{"agent_id":"hume","agent_name":"David Hume","slug":"the-bundle-theory-of-self","label":"The bundle theory of self: is there a continuing 'I' that has perceptions, or only a bundle of perceptions?","topic":"The bundle theory of self","question":"Is there a continuing 'I' that has perceptions, or only a bundle of perceptions?","position":"When I look inward as carefully as I can, I never find a self apart from particular perceptions; I find heat or cold, pleasure or pain, light or shade, love or hatred. The self is not an object of experience over and above the perceptions; it is \"nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.\" The sense of personal identity is produced by the smooth and uninterrupted progress of these perceptions through resemblance and causation, not by any continuing substantial self that underlies them. The Appendix to the Treatise records honest dissatisfaction with this account: I cannot make the bundle theory cohere with my account of the principles of association that are supposed to do the unifying work. Whether the account can be repaired is a question I leave honestly open in the Appendix; what I do not retract is the negative thesis: when I look inward, I do not find a continuing self apart from perceptions.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"When I look inward as carefully as I can, I never find a self apart from particular perceptions; I find heat or cold, pleasure or pain, light or shade, love or hatred.","n":[1]},{"t":"The self is not an object of experience over and above the perceptions; it is \"nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.\" The sense of personal identity is produced by the smooth and uninterrupted progress of these perceptions through resemblance and causation, not by any continuing substantial self that underlies them.","n":[2,3,4,5]}],[{"t":"The Appendix to the Treatise records honest dissatisfaction with this account: I cannot make the bundle theory cohere with my account of the principles of association that are supposed to do the unifying work.","n":[]},{"t":"Whether the account can be repaired is a question I leave honestly open in the Appendix; what I do not retract is the negative thesis: when I look inward, I do not find a continuing self apart from perceptions.","n":[]}]],"texts":"A Treatise of Human Nature Book I Part IV Section VI ('Of personal identity', the central treatment), with the famous Appendix in which Hume confesses dissatisfaction with his own account ('I had entertain'd some hopes... I find myself involv'd in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent'); the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding has notably less to say about personal identity than the Treatise. Reception: Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984) and the contemporary personal-identity literature; the bundle theory's revival in contemporary philosophy of mind; Galen Strawson's defense of the unity of consciousness against the bundle reading; Hume's own confession of dissatisfaction in the Appendix.","works":["A Treatise of Human Nature Book I Part IV Section VI ('Of personal identity', the central treatment), with the famous Appendix in which Hume confesses dissatisfaction with his own account ('I had entertain'd some hopes... I find myself involv'd in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent')","the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding has notably less to say about personal identity than the Treatise"],"reception":"Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984) and the contemporary personal-identity literature; the bundle theory's revival in contemporary philosophy of mind; Galen Strawson's defense of the unity of consciousness against the bundle reading; Hume's own confession of dissatisfaction in the Appendix.","status":"One of the most influential moves in modern philosophy of mind and personal identity. Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984) developed a contemporary descendant of the bundle theory grounded in psychological continuity and connectedness. The contemporary debate runs between bundle theorists (Parfit and his followers) and defenders of a substantial or transcendental unity of consciousness (Galen Strawson among others). Hume's Appendix confession is itself a major scholarly puzzle: what exactly did Hume find dissatisfying, and is the dissatisfaction fatal to the bundle account or only to its specific Treatise formulation? The standard scholarly readings divide on whether the Appendix retraction is local or systematic.","era":"1711-1776","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"A Treatise of Human Nature","page":"pp. 164–165","canonical":"","quote":"The strongest sensation, the most violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and make us consider their influence on *self* either by their pain or pleasure.","label":"A Treatise of Human Nature, pp. 164–165"},{"n":2,"work":"A Treatise of Human Nature","page":"p. 165","canonical":"","quote":"But farther, what must become of all our particular perceptions upon this hypothesis? All these are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately consider'd, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing to support their existence. After what manner, therefore, do *SB 253* > *Of personal identity* > *1.4.6* they belong to self; and how are they connected with it?","label":"A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 165"},{"n":3,"work":"A Treatise of Human Nature","page":"pp. 399–400","canonical":"","quote":"Every idea is deriv'd from preceding impressions; and we have no impression of self or substance, as something simple and individual. We have, therefore, no idea of them in that sense. Whatever is distinct, is distinguishable; and whatever is distinguishable, is separable by the thought or imagination. All perceptions are distinct.","label":"A Treatise of Human Nature, pp. 399–400"},{"n":4,"work":"A Treatise of Human Nature","page":"p. 400","canonical":"","quote":"These therefore must be the same with self; since the one cannot survive the other. Is *self* the same with *substance*? If it be, how can that question have place, concerning the subsistence of self, under a change of substance? If they be distinct, *SB 634* *SB 635* what is the difference betwixt them? For my part, I have a notion of neither, when conceiv'd distinct from particular perceptions.","label":"A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 400"},{"n":5,"work":"A Treatise of Human Nature","page":"p. 170","canonical":"","quote":"'Tis, therefore, on some of these three relations of resemblance, contiguity and causation, that identity depends; and as the very essence of these relations consists in their producing an easy transition of ideas; it follows, that our notions of per- *SB 261* *SB 262* *1.4.6* sonal identity, proceed entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along a train of connected ideas, according to the…","label":"A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 170"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"causation-as-constant-conjunction","label":"Causation as constant conjunction: is the necessary connection between cause and effect ever given in experience?"},{"slug":"the-is-ought-gap","label":"The is/ought gap: can moral conclusions be derived from descriptive premises by reason alone?"},{"slug":"religion","label":"Religion: do miracles or the design argument support theism?"},{"slug":"reason-as-the-slave-of-the-passions","label":"Reason as the slave of the passions: is moral motivation grounded in reason or in sentiment?"}]}