Hume's Reflections On The Identity and Simplicity of Mind

International Phenomenological Society
Hume's Reflections on the Identity and Simplicity of Mind

Author(s): Donald C. Ainslie
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 62, No. 3 (May, 2001), pp. 557-578
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Vol. LXII,No. 3, May 2001
Hume's Reflections on the Identity

and Simplicityof Mind1
DONALD C. AINSLIE
University of Toronto
The article presents a new interpretationof Hume's treatmentof personal identity, and
his later rejection of it in the "Appendix"to the Treatise. Hume's project, on this inter-
pretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical
projects, not in everyday life. The belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a
bundle of perceptions is an abstrusebelief, not one held by the "vulgar"who rarely turn
their minds on themselves so as to think of their perceptions.The authorsuggests that it
is this philosophical observationof the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally
acknowledges in the "Appendix."He is unable to explain why we believe that the per-
ceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves
part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteriathat any interpre-
tation of the "Appendix"must meet.
It is notoriously difficult to make sense of Hume's discussion of persons. In

the section of the Treatise2 devoted to this issue ("Of personal identity,"
T.I.iv.6; hereafter'the Section'), he describesthe mind as a bundle of percep-
tions to which we ascribe both identity and simplicity only in virtue of our
associating its members together. The most famous interpretive problem
arises because Hume later rejects this account:The "Appendix"to the Trea-
tise, published a little less than two years after the original appearanceof
I owe thanks to the journal's referees for their helpful comments as well as to Stephen
Engstrom, Andr6 Gombay, Carol Kay, Mary Leng, Terence Penelhum, David Raynor,
Lisa Shapiro, Sergio Tenenbaum,Udo Thiel, Wayne Waxman, and JenniferWhiting for
their responses to various versions of the argument that I have given here. I presented
parts of this paper at the 1997 InternationalHume Society Meeting in Monterey, CA; I
would like to thank James Ross, who was the commentator on that occasion, and
members of the audience, for their many useful questions and criticisms. My largest debt
is to Annette Baier; our many conversations about my reading of these portions of the
Treatise helped me to become clear about what I think on this matter. Her support and
encouragementof my work has been invaluable.
A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed. revised by P. H.
Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). HereafterI will refer to this text parentheti-
cally as 'T' followed by the appropriatepage number. I will refer to various subsections
of the Treatise as 'T' followed by Book, Part,and Section numbersgiven in large Roman,
small Roman, and Arabic numeralsrespectively.
HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 557
Books I and II, includes a retractionof his treatmentof persons. The reasons
for the retraction,however, are far from clear.
I offer a new interpretationof this vexed issue in what follows. As a
preliminary step, I point out in ?1 that Hume's project in most of the
Section is to explain a belief that arises primarily within certain kinds of
philosophical projects, not in everyday life. The belief in the identity and
simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is, after all, an abstruse
belief, not one held by the "vulgar"who rarely, if ever, turn their minds on
themselves so as to think of their perceptions.In ?2, I argue that it is exactly
this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that
Hume finally acknowledges in the "Appendix."For he is unable to explain
why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our
minds while philosophizing are themselves partof our minds. Finally, in ?3,
I test my suggestion against criteria that, I argue, any interpretationof the
"Appendix"must meet.
?1. Philosophical and Common-life Ideas of Self

