Further Remarks on the Consistency of Hume's Account of the Self

55. FURTHER REMARKS ON THE CONSISTENCY OF HUME'S ACCOUNT OF THE SELF Philosophers no longer discuss Hume's account of the self solely in order to attack it. In separate comments prompted by my paper "Is Hume's Self Consistent?" Biro and Beauchamp join the camp of the defenders of Hume's view. As another member of this group, I share their desire to give a sympathetic interpretation of Hume's discussion of the self and personal identity. This general agreement notwithstanding, there are some substantial points concerning the nature of Hume's problems with his account of the self and his method of resolving them about which we do not agree. These disagreements will be the focal point of this paper. I wish to emphasize, however, that they occur within a broader framework of agreement that Hume's account of the self does not suffer from the defects that are so frequently attributed to it. Discussions of personal identity frequently focus on the role played by memory in personal identity. The view that personal identity is based on memory (that is, that memory creates the connections between various sets of experiences that make them the experiences of one person) has been the subject of much criticism. Happily, it is no longer naively assumed that accounts of personal identity based on memory must be circular, but the problems of developing an adequate account of personal identity based en memory are not minor ones. It is for this reason that I am uneasy about Biro's attempt to solve Hume's problems about personal identity by an appeal to the function of memory in personal identity. Biro contends that my reconstruction of the bundle theory of persons, which involves a partial overlap of non-identical bundles, is unnecessary. He argues that the intentionality of memory is sufficient to explain the connections that give a person the imperfect identity that it possesses through time. But I believe that Biro is 56. mistaken, and that considerations of a basic sort about the relationship between memory and personal identity suggest that a non-circular Humean account of personal identity based on memory would not be possible apart from my reconstruction of the bundle theory, or something like it. I will begin by presenting this argument, after which I will clarify some points about my own view. However, I must immediately point out, as Biro does not, that Biro is not in disagreement with me when he argues for the view that Hume's theory of the self can be made consistent without going beyond the view that the self is a bundle of perceptions . We agree that Hume's apparent references to a "non-Newtonian" type of association are not basic, and can be eliminated. We disagree on the question of how this can be done . Biro states, It is memory, or, to be more specific, the presence of memory perceptions among the series of collections of perceptions, that, on Hume's view, i£ the mind or self, which makes it possible for such a series to be a self, a single entity which can be individuated and of which I can be aware. and, The intentionality of memories (as well as that of anticipations) is, I have argued, just the bond required for cementing perceptions without the aid of an additional agency such as a mind whose perceptions, on the alternative model, they would be said to be. On Biro's account, therefore, memory, in virtue of its intentionality, creates a self out of distinct perceptions. Memories point to, (or represent, or refer to) impressions of past events, creating a bond between the bundle in which the memory occurs and the bundle in which the original impression occurred. No further link is necessary, and my "overlap theory" (as Biro calls it) is at best redundant. What problems would arise for Hume, if this were his view? Accounts of personal identity based on memory face 57. the following difficulty. If we restrict the term 'memory' to a person's representations of his past experiences, then memory presupposes personal identity and an account of personal identity based on memory would be circular. It might...