David Hume Personal Identity

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Assuming one is the same person as the individual who existed three days ago or who was born many years prior, what exactly makes this true? Locke addresses personal identity by carefully discerning the characteristic similarity of the individual from the characteristics of the body, of man, or of a human being. The likeness or sameness of the body includes the identity of the its components, and the likeness of a human individual relies on the continuity of life. However, the sameness of an individual demands otherwise; Locke proposed that personal identity is expressed by the continuity of consciousness. An individual is the same person as the individual who existed three days ago or birthed many years prior, if one has a collection of memories of the younger individual’s experiences. Thomas The general consensus is that we think of ourselves as just ourselves--stable individuals that exist throughout time. Yet, no matter how firmly we observe our experiences, we never examine anything past a collection of ephemeral emotions, impressions, and sensations. We cannot examine our own selves, or what we are, in a collective way. There is no influence of the ‘self’ that summarizes and collects our particular experiences and impressions together. Meaning, we can never be precisely aware of our own selves, only the experiences we have at any moment. Albeit the relationship between our emotions, ideas, feelings, etc. may be related by memories through time, there is no definitive proof that they are even connected. As a response, Hume suggests the Bundle Theory--the self as a bundle of perceptions. He argues that our belief of the ‘self’ is a result of our natural inclination of applying a collective explanation to any bundle of related things. Though this belief is human nature, Hume argues that there is no rational support for

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