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Students Zone / Questions / Chapter 9: Perception: Idealism and Phenomenalism

1. Most people would say that tables continue to exist when not perceived but that toothaches and feelings of envy don’t. Discuss why this should be so and do you agree?

2. ‘Since we cannot prove that there is a material world, we do not know that there is one.’ Discuss.

3. ‘Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.’

a) According to Hume what is it that should be committed to the flames?

b) Why should it contain only ‘sophistry and illusion’?

c) Do you agree with him?

4. Explain the difference between Hume’s ‘relations of ideas’ and ‘matters of fact’. How important is this to Hume’s account?

5. Explain the key assumptions of empiricism? What are the consequences for the nature of knowledge and the role of the individual as the knower?