Hume's Argument Against Personal Identity and Other Theories of Personhood

Hume's Argument Against Personal Identity

Below is Hume’s Argument Against Personal Identity...

1) If we had an impression of an enduring self, then we would have that impression without interruption through our whole lives.

2) We don’t have a single impression throughout our whole lives.

3) Therefore, we have no impression of a self. (Intermediate conclusion)

4) If we have no impression of something, then we have no idea of it.

5) Therefore, we have no idea of a self that persists through our whole life.

Conclusion

Provide a rationale for premise 1, 2, and 4. Provide an objection to premise 2 based one one of the other theories of person hood you studied.

Descartes First Philosophy

Is this a bulletproof form of evidence for Mind/Body Dualism?

If the mind is a non-physical entity, then it cannot be perceived, by definition. So how do we know anything about it?

Given that the soul of a human being is only a thinking substance, how can it affect the bodily spirits, in order to bring about voluntary actions? ·The question arises· because it seems that how a thing moves depends solely on (i) how much it is pushed, (ii) the manner in which it is pushed, or (iii) the surface-texture and shape of the thing that pushes it.

John Locke- An essay concerning Human understanding

“The idea of identity should be suited to the idea it is applied to. It is not therefore unity of substance that comprehends all sorts of identity, or will determine it in every case; but to conceive and judge of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to stands for: it being one thing to be the same substance, another the same man, and a third the same person, if person, man, and substance, are three names standing for three different ideas;- for such as is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity; which, if it had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have prevented a great deal of that confusion which often occurs about this matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially concerning personal identity, which therefore we shall in the next place a little consider.”

Q: How is a dog different from a pile of dog parts?

Q:Do you lose your Dog when you give it a haircut?

Q: How is a dog different from a pile of dog parts?’ A: A Dog is a living thing.

Locke’s Conception of Personal Identity

a. Identity is found at the level of life, NOT at the level of parts.

b. We can change all the parts, but as long as it is the same life, it is the same person.

“This being premised to find where in personal Identity consists, we must consider what Person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, 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.”