Abstract

The following article examines the comparison between the human mind and a Commonwealth proposed by Hume in section 1.4.6 of the Treatise of Human Nature. As the members of a given social society do not link their respective interests by causality relations, such a comparison is not to be understood as an illustration of causality relations between perceptions. We would like to prove that such comparison asserts that our belief in personal identity is stemming from the invention of an artificial reality; showing that only the invention of a rule of stability of possession can legitimate the possession of all objects – may they be goods or perceptions – and sets a criterion enabling to differentiate my perceptions from those of my fellows.