display all the ideas for this combination of texts
15 ideas
| 3819 | Hume's 'bundle' won't distinguish one mind with ten experiences from ten minds [Searle on Hume] |
| Full Idea: Hume's thought that each perception is separate and distinct cannot be right, because then we can't distinguish between one consciousness with ten experiences and ten different consciousnesses. | |
| From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739]) by John Searle - Rationality in Action Ch.3.VI | |
| A reaction: Why can't the only connection between them be that they all occur to the speaker who reports to them? How would I know if one of 'my' mental events actually belonged to a neighbour and had strayed. If it was coherent, I would accept it. |
| 1317 | A person is just a fast-moving bundle of perceptions [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I 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 perpetual flux and movement. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: Note that Hume is not just saying what we can know of ourselves, but is asserting a view of what we actually are. The minimal objection to this is to ask how we know that a perception is a member of one big bundle rather than several small ones. |
| 1331 | The parts of a person are always linked together by causation [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Whatever changes a person endures, his several parts are still connected by the relation of causation. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: However, the opposite ends of the universe are linked together by causation, so that will not suffice for a theory of personal identity. One might try to specify a complex and tight network of causation (like a brain!) instead of just 'connection'. |
| 1388 | Hume gives us an interesting sketchy causal theory of personal identity [Perry on Hume] |
| Full Idea: I believe Hume offers an interesting if sketchy theory of personal identity, a causal theory, disguised as the revolutionary discovery that there is no such thing as personal identity | |
| From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) by John Perry - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' Intro | |
| A reaction: There is certainly a theory there, even though Hume ceased to believe in it, which is nowadays covered by the idea that personal identity is a 'fiction', an arbitrary idea that reifies the focus and direction of a bundle of mental events. |
| 21297 | A person is simply a bundle of continually fluctuating perceptions [Hume] |
| Full Idea: [People] are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a continual flux and movement. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we must say that this misses the huge non-conscious aspect of what a person is. He seems to see all mental events as equal. Isn't the experience of deciding to focus on this sentence more 'central' than awareness of your feet? |
| 1316 | Introspection always discovers perceptions, and never a Self without perceptions [Hume] |
| Full Idea: I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: The first half can hardly be denied, but I think the second half is just false. What you observe is not just a raw neutral sense-datum, floating in nothing, but a sense-datum that is deeply coloured by MY interests, interpretations and values. |
| 1333 | Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by showing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather strained proposal, as the revelation of a network of cause and effect seems to have no implications for personal identity (unless only 'I' could be the cause). |
| 1332 | We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume] |
| Full Idea: We can extend the chain of causes acquired from memory, and consequently the identity of our persons beyond our memory, and can comprehend times, and circumstances, and actions, which we have entirely forgot. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: If the principle is just that 'I am my consciousness' (including of my past), then why should not my consciousness of other people's pasts by included in my identity. How do I know that images in my consciousness are MY memories? |
| 21305 | Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The memory not only discovers the identity [of the mind], but also contributes to its production, by producing the relation of resemblance among the perceptions | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: This is Hume battling to explain personal identity by his principles of association. He discount 'contiguity'. He doesn't explain how memory creates resemblances. Is not resemblance of idea to fact required in order to remember? |
| 21307 | Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Who will affirm, because he has entirely forgot the incidents of past days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time? And by that means overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: This is a swipe at one of Locke's most controversial claims (especially when applied to incidents of criminal behaviour). Hume says memory constitutes this identity, but Locke's view says it merely reveals identity. |
| 21306 | Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume] |
| Full Idea: As to causation, the true idea of the human mind is to consider it as a system of different perceptions, which are linked together by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence and modify each other. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that the associations of memory and causation might be sufficient to produce identity of the mind, and he gives the priority to memory. Eventually the good empiricist despairs because you cannot experience the links. |
| 21294 | A continuous lifelong self must be justified by a single sustained impression, which we don't have [Hume] |
| Full Idea: If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather dogmatic application of the requirement that all knowledge must be founded in experience. It fails to recognise that knowledge of the thing having the experiences is a rather special case. We must ask for the best explanation. |
| 21295 | When I introspect I can only observe my perceptions, and never a self which has them [Hume] |
| Full Idea: When I enter most intimately into myself I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never observe any thing but the perception. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: It isn't like looking for your car in the car park. The prior question should be: assuming you do have a persisting self, what would you expect introspection to reveal about it? |
| 21298 | We pretend our perceptions are continuous, and imagine a self to fill the gaps [Hume] |
| Full Idea: We feign the continued existence of the perceptions of our senses, to remove their interruption; and run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, to disguise the variation. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: Modern neuroscience (according to Dennett) endorses this, because the brain continually fills in gaps in experience (as it fills in the blindspot during normal vision). |
| 21304 | Identity in the mind is a fiction, like that fiction that plants and animals stay the same [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The identity we ascribe to the mind is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that we ascribe to vegetable and animal bodies. It cannot therefore have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.6) | |
| A reaction: Sustained purpose is Hume's common factor. Is the identity over time ascribed to the body of a single animal nothing more than a fiction? It is a wise ascription, compared to stupid ascriptions to gerrymandered objects. |