Blackwell Reference Online

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Together with relations of resemblance and cause and effect, relations of contiguity in time or place are the fundamental principles of the associationism at the core of Hume's theory of human understanding. Like resemblances, but in contrast to causal relations, contiguity operates on the associative imagination prior to and independently of customs of thought inculcated in us by previous experience. Nevertheless, their psychological efficacy (again like that of resemblances) depends, in several regards, on the underpinning of custom. For example, contiguity presupposes custom in the form of cause and effect relations in order to extend its influence beyond the scope of objects immediately present to the senses (T 1.3.2.3), since its capacity to generate belief is otherwise extremely limited (T 1.3.9.6). But, most importantly, contiguity association is actuated by customs of thought rooted in our lifelong experience as creatures existing in a spatio-temporal world:'Tis likewise evident, that as the senses, in changing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects.(T 1.1.4.2; also 2.3.7.5 and 2.3.8.8)Our bodily movements always proceed from one place to the adjacent place. The ... log in or subscribe to read full text