David Hume (1711-1776) lived about a century after Hobbes and Descartes, and his concerns and point of view are somewhat different from both of theirs. Indeed, in the selections from Treatise 1.4.5 (i.e., book 1, part 4, section 5), you will find him criticizing positions analogous to the ones they held. Hume’s own view treats minds and physical objects (including bodies) in quite analogous ways, but is not exactly materialism. Some later views similar to Hume’s were labeled “neutral monism” to suggest that, while they didn’t recognize two fundamentally different sorts of things and were thus “monist” (for ‘one’) rather than “dualist” (for ‘two’), their one sort of thing couldn’t be identified clearly either as mind or as body.

Selections for Mon.

Hume begins (in the selections from 1.4.2 on pp. 1-2 of the handout) to consider the problem posed by the “scepticism with regard to the senses.” This is the problem of what allows us to believe in something beyond the content of our sense impressions, whether this “something” be an object causing these sense impression or a mind or soul which has them.

Hume’s approach to a solution (which he also sketches at the beginning of the handout) is typical of his approach to other philosophical problems (such as the nature of the necessity of laws of nature): he asks what leads us to believe in things beyond our sense impressions. The selections in the rest of the handout present this solution in more detail.

In paragraphs 1.4.5.6-10 (on pp. 2-4 of the handout) he considers arguments against materialism much like Socrates’ argument that the soul is not composite, but in 1.4.5.15-16 (on p. 4) Hume tries to turn the same argument against the idea that the soul is simple rather than composite. Think whether he succeeds in using the argument this way and how might someone like Socrates might try to respond to him.

The details of Hume’s solution appear of the problem of what allows us to believe in the existence of a self beyond our particular thoughts or feelings appears in his account of “personal identity” in Treatise 1.4.6. The first few paragraphs (1.4.6.1-5 on pp. 4-6 of handout) fill out the idea he mentions at the beginning of the handout of a “heap or collection of different perceptions” (1.4.2.39).

Selections for Wed.

The selections for Wed. take the idea that the perceptions in this heap are, in the words of 1.4.2.39, “united together by certain relations” and use it to provide an account of personal identity, of what makes you yesterday the same person as you today. Hume begins with the general problem of identity and focuses on ordinary objects (e.g., ships, plants, and animals) in 1.4.6.6-14 (handout, pp. 6-10); he then turns to personal identity itself in 1.4.6.15-22 (handout, pp. 10-12).

The selections at the end of the handout are from an appendix that Hume added later in which he noted second thoughts about what he had written on a number of different issues; in the case of personal identity, much of his discussion summarizes what he had said, and his doubts appear only in the last paragraph on the handout.