Introduction
Philosophers of all times have been concerned with the issue of human identity, approaching it from many angles. One of such scholars was David Hume, who included a chapter “On Personal Identity” into his extensive work on human nature. Interestingly, Hume has set himself apart from other philosophical traditions approaching the human identity as a self-contained illusion. The present paper focuses on some aspects of Hume’s argument for the non-existence of human identity as a separate tangible and comprehensible concept.
Hume’s argument on human identity
At the beginning of his discussion of human identity, Hume pointed out his inability to distinguish his identity from his subjective thinking. In his opinion, people who perceive identity as something universal and separable from the human object are “metaphysicians” (Hume 252). The thinker explained their approach as talking about an existence of a different notion of oneself. However, in Hume’s perception, identity existed only until the person existed, was aware of their identity, and could perceive it. Thus, from his perspective, identity was integral to every person’s perception of self, without any universal features shared by all human beings.
Another subject Hume touched upon in his work is the union of cause and effect in the continuous process of change and evolution. The thinker believed that all creatures and objects undergo a gradual change for a predetermined purpose, with certain parts destroyed and substituted in the process, but without losing their identity overall. However, Hume regarded a gradual change as a cover-up for the mass of separate parts because people cannot overcome the illusion of sameness. Once one part of the whole changes or substitutes another one, people might consider it the same, though, in reality, it has changed irreversibly. The only reason humans cannot understand this illusion is the absence of exposure to both old and new at the same time. The same process occurred with the human identity; while people believing in its sameness perceived it as changeable and evolving, Hume considered that change a compilation of different parts.
In one of his passages, Hume even compares a human identity to a republic or commonwealth, explaining how various thoughts, ideals, experiences, and impressions affect and modify each other. Hume’s identity concept is a collection of fragmented, mutually dependent aspects of personality, similar to the members of a republican community tied with reciprocal links of duties and rights with the government (Hume 261). Therefore, like a republic, human identity is changeable and democratic, dependent on many causes and effects and altering its profile in response to various experiences. Notably, these changes occur as a result of complex interactions of its constituent parts without the loss of identity.
Finally, Hume connected the human perception of identity with the natural ability of individuals to hold memories. For him, people without memory would be unable to comprehend the chain of causation that has brought them to their current state, values, ideals, and perceptions constituting their identity (Hume 262). The thinker believed that memory does not play a role in forming human identity. Still, it helps people discover their identity by comprehending the causes and effects of their personal evolution.
Conclusion
Therefore, for Hume, the nature of human identity lies exclusively within the grammatical plain, that is, in language than in philosophy. Hume revealed an extraordinary approach to identity for his historical epoch, assigning it a role of relating ideas instead of its separate existence as an objective concept. Though his ideas on human identity did not acquire much popularity in the philosophy of human nature, Hume’s suggestion is still thought-provoking because of offering an entirely different perspective.
Work Cited
Hume, David. “Of Personal Identity.” A Treatise of Human Nature. Clarendon Press, 1988.