Hume raises the Missing Shade of Blue to challenge the empiricist principle that all ideas derive from impressions
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Scholarly literature confirms that David Hume introduced the missing shade of blue thought experiment as a notable exception or challenge to his core empiricist principle that all simple ideas must derive from simple impressions.
What to do with the missing shade of blue (MSB)? Some have argued that Hume's famous thought experiment undermines his central doctrine – the ‘copy principle’ – such that he should have revised his...
Abstract
Hume declares that the doctrine that every simple idea must arise from a simple impression is a “first principle” in the science of human nature. Then, in both The Treatise of Human Nature and the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he presents what he takes to be a decisive counterexample to this first principle: Presented with a spectrum of colors with one shade missing, we can form an idea of this missing shade even if we have never had a prior impression of it. The suggestion here is that, for Hume, simple ideas can resemble each other in various degrees without compromising their simplicity. Because of this, the system of colors forms a space in which gaps can be recognized and, if not too small, can be filled in.
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