HUME’S SECOND THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL IDENTITY Cover Image

HUME’S SECOND THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL IDENTITY
HUME’S SECOND THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL IDENTITY

Author(s): Sunny Yang
Subject(s): Metaphysics, Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Published by: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla
Keywords: Personal Identity; Hume’s second thoughts; connecting principles; Hume’s inconsistency; homunculi model;

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I present an interpretation on how Hume can escape from his intellectual ordeal concerning personal identity in the Appendix of the Treatise. First of all, I present the source of Hume’s despair to offer an interpretation on what would have truly bothered Hume in the Appendix, and I identify several lines of interpretation. Recently Jonathan Ellis has distinguished various ways of understanding Hume’s predicament. Of the four groups of explanations that Ellis distinguishes, in this paper I elaborate on the three that Ellis does not sufficiently explicate, addressing some key issues that Ellis missed. Last, I offer an alternative reading of Hume’s difficulty, based on Dennett’s ideas on the matter, and make a suggestion about what Hume ought to have said about these problems.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 94
  • Page Range: 182-193
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English
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