Phil 102 Personal Identity Hume(1)

8/16/2019 Phil 102 Personal Identity Hume(1)

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Personal Identity: Hume

This lecture will help you

understand:

• Hume’s Empiricism:

– Impressions

– Ideas

• Hume’s Theory of Personal

Identity René Magritte, Not to Be

Reproduced ( La

Reproduction Interdit ),

(1937)



David Hume (1711-76)

A Treatise of Human Nature (1740)

Denied the existence ofan unchanging orcontinual self.



Hume

• Empiricism

• Skepticism



Empiricism

• Empiricism (from Greek empeirikos, experienced)

– Reliance on experience as the source of ideas and

knowledge. Information about the world must be

acquired by a posteriori means, so that nothing can be

thought without first being sensed.



Skepticism

• Skepticism (skeptomai , to look about, to consider)

– The doctrine that absolute knowledge or knowledge in

a particular area is uncertain or doubtful.



“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I

call myself, I always stumble on some particular

perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, loveor hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at

any time without a perception. When my perceptions

are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; [I am]

insensible [unaware] of myself, and may truly be said notto exist. . . I may venture to affirm of the rest of

mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or

collection of different perceptions, which succeed each

other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a

perpetual flux and movement” (IP 294-295).



Quiz Question 1: Who does Hume

most sound like here?

A. Protagoras

B. PythagorasC. Heraclitus

D. Parmenides



Impressions and Ideas

• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind)

– Impressions

– Ideas



impression




• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =

impressions and ideas.

• Impressions and ideas resemble each other in

all other respects but force and vivacity.



impression idea




• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =

impressions and ideas.


all other respects but force and vivacity.

• If nothing is distinguishable in an impression

it is simple; otherwise complex. Similarly

with ideas.



Simple and Complex

Simple

impression

Complex

impression



Simple idea Complex idea




• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) = impressionsand ideas.

• Impressions and ideas resemble each other in allother respects but force and vivacity.

• If nothing is distinguishable in an idea it is simple;otherwise complex.

• If nothing is distinguishable in an impression it issimple; otherwise complex. Similarly with ideas.




• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =impressions and ideas.


all other respects but force and vivacity.• If nothing is distinguishable in an impression itis simple; otherwise complex. Similarly withideas.

• Impressions and ideas are always doubledup. – Exception: complex ideas may lack complex

impressions as originals.



+

(Complex)

Impression of a Horse

(Complex)

Impression of a Horn

(Complex)

Idea of a Unicorn

+ =

=

Imaginary Objects



• Ordinarily impressions and ideas doubled up.



Ordinarily impressions and ideas

double up

impression idea



Thesis

• Thesis: All simple ideas are derived from,

correspondent to, and “exactly represent”

simple impressions.



Two Proofs

1) “Constant conjunction” shows the connection

is not from chance. The order of dependence

is found in the order of succession: the

impression always comes first, so the idea

depends on it.



Two Proofs2) Lack of impressions always

accompanies lack of ideas. We have

no idea of a pineapple’s taste

without going to the Indies and

tasting one, and in general a personlacking sense modalities (e.g. sense

of taste) lacks the impressions, and

has no ideas proper to that sense.



Exception?

Missing Shade of Blue Example



Back to the Self

• “But self or person is not any one impression,

but that to which our several impressions and

ideas are supposed to have reference” (IP

294).

• In other words, there seems to be no

impression of a constant or abiding self.

– If there is, where is it?



Bundle Theory of the Self

• “I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind,

that they are nothing but a bundle or collection

of different perceptions, which succeed each

other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a

perpetual flux and movement” (IP 295).



Metaphor of Theater“The mind is a kind of theatre, where severalperceptions successively make theirappearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, andmingle in an infinite variety of postures andsituations. There is properly no simplicity in itat one time, nor identity in different [times];

whatever natural propension we may have toimagine that simplicity and identity. Thecomparison of the theatre must not misleadus. They are the successive perceptionsonly, that constitute the mind; nor have we

the most distant notion of the place, wherethese scenes are represented, or of thematerials, of which it is composed (IP 295).



“Our eyes cannot turn in

their sockets without varying

our perceptions. Our thought

is still more variable than our

sight; and all our other

senses and faculties

contribute to this change;

nor is there any single power

of the soul, which remains

unalterably the same,perhaps for one moment” (IP

295).



Criticism 1

1. Responsibility: If the self is for always changing,

if I am not the same self now as I was ten years

ago, ten days ago, or even ten seconds ago,

what are we to make of the idea of

accountability, responsibility, and guilt? How are

we to go about deciding questions of right and

responsibility for crimes?



Criticism 2

2. Substance vs. Continuity Criterion: Yet, is it

really true to say that the self changes because

the body changes? Am I different because I

have shaved today? Is it not natural forsomething like a tree or person to grow? Would

it not be precisely what it is (i.e. a tree) if it

didn't grow?



Same Tree?



• What about if it grew wings, however! Would

it still be the same tree then?

• Clearly, whatever happens to something has,

in some sense, to be allowed for in its very

concept.



A Final Reflection

• Clearly, whatever happens to something has,

in some sense, to be allowed for in its very

concept.

– For example, I can take the same bus, without it

actually being the same bus!

Phil 102 Personal Identity Hume(1)

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