A Few Tips on Hume

I offer the following tips in the hope they may be of assistance in addressing the discussion questions raised in my previous post:

Hume's epistemology (his theory of knowledge) is based on his definitions of impressions and ideas, which he has given earlier in A Treatise of Human Nature, of which "Of Personal Identity" is one short chapter.

Impressions: "Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul."

Ideas: "By ideas I mean the faint images of these [impressions] in thinking and reasoning; such as, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only those which arise from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion."

In "Of Personal Identity," Hume talks about objects. These are the impressions and ideas that constitute our mental activity. The key question to ask in reading the piece is, How are these objects, to employ a more modern term, processed? Does the "process" afford a true sense of personal identity to the individual? Or do the many changes in our perceptions through time, and our difficulty in summarizing past perceptions at any given time, undermine the sense of personal identity? Think of Heraclitus's river: Is it the same or constantly changing?

Hume asks, Can our mind change and still be the same?

Questions for "Of Personal Identity," by David Hume

1. Why, according to Hume, do "some philosophers" think "the strongest sensation, the most violent passion" makes us more aware of the self? (p. 65)
2. If we doubt of the self, then is there "anything of which we can be certain" (p. 65)?
3. Why does Hume define "self" as mind or consciousness? Are there other possible definitions?
4. Is Hume convincing when he says that because "pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations" occur at different times, the "idea of self" cannot exist? (p. 66)
5. Is mind just a "bundle or collection of different perceptions"? (p. 66)
6. Can you conceive of the mind as a "kind of theatre" (p. 67)?
7. For analysis: "We have a distinct idea of an object that remains invariable ... " (p. 67) to "... nor find anything invariable and uninterrupted to justify our notion of identity."
8. Is a person comparable to a church that was originally built of brick but has been rebuilt of freestone? Is it a problem to call them the same church?
9. On page 72 Hume writes, "The identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetable and animal bodies. It cannot have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects." Can we really use the same criteria in identifying a human mind as we would in indentifying a shrub or a crustacean?
10. Read and analyze paragraph starting on page 73 (ending page 74), "But lest this argument should not convince the reader .." to "according to the principles explained above."
11. Read and analyze Hume's discussion of the successive parts our thoughts as to their resemblance and causation on pages 74 and 75, starting "To begin with resemblance" and ending "And in this view our identity with regard to the passions serves to corroborate that with regard to the imagination, by making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures."
12. Do you agree with Hume (p. 75) that memory is the source of personal identity, because it "acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions"?
13. Hume asks (p. 75) "Who can tell me, for instance, what were his thoughts and actions on the first of January 1715, the eleventh of March 1719, and the third of August 1733?," and says the many gaps in our memory detract from our sense of personal identity. Do you agree?
14. Is Hume correct in arguing that "all the nice and subtle questions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical difficulties."
15. Can something that changes still be the same?
16. Is Hume saying (a) there is no self, or that it's (b) simply not something we are capable of knowing (i.e., not a "philosophical difficulty")?

David Hume (1711-1776)

Back in January of 2006, we discussed an excerpt from David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature entitled "Of Justice and Injustice." This month we return to the Treatise with a piece called "Of Personal Identity."

Interesting that the editors of the Great Books Reading and Discussion Program would pick not one but two selections from the Treatise, since the book generated little excitement when it was first published in 1739. Hume later repackaged his ideas in a work entitled "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding."

D. G. C. McNabb in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy informs us that Hume was never an academic philosopher, but a "man of letters and to a lesser extent a man of affairs." He holds an important place in the history of philosophy as a radical empiricist and foil to rationalists like Immanuel Kant.

McNabb says Hume's primary motivation was to achieve fame in the literary and not in the philosophy world. If that were the case, why did he publish many of his works (including the Treatise) anonymously?