Type

Abstract:This paper explores the ontological categories in which Hume's texts seem to justify placing his central terms of art, impression, and idea. The options of impressions/ideas as "acts" (or "states") and as "objects" (inner mental particulars) are discussed, with reference to interpretations forwarded in the secondary literature as well as to Hume's texts. Variants of both these options are explored and assessed, as are relations between the categoreal type for impressions and ideas and Hume's views on the "external world." I argue as well that there is an interesting, though elusive, alternative which most commentators neglect, but which appears in later empiricist philosophy, viz., that Hume intends impressions/ideas to be a new category of item, intermediate between act and object. I conclude that while some Humean texts suggest such a view, the likeliest interpretation is a version of the "act" or "state" construal.