The specific idea of self that Hume rejects is the commonly held notion that we have some sort of overarching identity that persists unchanged throughout our entire lives. Why does Hume think that we have no genuine idea of a self? To answer this question, we must first elaborate on Hume’s understanding of mental processes. Hume describes two types of perceptions of the mind: impressions, and thoughts/ideas. We can understand impressions as the “more lively perceptions”; the immediate presentations to the mind, such as external stimuli, or strong feelings and passions (Hume, Inquiry, 497). Basically, they are anything that the mind immediately perceives from some source. Thoughts or ideas, on the other hand, are the “less forcible and lively” perceptions; they constitute a sort of copy of the original impressions (Hume, Inquiry, 497). In other words, they are a secondary representation of some actually existing and actually experienced impression that are recalled after the initial impression. These two fundamental types, according to Hume, describe all of the activity of the mind. So what do these terms imply for Hume’s understanding of identity?
Other philosophers claim to have a genuine idea of a self, as an actually existing and permanent identity. For this genuine idea to exist then, according to Hume, there “must be some one impression that gives rise to every real idea” (Hume, Treatise, 566). If these philosophers are to maintain that we do in fact have an idea of an actual self, they must be able to locate or identify the impression that grounds that idea. Hume describes the sort of impression that those philosophers would have to identify when he says, “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 in that manner” (Hume, Treatise, 567). Having described what we must like for, Hume is able to wonder, can we find such a persistent and unchanging impression?
Hume immediately concludes that we in fact do not have any impression of an actual self. He explains the impossibility of such an impression when he observes that, “there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other and never all exist at the same time” (Hume, Treatise, 567). Hume finds nothing but constant change in the perceptual flow of his mind; from one moment to the next, his mind experiences a totally unique set of impressions, beyond which he is never able to abstract and identify some omnipresent and identical person. Hume describes the futility of these attempts by explaining, “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, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception” (Hume, Treatise, 567). Ultimately, since we can identify no impression corresponding to a persistent and invariable self, we can have no such genuine idea of an actually existing self. All we are, Hume concludes, is a mere “bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux or movement” (Hume, Treatise, 567).
Although he rejects the possibility of a genuine idea of a self, Hume admits that we do still seem to have such an idea – we do refer to ourselves and to each other as the same people over time. Hume next begins to wonder what exactly we are doing when we attribute personal identity to ourselves: “What, then, gives us so great a propensity to ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions and to suppose ourselves possessed of an invariable and uninterrupted existence through the whole course of our lives?” (Hume, Treatise, 567). Basically, as Hume sees it, “the identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one”; that is, our imagination simply makes a mistake in the ascription (Hume Treatise, 570). To help explain this leap of the imagination, he distinguishes between two properties: actual sameness, and a closely related succession (Hume, Treatise, 567). Clearly these terms are “perfectly distinct [and] even contrary” to each other, but Hume observes that “it is certain that, in our common way of thinking, they are generally confounded with each other” (Hume, Treatise, 567). Put simply, the very close resemblance of an unchanging object with a slightly changing object causes us to “substitute the notion identity instead of that of [merely] related objects” (Hume, Treatise, 568).
To help elucidate this common confusion, Hume offers a couple of useful examples. His oak example is a particularly clear image revealing the mistakes of our common thinking: “An oak that grows from a small plant to a large tree is still the same oak [in our common thought], though there is not one particle of matter or figure of its parts the same” (Hume, Treatise, 569). Similarly, he gives the example of human beings: “An infant becomes a man and is sometimes fat, sometimes lean, without any change in [our ascription of] his identity” (Hume, Treatise, 569). Such identity attributions do not unsettle our sensibilities, nor does Hume mean to disparage them; instead, he wishes only to make sure that we realize that when we make such ascriptions we are, strictly speaking, making an inaccurate assessment of actual identity.
Alternatively, John Locke maintains that we do have an actual self, and have a genuine idea of this identity. Locke approaches the issue of personal identity quite differently than Hume. Whereas Hume focuses strictly upon the empirical evidence we can find in the specific perceptions of our mind, Locke begins by abstracting and considering personhood in general: “we must consider what person stands for; this, I think is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places, which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it” (Locke, Human Understanding, 322). Thus, Locke surmises that the self “consists, namely, in nothing but a participation of the same continued life” (Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 322). From any moment to the next, we are able to track our self through the successive states of our consciousness, and see those states as part of a united, enduring, and developing life. Locke elaborates upon this enduring consciousness as identity when he says, “As far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then, and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it that that action was done” (Locke, Human Understanding, 323).
Ultimately, Locke’s primary criticism of Hume would be that he speaks so strictly and looks so narrowly at the physical operations of the mind, that he loses sight of a more general and fundamental notion of identity. In other words, Hume limits identity only to the unique present perceptions of the mind, as if they come and go entirely distinctly from one another; Locke instead emphasizes the fact that the aggregate of these perceptions can be grouped together as sequential parts in the development of an overarching life, and that “consciousness [alone] can unite remote existences into the same person… without consciousness there is no person” (Locke, Human Understanding, 327). Locke wishes to emphasize that there is more to a self than what we physically are; equally or even more essential to the definition of a self is what we do. Hume says that we are merely a bundle of perceptions; Locke affirms that we are a bundle of perceptions united by an always-present, persistent, and unchanging consciousness.[1]
Hume would accuse Locke’s account of the self as being guilty of mere common thinking; he commits the same mistakes of the imagination that we make in our everyday reference to the self. Locke thinks that our identity is continuously present throughout our succession of mental perceptions; but really such an attribution of identity, according to Hume, only results from mistaking the very close resemblance (contiguity, and casual relations) of these former mental perceptions with actual sameness. Furthermore, on Hume’s view, the very memory of previous consciousnesses that supposedly unites the present self with former selves, only really represents a person’s current immediate perception of the mind. We cannot truly recall any former mental perception to the point of re-living and perfectly identifying with that former consciousness. Instead, the memory itself is only the totally unique current mental perception, with no real unity to any previous consciousness.
Ultimately, Hume would indict Locke for not fully understanding the operations of the mind. Our mind cannot have a genuine idea of something actually existing, unless that thing both exists actually, and transmits an impression to our mental perceptions. Thus, Locke misidentifies his necessary task. He sets out simply to describe more thoroughly the everyday notion of self; when in fact, his task ought to be that of locating the continuous and unchanging impression, which our supposed actual self transmits to us. Hume actually undertakes this investigation on Locke’s behalf! He rigorously searches his mental perceptions, but ultimately finds nothing resembling the required type of impression (the only constant he can find is the constant change of our mental perceptions). Thus Locke’s view on identity can provide no sufficient immediate response to Hume’s understanding of our mental processes and the consequential denial of personal identity or self.
11/11/09
[1] Interestingly, Locke uses the very same plant and animal examples do describe what his version of identity consists of: and oak is “one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life is communicated to new particles of matter” (Locke, Human Understanding, 321).
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