Ep. 28 - Arif Ahmed on David Hume’s Disturbing Conception of the Self
The Ralston College Podcast
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The Self Is Nothing but a Heap of Perceptions
Sir hume's positive thesis on this point is that the self is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations. And then he goes on in the appendix to the treatise, which he writes some years later, he says, it is our several particular perceptions that compose the mind. I say compose the mind, not belong to it. That distinction between composition and belonging is crucial. There is no one thing that starts to exist when you started to exist and goes out of existence when you die. All there is is a collection of inner states. The self represents many other things, which are in a way, kinds of fiction or entities.
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