ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Hume’s account of thought. It also argues that Humean thoughts are intentional acts. The fundamental elements in Hume’s theory are impressions (sense data and introspective data) and ideas (images of impressions). Although simple impressions are causally prior to simple ideas, the only inherent difference between an idea and an impression is the greater ‘force and vivacity’ of an impression vis-à-vis its corresponding idea. The standard interpretation takes ideas to be images of sensory or reflective qualities. A distinction was commonly drawn in the ‘way of ideas’ between positive ideas and relative ideas. A positive idea represents an entity as it is, and such ideas were commonly described in terms of images. A relative idea--what Berkeley often called a relative notion-singles out an unper-ceived entity on the basis of its relations to a perceived entity, that is, a positive idea.
