phil 102 personal identity hume(1)
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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)
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David Hume (1711-76)
A Treatise of Human Nature (1740)
Denied the existence ofan unchanging orcontinual self.
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Hume
• Empiricism
• Skepticism
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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.
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Skepticism
• Skepticism (skeptomai , to look about, to consider)
– The doctrine that absolute knowledge or knowledge in
a particular area is uncertain or doubtful.
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“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).
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Quiz Question 1: Who does Hume
most sound like here?
A. Protagoras
B. PythagorasC. Heraclitus
D. Parmenides
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Impressions and Ideas
• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind)
– Impressions
– Ideas
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impression
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Impressions and Ideas
• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =
impressions and ideas.
• Impressions and ideas resemble each other in
all other respects but force and vivacity.
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impression idea
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Impressions and Ideas
• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =
impressions and ideas.
• Impressions and ideas resemble each other in
all other respects but force and vivacity.
• If nothing is distinguishable in an impression
it is simple; otherwise complex. Similarly
with ideas.
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Simple and Complex
Simple
impression
Complex
impression
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Simple idea Complex idea
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Impressions and Ideas
• 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.
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Impressions and Ideas
• Perceptions (i.e., contents of the mind) =impressions and ideas.
• Impressions and ideas resemble each other in
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.
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+
(Complex)
Impression of a Horse
(Complex)
Impression of a Horn
(Complex)
Idea of a Unicorn
+ =
=
Imaginary Objects
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• Ordinarily impressions and ideas doubled up.
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Ordinarily impressions and ideas
double up
impression idea
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Thesis
• Thesis: All simple ideas are derived from,
correspondent to, and “exactly represent”
simple impressions.
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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.
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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.
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Exception?
Missing Shade of Blue Example
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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?
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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).
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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).
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“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).
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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?
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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?
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Same Tree?
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• 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.
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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!
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