The Section is Hume's contributionthe debate about personal identity that
had "become so great ... in England" (T.259) in the years following upon
Locke's publication of the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding,with its chapteron identity (Book II, Chapterxxvii).? A brief
consideration here of Locke's view and Hume's response to it will set the
stage for my interpretation of the Section and the "Appendix" in what
follows. For we shall see that Hume, unlike Locke, separates the issues of
the identity and simplicity of persons as minds from issues relating to our
everyday ways of making sense of one another.In particular,Hume thinks
that questions about the mind arise primarilyin the course of philosophical
enquiry, not in common life.
In the Essay, Locke claims that the identities of persons are based, not on
the material or immaterial substances underlying them, nor on the animal
bodies in which they are located, but are insteadthe result of the continuation
in them of the consciousnesses by which the personsin question are aware of
their ideas (E.II.xxvii).4 To be a person, on this view, is to be a subject of
thought, where thoughtis construedbroadlyas the perceptionof ideas.5Two
points about this claim should be noted. First, Locke understandsconscious-
ness to have a self-intimatingquality. And so persons are not only subjects
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,P. H. Nidditch (ed.), (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1975). Hereafter I will refer to this text parenthetically as 'E' followed by the
Book, Chapter, and Paragraph numbers in large Roman, small Roman, and Arabic
numerals respectively.
Locke's officially defines consciousness as "the perception of what passes in a Man's
own mind" (E.II.i.19).
"PERCEPTION... is the firstFaculty of the Mind, exercised about our Ideas; ... and is by
some called Thinking in general"(E.1l.ix.1; see E.II.vi.2).
558 DONALD C. AINSLIE
of thought,they are aware of themselves as such subjects:"It being impossi-
ble for any one to perceive, without perceiving, that he does perceive"
(E.II.xxvii.9); "[i]n every Act of Sensation, Reasoning, or Thinking, we are
conscious to our selves of our own Being; and, in this Matter, come not
short of the highest degree of Certainty"(E.IV.ix.3). Second, Locke thinks
that his analysis of persons as consciousnesses capturesthe most important
aspect of our everyday notion of persons, its "Forensick"aspect. For we take
punishmentor rewardto be justified only if the one who is to experience the
associated pain or pleasure is the continuationof the same consciousness as
the one who did the relevantdeed (E.II.xxvii.26).
Hume rejects the first of these two Lockian points in the first three para-
graphs of the Section (T.251-53). He starts by outlining the view of "some
philosophers"that we are "every moment intimately conscious of what we
call our SELF;... [and]feel its existence and its continuancein existence; and
are certainbeyond the evidence of a demonstrationboth of its perfect identity
and simplicity" (T.251). While it is not clear that Locke is precisely whom
Hume has in mind here,6these philosophersclearly share with him the claim
that self-awareness is omnipresent.Hume quickly rejects their view, baldly
denying that we have any idea of self "afterthe mannerit is here explain'd"
(T.251). Since he thinks that simple ideas are derived from preceding simple
impressions (T.4), in orderto have an idea of a simple, unchangingself, we
would have to have a simple impression that remained constant even while
all our otherperceptionschanged:
But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions
and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time.... For my part, when I
enter most intimatelyinto what I call myself, I always stumble on some particularperceptionor
other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at
any time without a perception,and never can observe anythingbut the perception.(T.25 1-52)
And thus Hume reaches his conclusion thatthe mind is "nothingbut a bundle
or collection of differentperceptions,which succeed each otherwith an incon-
ceivable rapidity,and are in perpetualflux andmovement"(T.252).
This is perhaps not a very good argument,7but leaving that aside, it
reveals what separates Hume from Locke and the other philosophers. They
take self-awareness to be a necessary concomitant of any mental act, while
6 For these philosophersalso think that self-knowledge has a foundationalepistemic role-

