In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XIX, Number 2, November 1993, pp. 289-299 Hume on Personal Identity DAVID PEARS The question that I discuss in this paper has often been raised and it has been answered in many different ways. "Why did Hume retract his theory of personal identity?" He puts it forward in the main text of the Treatise with his usual panache, and then takes it back in the Appendix. (...) Why? Many different answers have been given to this question and what most of them have in common is the confidence with which they are given. Each interpreter sticks to his own interpretation in spite of the plausibility of its rivals, few of which are actually excluded by what Hume says. For this is an extreme case of the underdetermination of interpretation by evidence. I confess that in spite of all the recent work on this subject, I remain loyal to my own suggestion, which I first made in 1975.1 I will start with a sketch of my interpretation. Then I will quote Hume's recantation and develop an argument for my interpretation, based on that text and on others. After that, I will show how my suggestion is related to some of its rivals and I will say something about their comparative merits. Naturally, there is a considerable amount of overlap between the more plausible answers to the question, why Hume recanted. 1. My Interpretation In his Appendix, Hume confesses that his theory of personal identity seems to him to understate the strength of the connections between the David Pears is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University. 290 David Pears impressions and ideas that constitute a single person; or, as I would prefer to express his doubts, the impressions and ideas that constitute a single person's mind. He says that he would have been content if he could have attributed all those perceptions to a single substance; or alternatively, if he could have found some real connection between them. But all that he can find are connections based on the three natural relations: resemblance, contiguity, and causation. And those connections are, he implies, not enough. It is certain that he is thinking of a fundamental difficulty. For he evidently sees some reason for doing something which is simply not possible within his system, namely finding stronger connections between perceptions than those allowed by the doctrine of the main text of the Treatise. But what is his fundamental difficulty? The suggestion that I put forward was this: when an impression of sense occurs in my series of perceptions, it does not hold its place in the series by possessing any property, or by standing in any specific relation to any other perception in the series (except, of course, the relation of being co-experienced). Consequently, when I review the series, I do not find that the sensation is anchored by anything other than the fact of its contingent occurrence at the point where it occurred. Nevertheless, there is a strong modal statement that can be made about it: It, the very same sensation, could not conceivably have occurred in any other series. This modal statement is based on the special character of the identity-line of a particular perception: the identity-line of a particular perception starts at the point where it occurs in a particular series, and no sense can be attached to the speculation that it, the very same perception, might have occurred in some other series. However, in Hume's system, perceptions are treated like stars which form constellations, but only form them contingently, and it is obvious that the discovery of additional contingent relations between perceptions would never provide any support for the strong modal statement. Yet in Hume's system the only possible relations between perceptions are contingent relations. The other alternative, that the self is a substance, would, perhaps, do the trick, but for Hume it is unthinkable. It may seem fanciful to suggest that Hume's problem was the difficulty of accounting for the necessary ownership of perceptions within the framework of his system. But it is hard to see what other reason he could have had for requiring stronger relations... (shrink)

This paper argues that hume's discussion of personal identity in treatise i.Iv.6 is misinterpreted and overrated. Far from seeking a justification for ascribing identity to persons, Hume dismissed all such ascriptions as mistaken; his 'account' in i.Iv.6 is an attempt to explain how the supposed mistake arises. His own criteria of unity/identity, On the strength of which he excludes persons, Are themselves ill-Founded: they are criteria for individuating etc., 'things', The only ones hume, Who failed to grasp locke's point that (...) identity goes with classified items, Was able to find. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:36. A DISCUSSION ON PERSONAL IDENTITY Jane L. Mclntyre's original paper "Is Hume's Self Consistent?" was presented at the MoGiIl Hume Conference; it will be published in the forthcoming volume devoted to those preceedings. Tom Beauchamp" s paper is presented here as delivered. John Biro's paper has been revised since its original presentation. 37. SELF INCONSISTENCY OR MERE SELF PERPLEXITY? Professor Mclntyre's imaginative and constructive paper has three primary (...) parts (despite its division into six sections). First, she offers an interpretation of Hume's view of the self in Book I of the Treatise. Second, she explains why his own reservations in the Appendix create problems not only for this theory of self identity but for other parts of his philosophy as well. Finally, she tries to ease him out of these difficulties with her overlap interpretation of the bundle theory. My comments follow exactly this outline, though my conclusions, for the most part, do not coincide with hers. My reservations do not derive from her attempt to render Hume consistent. Rather, I question the foundations of the entire enterprise in which she, Robison, Nathanson, et. al. are engaged. That is, I remain unconvinced that the alleged problem, as presently framed, is more than a pseudo-problem. I. Hume's Theory in Book I In Book I Hume offers a variety of arguments about the nature of the self, most of which rely on other theories, such as those of causation, the association of ideas, and substance. Whatever the exact arguments and positions he may be advancing, at least the following six propositions are integral to his theory of personal identity: 1)The self is entirely reducible to a collection of perceptions. 2)The self is not characterized by strict identity. 3)There is nothing simple in which the collection of perceptions inheres. 4)Both identity and simplicity are attributed to the self because of relations between perceptions--the relations of causation and resemblance. 5)The relations of resemblance and causation unite these perceptions. 38. 6) There are no real (non-associational) connections or relations among these perceptions which unite them. Half of these six claims are critical denials of other philosophical claims; the other half are constructive philosophical theories. Hume's entire philosophical program in Book I is tied up with these claims. The criticisms are directed at numerous metaphysical theories of mind, substance and causation; and the constructive account of personai identity requires his theories of perception and association of ideas. I mention these obvious points only because it is so important to note that if_ the interpretation is correct which Professor Mclntyre and others give to (roughly) five sentences in the Appendix, where Hume mentions a possible inconsistency, then Hume is not only questioning his theory of personal identity in Book I, he is calling Book I itself into question. To be convinced that this strikingly implausible turnabout occurs in five sentences of the Appendix, we must be given a most compelling argument—one which I doubt is forthcoming. II. Hume's Alleged Inconsistency The alleged problem of inconsistency arises because Hume says in the Appendix that he does not know how to render his own former opinions consistent (T633, 636). However, when he comes to a formal statement of the inconsistency, as everyone is agreed, the propositions said to be inconsistent are not inconsistent. In the attempt to grasp Hume's meaning, a general consensus has emerged in recent Hume scholarship, including Professor Mclntyre in its company, that we ought both to move backward and forward a sentence or two in Hume's text. Hume says in those passages that his hopes for his theory are diminished because he is unable to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness (T636) ; and he then indicates that i_f perceptions could be shown to inhere in something simple or to be really connected, these prob- 39. lems would vanish. It is this textual setting which Robison, Nathanson, and Professor Mclntyre turn into the claim that "the concept of a self which is affected by experience, and therefore must persist through experience— is precisely the concept of the self that... (shrink)