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Single Idea 5323

[filed under theme 16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 5. Self as Associations ]

Full Idea

Our experiences are logically independent, but they may be factually connected. What unites them is that either they are experienced together, or (if at separate times) they are separated by a stream of experience which is felt to be continuous.

Gist of Idea

Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness

Source

comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], Bk 3 App.) by A.J. Ayer - The Central Questions of Philosophy §VI.A

Book Ref

Ayer,A.J.: 'The Central Questions of Philosophy' [Penguin 1976], p.115


A Reaction

A strict empiricist cannot deny that the feeling of continuity could be false, though that invites the Cartesian question of what exactly is experiencing the delusion. Hume denies that we experience any link between simultaneous experiences.


The 13 ideas with the same theme [Self is a unity formed by associating mental events]:

Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume]
A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume]
The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume]
Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume]
A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume]
Experiences are logically separate, but factually linked by simultaneity or a feeling of continuousness [Ayer on Hume]
Qualia must be united by a subject, because they lead to concepts and judgements [Ayer]
Is something an 'experience' because it relates to other experiences, or because it relates to a subject? [Ayer]
If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer]
The bundle must also have agency in order to act, and a self to act rationally [Searle]
Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin]
Can the mental elements of a 'bundle' exist on their own? [Carruthers]
Why would a thought be a member of one bundle rather than another? [Carruthers]