oblem arises for Hume, as we will see, because of the externality of relations between impressions and

the ideas that are the copies of these impressions. The mind, Hume says in his Treatise, is a kind of
theatre, but Hume immediately adds this caution: The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us.
They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion
of the place, where these senses are represented . . . (T 253). As a collection of ideas that lacks any
intrinsic basis for relating one to another, the mind is thus, as Deleuze puts it, a collection without an
album, a play without a stage, a ux of perceptions (ES 23). How then, to restate the problem, does
this multiplicity come to form an integrated system? The second problem follows from the rst: The
problem, Deleuze states, is as follows: how can a subject transcending the given be constituted in the
given?, or how can the subject who invents and believes [be] constituted inside the given in such a
way that it makes the given itself a synthesis and a system (ES 86 7). The problem of transforming a
multiplicity of ideas and impressions into a system is thus inseparable from the problem of accounting
for the constitution of a subject within the given, and a subject that is irreducible to the given. The
effort to respond to these problems will be the work of what Deleuze will call transcendental
empiricism. We will discuss this effort at length below, but before doing so we will rst show how
Humes understanding of the relationship between impressions and ideas leads to the problems that are
so central to Humes project, and that emerge in Deleuzes work as the project of transcendental
empiricism.
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I. Ideas and Impressions
Hume begins his Treatise with what he takes to be an obvious distinction, namely the difference
between thinking and feeling. Every one of himself, Hume argues, will readily perceive the
difference betwixt feeling and thinking (T12). And it is precisely this obvious difference between
feeling and thinking that underlies the distinction Hume makes between ideas and impressions.
Impressions, Hume claims, are those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, and ideas
are the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning (T 1). Moreover, as a rule that Hume boldly
asserts holds without any exception . . . every simple idea has a simple impression, which resembles it;
and every simple impression a correspondent idea (T3). This relationship between ideas and
impressions has come to be called the copy principle. As Hume states it, all our simple ideas in their
rst appearance are derivd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they
exactly represent (T 4). Hume will readily admit that his philosophical system would crumble if one
could successfully show that there are indeed ideas that are not copies of correspondent impressions. In
a 1752 letter to Hugh Blair, responding to Thomas Reids criticisms, Hume continues to afrm the copy
principle: the Author [Reid] afrms I had been hasty, & not supported by any Colour of Argument
when I afrm, that all our Ideas are copyd from Impressions . . . If no exception can ever be found, the
Principle must remain incontestible (Reid [1764] 1997, 257).1 One need not turn to Reid, however, for
a possible exception to the copy principle. Hume provides us with one, in the widely discussed case of
the missing shade of blue. Could one who has never had an impression of this missing shade
nonetheless come up with the idea of it if all the different shades of that colour, except that single one,
be placd before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest (T 6)? Hume has no doubt
that one would be able to do so, and yet rather than see this as proof, that the simple ideas are not
always derived from the correspondent impressions, he simply moves on, dismissing this case as so
particular and singular, that tis scarce worth our observing (ibid.). One could say that Hume is merely
setting forth general rules and distinctions he believes hold despite the fact that there are occasional,
singular exceptions to these rules.2 Yet the fact that Hume repeatedly, and in numerous places
throughout his life, upholds the principle as one that holds withoutexception, has led a number of
commentators to take issue with Humes complacent attitude towards the case of the missing shade of
blue. David Pears, for example, sees Humes offhanded dismissal of the missing shade of blue as
evidence of a fundamental error. In his book, Humes
10
Deleuzes Hume
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System, Pears sees in Humes philosophy a general failure to mark the transition from his theory of
ideas developed as a psychological analogue of a theory of meaning to its development as a theory of
truth and evidence (Pears 1990, 33). In other words, for Pears, Humes adherence to the copy principle
