Mind, bundle theory of

Author(s):  
Stewart Candlish

This theory owes its name to Hume, who described the self or person (which he assumed to be the mind) as ’nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement’ (A Treatise of Human Nature I, IV, §VI). The theory begins by denying Descartes’s Second Meditation view that experiences belong to an immaterial soul; its distinguishing feature is its attempt to account for the unity of a single mind by employing only relations among the experiences themselves rather than their attribution to an independently persisting subject. The usual objection to the bundle theory is that no relations adequate to the task can be found. But empirical work suggests that the task itself may be illusory. Many bundle theorists follow Hume in taking their topic to be personal identity. But the theory can be disentangled from this additional burden.

Author(s):  
Galen Strawson

This paper considers Hume’s account of personal identity in his Treatise of Human Nature. It argues for three connected claims. (1) Hume does not endorse a “bundle theory” of mind, according to which the mind or self is simply a “bundle” of perceptions; he thinks that “the essence of the mind [is] unknown to us.” (2) Hume does not deny the existence of subjects of experience; he does not endorse a “no self” or “no ownership” view. (3) Hume does not claim that the subject of experience is not encountered in experience. The paper also examines Hume’s phenomenological account of self-experience—of what he comes across when he engages in mental self-examination by “entering intimately into what I call myself”—and his psychological account of how we come to believe in the existence of a persisting self as a result of the mind’s “sliding easily” along certain series of perceptions.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-268
Author(s):  
Linda M. Austin

THE IDEA OF THE SELFin its various constructions–political, economic, psychological–has always been shadowed by an English tradition of skepticism about the persistence of a conscious and stable identity. Voiced most disconcertingly by David Hume in his section, “Of personal identity” fromA Treatise of Human Nature(1739–40; I.iv.vi), this attitude was significantly advanced during the second half of the nineteenth century by a group of physiological psychologists who argued for the corporeal basis of mental functions, including memory. Henry Maudsley and George Henry Lewes, among others, challenged the metaphysical notion of a mind and drew instead from controversial and often suppressed theories of neuroscience to describe the physiological operation of memory. These theories, which located impressions and sensations in the brain or spinal chord, produced a form of identity that could endure alterations of consciousness. They offered, in addition, a new understanding of an adult's physical connection to the personal past.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Alan Schwerin

In the discussion of personal identity, from his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume reaches a famous, if notorious conclusion: there is no self. We are “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions” (T 252). My argument is that Hume's thesis on the self rests on a questionable rejection of a rival view that appears to commit the fallacy of equivocation. Along the way I identify a few possible problems with Hume's overall analysis of the self. My argument is that these diffi culties center around the conceptual apparatus Hume relies on to explain and analyze consciousness.


This section tells the story of my mother's stroke and what I have learnt from it about mind, body, consciousness, and the self, arguably the most cross-disciplinary topic of all. What gives us our sense of personal identity – our body? Our mind? Their union? And what if one of them is diminished – say, as a result of an accident; what then, do we stop being ourselves? This opening chapter sets the scene for the debate that follows, on this most fascinating mystery of all – our own self and consciousness. We question the still dominant dualist approach of the mind, seeking a more holistic view of the self; to this end, we believe that adding relevant experiential aspects will help complement the theory. Thus, an interdisciplinary, trans-theoretical account is needed in this endeavour. In this chapter, we introduce the dilemma and draw the main lines of argumentation related to it. In Chapter 2, we discuss the first experiential (in other words, the clinical) aspects of the mind, and neuroscientists' view of it, followed – in Chapter 3, by social aspects and psychologists' contributions to the subject. Chapter 4 will add more idiosyncratic aspects to the debate, such as the spiritual profile of a person, more often discussed in philosophy, religion, and art.


2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-215
Author(s):  
Evgeniy N. Blinov ◽  

The present article analyzes an ambitious attempt to revisit and reevaluate Hume’s metaphysical project in the early 21th century, proposed by Vadim Vasilyev. His claim is to demonstrate that the problems raised by the author of Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding are far from being completely resolved and could provide us some valuable hints into the problems of contemporary analytical metaphysics. Against a widespread consensus that the evolution in Hume’s had been insignificant, Vasilyev maintains that his philosophical project underwent crucial transformations. He provides evidence of a gradual shift from a radical empiricism to a moderate rationalism by re-examining some classical problems of Hume’s studies and providing a critical analysis of the problems of causality and personal identity. This review provides some arguments for and against Vasilyev’s claims.


