Notes on Hume's Treatise

by G. J. Mattey

PART IV. OF THE SCEPTICAL AND OTHER SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

SECTION VI Of personal identity

Some philosophers think that we have "certainty, beyond the evidence of a demonstration," of the identity and simplicity of the SELF. Every perception indicates it.

But we have no such idea, since there is no such impression, and "self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are suppos'd to have a reference." The requisite impression would have to "continue invariably the same," but "there is no impression constant and invariable." The variable impressions, on the other hand, are not co-existent.

Since our particular perceptions are separable, etc., they have no need of a self as support. "After what manner, therefore, do they belong to self; and how are they connected with it?" Upon cessation of my perceptions, I cease to exist, and I will be annihilated after death. Anyone who asserts the existence of himself could be right, but he would have to "perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me."

Besides these metaphysicans, Hume remarks, everyone else is just "a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." Senses are changing all the time, and thought the more so: all powers of the soul never rest. "The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations." There is no simplicity at one time or identity at different times. We have no notion of place of the theatre or the materials making up the show.

To understand the propensity to believe in identity, we must distinguish personal identity regarding thought and imagination from that concerning passions and self-concern. The former is of concern to us here. We will make an analogy between the identity of plants and animals and that of persons, taking the matter "pretty deep."

We have ideas of identity and distinctness corresponding to, respectively, the invariable and uninterrupted, and the succession of related objects. The two are generally confounded, though they are different. The relation smoothes the transition, so that the two feel the same. "This resemblance is the cause of the confusion and mistake, and makes us substitute the notion of identity, instead of that of related objects." We cannot resist this bias, and in the end we "boldly assert that these different related objects are in effect the same, however interrupted and variable." To justify this, we feign a principle: the uninterrupted existence of perceptions, and soul, self, substance or something unknown or mysterious (cf. Shaftsbury). This holds for the identity of plants and vegetables as well. Even without these devices, we still feel a propensity to confound these ideas.

The dispute over identity is not merely verbal, as it involves these fictions. The relation of parts is really all that is needed to account for every day experience: "all objects, to which we ascribe identity, without observing their unvariableness and uninterruptedness, are such as consist of a succession of related objects."

A mass which suffers no augmentation or diminution is identical, and the slightest addition or subtraction makes it a different thing [cf. Locke]. But we still count it the same, "where we find so trivial an alteration." The passage is too smooth to move us to count a difference.

The dimensions of the overlooked change are proportional to the size of the whole: a mountain's removal does not affect identity judgments about planets, though change of an inch's worth can do so for smaller objects. This locates the attribution of difference to a difference in appearance, so "it must be the uninterrupted progress of the thought, which constitutes the imperfect identity."

Another confirmation is that an instantaneous change is accounted difference, while a very slow change is not. Once again, the explanation is an easy passage.

A common end is another inducement to judge things as being identical. The sameness of the end "affords an easy transition of the imagination from one situation of the body to another." A ship example is used: we do ascribe identity to it.

Adding sympathy of parts to common end, a "reciprocal relation of cause and effect in all their actions and operations," is the next step, "still more remarkable" in its ability to induce judgments of identity. This allows attribution of identity through total change of parts, as with animals and plants.

Another remarkable phænomenon is the confusion of numerical identity and the identity of kinds ("specific," of species). A repeated noise may be said to be the same. A church of brick, ruined then entirely re-built of free-stone is said to be the same just because of the relation to the parishioners.

Still another remarkable phænomenon: We are more tolerant of greater change when this is "natural and expected," as with a river, "tho' in less than four and twenty hours these [parts] be totally alter'd; this hinders not the river from continuing the same during several ages."

Now to personal identity. The reasoning that explained the identity of plants, etc. is brought to bear on the self; but it is fictitious.

Perceptions are different, distinguishable, separable: these characteristics are "essential to them." When we unite them by identity, we must ask whether it is "something that really binds our several perceptions together, or only associates their ideas in the imagination." Do we observe a real bond or merely feel one? The understanding never observes a relation of real connection . Identity is in the same category as cause and effect , a "customary association of ideas." Identity depends on resemblance, contiguity, causation. Without these there is no reason to think any of them related at all.

Contiguity "has little or no influence in the present case."

What about resemblance? Memory contributes to the production of identity by "producing the relation of resemblance among our perception."

Causation. There are productions, destructions, influences, and modifications of ideas by ideas. "One thought chaces another, and draws after it a third, by which it is expell'd in its turn. In this respect, I cannot compare the soul more properly to any thing than to a republic or commonwealth, in which several members are united by the reciprocal ties of government and subordination, and give rise to other persons, who propagate the same republic in the incessant changes of its parts." Laws, constitutions, are like character and disposition. This finally brings in the passions: our concern for the future is based on this unity.

Only on the possession of memory do we have a notion of personal identity. Once we have the notion of causation, we can extend it beyond memory (which really does not go very far). Thus memory discovers personal identity.

All disputes concerning identity are strictly verbal "except so far as the relation of parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary principle of union."

The reasoning may be extended to simplicity. From similarity of operation on the understanding, we take tightly bound complex objects to be simple.

This concludes the discussion of the human understanding. It is almost time to turn to "the accurate anatomy of human nature."

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