There Is a Self: Hume and Human Identity

In his attempt to prove that the self is an illusion, Hume has two essential premises: that the “self” must be something that remains constant over time and thus unifies the human experience, and that the human mind is a succession of feelings and perceptions that lacks a singular, eternal core. Therefore, he argues, there is no constant “self.” Instead, he believes that a person is “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” Living as a human is merely experiencing all of these perceptions in succession, with no core piece that is constant through all of it. Hume argues that we cannot be conscious of any unique self that is separate from our perceptions. When a person is not perceiving anything because they are asleep or dead or otherwise unconscious, there is no distinct self that remains. Whatever identity we do have comes simply from the causal connections between our perceptions that we are capable of noticing because of our memory.

While I essentially agree with the second premise of Hume’s argument, I cannot say the same of the first. It is true that there is no central component of the human consciousness that remains constant throughout unceasingly flux of different perceptions, but this is no reason to conclude that the self is fictitious. There are all sorts of things which exist in the world which have no truly eternal part, and yet we do not say that they are merely illusions because of this. The human body is constantly in flux, losing and gaining molecules so rapidly that almost all of its matter is wholly replaced every few years. Tornadoes have no essential block of air which remains constant within them throughout their existence. A state may gain and lose territory and see its entire population replaced over and over through the generations, but it can still exist despite all that flux. The self is no different. Yes, it is a series of ever-changing perceptions, but those perceptions are inherently linked to one another and separated from the perceptions that make up each other self. They thus make up a distinct unit which is perfectly reasonable to think of as a “self,” and has a real and particular effect on the world. This concept is not an illusion or a fiction, but a very real presence which simply happens to be made up of rapidly changing parts.

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