Hume believes that the self is an illusion or a fiction. What is his argument? Do you find it convincing? Why or why not?

Hume is arguing that our life is made up of our different perceptions of reality and because everyone perceives things in their own individual way nothing is really reality it is all just a “movie” to us. Hume says “The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance.” It is the way we see things or our perception of our reality that causes us to make the decisions that we do.

Hume believes that our identity of self is based on our memory. He breaks it down into two principles of association. The first Hume says “Concerning resemblance, the memory not only discovers the identity, but also contributes to its production by producing the relation of resemblance among the perceptions.” By this he means that the thoughts we have in the present are based off of or resemble the memories we have from the past. The second Hume says “concerning causation the memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions.” By this he means when we let our past control who we are, it changes our future. We become what we believe we have done.

I found Hume’s argument very convincing. He gave me a different take on how we form our self identity. I know we all battle with not letting the past create who we become for our future. Sometimes I find myself stuck on thinking about the past and the things I could have done different. It puts me in a depression and makes it hard to stay motivated sometimes. This can stop me from accomplishing my goals because I start to feel bad about myself and start to think I can’t do things. Hume’s thoughts about how our reality is fake because everyone sees things in their own way, really gave me a new perspective. It makes sense because my life and the choices I have made are way different than that of others because they did not see the things I saw in the way that I saw them. I really enjoyed the way he explained this. I was also fascinated by his idea that if when we are sleeping, we are not perceiving, so how can we tell we really exist? This is not something that I ever thought of before but I suppose that’s because I am not a philosopher. This is a very deep question.

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