and its claim that all our simple ideas are derivd from simple impressions . . . which they exactly
represent, is the psychological analogue to a Fregean-Russellian theory of meaning which states that
an utterance is meaningful if there is a content, x, which exactly corresponds to the utterance and gives
the utterance a truth value for example, x is the argument that makes the function x is the author of
Waverly both true and meaningful when x is replaced by Scott. There is certainly ample textual
support for Pears argument. Pears himself cites the following passage from Humes Abstract to the
Treatise: And when he [Hume anonymously referring to himself] suspects that any philosophical term
has no idea annexed to it (as is too common) he always asks from what impression that presented idea
is derived? And if no impression can be produced, he concludes that the term is altogether insignicant
(A 6489). Hume will make this exact point again in his rst Enquiry, and thus it appears one nds in
Hume an anticipation of the critique of metaphysics one nds in the logical positivists namely, a
philosophical problem is a pseudo-problem if it cannot be referred to, or resolved by means of, a
veriable sense impression. TurningtoHumesdismissalofthesignicanceofthemissingshadeofblue,
Pearsarguesthatitshouldnotbesweptundertherug.Tothecontrary,ifone insists on the externality of
relations that is, on the claim that there are no intrinsic relations between ideas and impressions, and
that they constitute merelyacollectionofseparable,distinct,simple,andindivisibleimpressions
thenonesuchasHumeisledtoaformofatomismthatleavesthemunableto
accountfortheideaofthemissingshadeofblue.ForPears,bothRusselland
Wittgensteinattemptedtodothisaswell,Butgenuinesimplicityprovedunattainable, and he [Wittgenstein]
soon abandoned his atomism in favour of holism. Hume should have done the same (Pears 1989, 27).
Jonathan Bennett has also faulted Hume for not taking the case of the missing shade of blue seriously.
For Bennett, the difculty for Hume arises from making vivacity the sole differentiator of impressions
and ideas. In presenting an example to illustrate the difculties this leads to, Bennett proposes the
following:
Here I am with an idea with a certain kind of sound. Being convinced [that all our ideas are derived
from corresponding impressions] I conclude that I once had an impression of such a sound, though I
have no memory of it. This conclusion is an idea [belief] of mine, which means that it has more
vivacity than the idea [that is, the mere thought] had a moment ago. Where did the vivacity come from?
(Bennett 2001, 206)
Staging the Mind
11
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For Bennett, Hume never resolves this or other problems, one way out of which would have been to
understand the copy thesis in terms not of phenomenological vivacity, but rather of involving
experience of an objective world (ibid. 212). In short, Bennett argues that the best defense of Humes
system would be to understand Humes use of the copy principle as an effort to offer meaning-
criticism in the light of wordword and word world relations, even though, Bennett adds, Hume had
not the theoretical and terminological tools to do this properly (ibid. 216). Rather than analyzing the
meanings of words in terms of both their interdependent relationships to other words in the language (
la Ferdinand de Saussure) and/ or the world, Hume instead reduces everything to a hierarchy built upon
independent, distinct, simple impressions. Echoing Pears criticism of Humes atomism, Bennett
believes that in fact there are no simple ideas in Humes sense, hence the subsequent problem with
the simple missing shade of blue (ibid. 217). Had Hume developed an approach to meaningcriticism
that accepted an interdependence of wordword and wordworld relationships, the missing shade of
blue could have been accounted for; as it is, however, Bennett concludes that there is no defense for
Humes
complacent dismissal of what he ought to have seen as a serious problem (ibid. 218). In his defense of
Hume, Don Garrett relies on a passage from the Abstract to the Treatise where Hume argues that even
different simple ideas may have a similarity or resemblance to each other, noting that Blue and green
are different simple ideas, but are more resembling than blue and scarlet (A 637).3 The signicance of
this, for Garrett, is that it challenges the assumption of many commentators, such as Pears and Bennett,
that Hume was a strict nominalist who reduced all simple ideas to the logically simple, independent
impressions that must correspond to these ideas. In the case of blue and green and blue and scarlet, the
greater resemblance of the former pair over the latter cannot be reduced to either of the simple
impressions. The simple ideas, blue and green, can therefore be compared while remaining simple and
distinct, and without bringing in a common third element to serve as a basis for comparison. In fact,
Hume