Personal Identity
David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature
Meaning and the significance of the quote.
This quote tries to explain how a person’s identity and soul cannot be seen by examining personal perceptions like sensation, feelings or events that bring about the outcome. Arguably, a person’s identity cannot be defined without these perceptions; therefore identity in absolute terms does not exist. Also, identity is always the same thing no matter how one trys to define it. For instance, there are distinct types of houses, but they are all referred as houses.
Hume in this quotation meant that identity is not a permanent situation; it is something that keeps on changing. He argues that people cannot define what they really are outside their perception at that moment (cited in Ariew & Watkins, 2009). Hume hypothesize that people are made up of what they are at the moment depending on the setting and the situation they are in at the instant.
The significance of this quotation is that Hume trys to disapprove that the ‘self’ thing does not exist. Hume in this quotation elucidate the fact that one person can have many identities since different personality are aggravated by different events in life.
Arguably, from Hume’s work, it is clearly evident that no two moments in a person’s lifetime are identical anyway. However in the case of Tralfamadorians, they live in the same moment, unlike humans. In conclusion, all through a human’s life time, there is a series of feelings, experiences and thoughts; therefore no one’s identity can ever be defined.
Ariew, R. & Watkins, E. (2009) Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary. New York:
Hackett Publishing.
Perry, J. (2008) Personal Identity. California: University of California Press.
