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Once More into the Labyrinth: Kail's Realist Explanation of Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal Identity

Once More into the Labyrinth: Kail's Realist Explanation of Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal... , pp. 77­87 P. J. E. Kail's Projection and Realism in Hume's Philosophy is an excellent book, consisting--like Hume's Treatise itself--of three excellent parts. I will comment on one central aspect of its second part: its explanation of the source of the second thoughts that Hume famously expressed, with a frustrating lack of specificity, about his own initial discussion of personal identity in the Treatise. As is well known, Hume holds in the section "Of personal identity" (T 1.4.6) that a self, mind, or person is "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions" (T 1.4.6.4; SBN 252) and, more specifically, a "system of different perceptions or different existences link'd together by the relation of cause and effect" (T 1.4.6.19; SBN 261).1 This bundle has neither perfect simplicity (partlessness) at one time nor perfect identity (invariableness and uninterruptedness) through time; nonetheless, he argues, the imagination ascribes both features to it as the result of the associative influence of the relations of causation and resemblance holding among the perceptions themselves. He devotes several pages of the work's Appendix, published more than a year later in the subsequent volume, to reporting a "difficulty too hard for my understanding" (T http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Hume Studies Hume Society

Once More into the Labyrinth: Kail's Realist Explanation of Hume's Second Thoughts about Personal Identity

Garrett, Don.
Hume Studies , Volume 36 (1) – Jun 5, 2010
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Hume Society
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Copyright © Hume Society
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1947-9921
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Abstract

, pp. 77­87 P. J. E. Kail's Projection and Realism in Hume's Philosophy is an excellent book, consisting--like Hume's Treatise itself--of three excellent parts. I will comment on one central aspect of its second part: its explanation of the source of the second thoughts that Hume famously expressed, with a frustrating lack of specificity, about his own initial discussion of personal identity in the Treatise. As is well known, Hume holds in the section "Of personal identity" (T 1.4.6) that a self, mind, or person is "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions" (T 1.4.6.4; SBN 252) and, more specifically, a "system of different perceptions or different existences link'd together by the relation of cause and effect" (T 1.4.6.19; SBN 261).1 This bundle has neither perfect simplicity (partlessness) at one time nor perfect identity (invariableness and uninterruptedness) through time; nonetheless, he argues, the imagination ascribes both features to it as the result of the associative influence of the relations of causation and resemblance holding among the perceptions themselves. He devotes several pages of the work's Appendix, published more than a year later in the subsequent volume, to reporting a "difficulty too hard for my understanding" (T

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Hume Studies – Hume Society

Published: Jun 5, 2010

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