David Hume’s Treatment of Mind Essay -- Philosophy Papers

This paper critically examines Humes argument against the friendship/ initiation of substantival mind. This denial is rooted in his epistemology which includes a supposition of how multifactorial ideas which lack corresponding impressions are manufactured by the imagination, in conjunction with the memory, on the basis of three relations among impressions resemblance, continuity and eonian conjunction. The crux of my critique consists in pointing out that these relations are much(prenominal) that only an enduring, unified agent could interact with them in the way Hume describes. I keep an eye on that Hume attempts to provide such an agent by invoking the activities of imagination and memory, only that it is unclear where these belong in his system. After discussing the relevant possibilities, I argue that there is no category within the limits of his system that can deposit the faculties and allow them to do the work Hume assigned to them. I thence note that Humes rejection of substantival mind rests upon the assumption that something like substantival mind exists for the action of the latter is required for the proper functioning of the process of lying which creates the fictitious notion of substantival mind. My concluding argument is that if the existence of substantival mind is implicit in Humes argument against substantival mind, then his argument resembles an indirect proof, and ought to be considered as evidence for, rather than against, the existence of substantival mind. It is well known that David Hume rejected any idea of a substance of the mind that would account for, among another(prenominal) things, personal identity. I will attempt to read that Humes argument against the existence of substantival mind presupposes that such an entity actually ... ...ated into complex by chance, should at the level of impressions have recourse to no other agent. One is inclined to wonder why Hume thought it impossible that ideas should be constantly as sociated by chance into the same ordered pattern that we turn over in experience, but that it is not impossible for impressions to be thus associated. (15) Hume, Treatise of merciful Nature, i. iv. v.(16) Ibid., i. iv. v. Humes maxim all that is distinct is separable and the outright neglect, in some(prenominal) Locke and Hume, of the modal distinction are points that cry out for criticism. However, as the driveway of this paper is limited, these will have to be covered more thoroughly elsewhere.(17) Ibid., i. iv. vi.(18) Ibid., i.iv.vi.(19) Ibid., i. iv. v.(20) Ibid., i. i. iv. cf. note xi.(21) Copleston, Frederick, S.J. A History of Philosophy, Vol. VIII, p.120.