Author(s):  
Pablo Henrique Santos Figueiredo

David Hume, em seus livros Tratado da Natureza Humana e Investigação Acerca do Entendimento Humano, propõe a divisão da mente humana em percepções fortes e vivas, as quais recebem o nome de impressões, e suas cópias, que, por sua vez, recebem o nome de ideias. Estas percepções da mente também se dividem em duas: memória e imaginação. A primeira, com maiores graus de força e vivacidade, e a segunda com menores graus de força e vivacidade. As percepções da mente se relacionam a partir das relações filosóficas, que são princípios de associação e dissociação de ideias. A relação da imaginação com as ciências empíricas é o principal aspecto deste trabalho, de modo que, no decorrer do texto, os aspectos que fomentam esta relação serão trabalhados, ilustrando a importância que tem a imaginação no advento das ciências experimentais. Abstract: David Hume, in his books A Treatise Of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, proposes the division of human mind in in strong, lively perceptions, which are called impressions, and their copies, which, in turn, receive the name of ideas. These perceptions of the mind are also divided into two: memory and imagination. The first, with higher degrees of force and vivacity, and the second with lower degrees of force and vivacity.  The perceptions of the mind are related from the philosophical relations, which are the principles of association and dissociation of ideas. The ratio of the imagination with the empirical sciences is the main aspect of this work, so that, throughout the text, aspects that foster this relationship will be worked out, illustrating the importance of the imagination in the advent of experimental sciences.


This chapter turns to philosophers and artists, seeking their views on the dilemma of consciousness and the self, as well as the related mind/body problem. Does consciousness – and personal experience – arise from the neurological functions of the brain (and if so, how), or is it but a shard of the flow of universal consciousness – and if so, is the mind only a channel of energy and should we forget about our cognitive functions, or train to use them in a different way? What does it mean to have a strong sense of personal identity – where does the ‘true self' lie? Having learnt from neuroscientists and most psychologists that our self seems to exceed the scope and depth of both body and mind, we hope that philosophy and art might guide us towards this ‘other' realm where our sense of identity emerges from.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-190
Author(s):  
Maduka Enyimba ◽  

The major concern of the problem of personal identity gravitates around the question of whether a person’s identity is located in the mind or in the body. Scholars have developed different theories such as survivalist and physicalist criteria among others in response to this question. In this paper, I engage with the theory of sense-phenomenalism as an aspect of the physicalist criterion of personal identity to show how it might legitimize racism and colour-branding. Sense-phenomenalism is a body-only model of personal identity that holds that an individual’s identity is determined by the physical features sensually perceptible by other humans in the society. I argue that sense-phenomenalism by reposing a person’s identity on his/her bodily traits might foster social discrimination, deepen the dichotomy between the self and the other and enhance the fabrication of justifications for the denial of individual’s rights.


Dialogue ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Gerwin

In Book I of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume examines the idea of necessary connection, which, he observes, forms an indispensable part of our idea of cause and effect. He concludes:The idea of necessity arises from some impression. There is no impression convey'd by our senses, which can give rise to that idea. It must, therefore, by deriv'd from some internal impression, or impression of reflexion. There is no internal impression which has any relation to the present business, but that propensity, which custom produces, to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant. This therefore is the essence of necessity. Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects and from effects to causes, according to their experienced union.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 208-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamás Demeter

David Hume’s ‘science of man’ is frequently interpreted as an enterprise inspired in crucial respects by Newton’s Principia. However, a closer look at Hume’s central concepts and methodological commitment suggests that his Treatise of Human Nature is much more congruent with the research traditions that arose in the wake of Newton’s Opticks. In this paper I argue that the label Hume frequently attached to his project, ‘anatomy of the mind,’ is a metaphor that, considered in itself, seems to be expressing a commitment to the study of human nature in analogy with organic living nature. In this vein, Hume’s anatomy relies on conceptual and methodological resources derived from a chemical and physiological perspective on the natural cognitive and affective functioning of human beings. Since the idea of natural functioning provides various options for deriving normative considerations, Hume’s account can be seen as a middle-range theory that connects the discourses of organic nature and normative morality.



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