Hume's Quandary Concerning Personal Identity

Hume's Quandary Concerning Personal Identity Wayne Waxman In Treatise 1, Hume was serenely confident that all problems touching on perceptionsand theirrelations admitofacomplete and satisfactory resolution: Having found such contradictions and difficulties in every system concerning external objects, and in the idea ofmatter, which we fancy so clear and determinate, we shall naturally expect still greater difficulties and contradictions in every hypothesis concerning our internal perceptions, and the nature ofthe mind, which we are apt to imagine so much more obscure, and uncertain. But in this we shou'd deceive ourselves. The intellectual world, tho' invoVd in infinite obscurities, is not perplex'd with any such contradictions, as those we have discover'd in the natural. What is known concerning it, agrees with itself; and what is unknown, we must be contented to leave so.1 However, in an appendix published together with Treatise 3 (which appeared nearly two years after the first two books were published), Hume avowed that this confidence had been misplaced: I had entertain'd some hopes, that however deficient our theory ofthe intellectual world might be, it wou'dbe free from those contradictions, and absurdities, which seem to attend every explication, that human reason can give ofthe material world. But upon a more strict review ofthe section concerning personal identity, I find myself invoVd in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent. (T 633) Why this change of mind? Hume had not ceased to think that perceptions are distinct existences, in need of no substrate to support their existence. Nor had he come to believe that there is some impression from which the idea of the self (person, mind) might be copied: still finding in what he calls AimseZ/"nothing besides particular perceptions (colours, sounds, pains, emotions, et al.), his view remained Volume XVIII Number 2 233 WAYNE WAXMAN that, " Tis the composition of these, therefore, which forms the self" (T 634). Thus, just as in Treatise 1.4.6, he saw no alternative to the conclusion that "We only feel a connexion or a determination of the thought, to pass from one object to another. It follows, therefore, that the thought alone finds personal identity, when reflecting on the train ofpast perceptions, that compose a mind, the ideas of them are felt to be connected together, and naturally introduce each other. ... [P]ersonal identity arises from consciousness; and consciousness is nothing but a reflected thought or perception" (T 635). Since Hume saw no flaw in his earlier account ofpersonal identity nor any tenable alternative to it, whatreason can he have had to retract it? He described his quandary as follows: having thus loosen'd all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connexion, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective, and that nothing but the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings cou'd have induc'd me to receive it. ... [A]Il my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head. In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. thatallourdistinctperceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. Formy part, I must pleadthe privilege ofa sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding. I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutelyinsuperable. Others, perhaps, ormyself, upon more mature reflection, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions. (T 635-36) Hume's account ofhis difficulty has been the occasion ofmuch dispute among commentators. One point on which all seem to agree, however, is that Hume's two principles are not inconsistent with one another,2 but with some third principle...