Hume says that part of their view is that there is nothing "of which we can be certain, if
we doubt" (T.251) it-while Locke does not give it this special status. I discuss who
Hume's targetis in more detail in "Hume's Anti-cogito" (ms).
7 Indeed it can be read as having the opposite force from what Hume intends: In so far as
he describes himself as the one "stumbling"on his perceptionsand "observing"them as a
rapidly changing bundle, he might seem to be admittingthat his awareness of his percep-
tions includes self-awareness. I discuss Hume's negative argumentin the Section in more
detail in "Hume's Anti-cogito."
Hume supposes that when we have a perception we are aware only of its
object without thereby being aware of ourselves as subjects of this aware-
ness.8 For his opponents,for example, when we look at a tree, we are aware
not only of the tree but of ourselves seeing the tree. For Hume, when we
look at a tree, we are aware only of the tree. Awareness of ourselves would
requireanothermentaloperation.
In the quotation above, Hume describes one such operation, namely
'intimate entry' into himself, a process of reflectively turninghis mind onto
itself so as for him to "observe" the perceptions that constitute his mind.
How does he explain our capacity for this kind of introspectiveself-observa-
tion? The answer to this question comes quite early in the Treatise; after all,
his project in it is to use this kind of observation to "explain the natureand
principles of the human mind" (T.8). And so he mentions at one point that
the vehicles for this self-examinationare what he calls secondary ideas (T.6),
ideas that have otherperceptions,either impressionsor ideas, as their objects
(I will call the perceptions that are the objects of secondary ideas primary
impressions or ideas). Thus in Hume's view my seeing a tree involves the
presence of a complex impression of that tree in the bundle of perceptions
constitutingmy mind; my rememberingthe tree involves the presence in the
bundle of a complex idea of that tree, an idea that is a less vivacious copy of
the original impression. As we have noted, given Hume's denial of the first
of the Lockian points, neither the impression nor the idea of the tree brings
with it any kind of awarenessof myself or of the perceptionin question;I am
aware only of the tree. But I can become aware of the perceptions if I
reflectively observe my mind while I am seeing the tree, in which case the
bundle would include a secondaryidea of the primaryimpression of the tree
(which impression would, of course, also be in the bundle); my reflective
observationof my mind while I am rememberingthe tree would involve the
presence in the bundleof a secondaryidea of the primarymemory-ideaof the
tree. Note, then, that while primary ideas copy impressions by their both
being of the same thing (the tree), secondaryideas are copies of their primary
It is slightly more complicated than this. Hume thinks that a perceptionhas a characteris-
tic feeling, vivacity, as well as an object. That is, the awareness of the object feels a
certain way, depending on how it arises in the mind. Sensations and emotions-what
Hume calls impressions-have a high level of vivacity since they arise spontaneouslyand
are independent of conscious control. Thoughts-what Hume calls ideas-can be
resisted to some extent and thus have lower vivacity (T.1-2).
Not all Humean perceptions have objects; in particular, passions and other
"impressions of reflexion" (T.7), since they are merely feelings of various sorts, are
defined by the kind of vivacity they have (T.277). But when discussing the perceptions
that constitute the understanding,the topic of Book I of the Treatise, Hume is willing to
say that impressions, as well as ideas, have objects in the sense that they are all of things
(see for example, T.36, 38, 84, 90). For a complete catalogue of Hume's use of 'object,'
see M. Grene, "The Objects of Hume's Treatise"Hume Studies 20 (1994), 163-77.
perceptions in a different sense: ratherthan sharing a common object, the
primaryperceptionsare the objectsof the higher-levelideas.9
Hume allows that secondary ideas arise not only in situations of philo-
sophical self-observation, but also in common life. For sometimes when I
rememberthe tree, my attentionis not on the tree, but on my having seen it.
Such a memory is the idea of an impression, namely the idea of seeing the
tree (T.106). It is as a result of these spontaneous secondary ideas that we
have an idea of our mindedness outside of philosophical contexts."' But,
because these secondaryideas arise only intermittently,because most of our
perceptionsare not observedby means of secondaryideas, Hume thinksthat:
['t]is certainthat there is no question in philosophy more abstrusethan that concerningidentity,

and the nature of the uniting principle, which constitutes a person. So far from being able by
our senses merely to determine this question, we must have recourse to the most profound
metaphysics to give a satisfactoryanswer to it; and in common life 'tis evident that these ideas
of self and person are never vetyfix'd nor determinate.(T. 189-90; emphasis added)
When we 'enter most intimately' into ourselves in the course of philosophi-

cal enquiry, in contrast, we form a much more determinateidea. We inten-
There are two other places where Hume considers the relation between our primary
perceptions and the secondary ideas by means of which we think about them. First, he
raises the question of how, in cases when we cannot remember an experience, we can
infer that we once had the relevant impressions merely from the fact that we have a
primaryidea of the event (T.105-6). The problem is that Hume's analysis of our causal
beliefs requires that our inference start with an impression, either of the senses or of
memory (T.82-83). But in the case at hand, our starting point is the primary idea we
observe in ourselves, not an impression. Hume solves this problem by saying that the
observed idea can "supply the place of an impression:" "For as this idea is not here
considered, as the representationof any absent object, but as a real perception in the
mind, of which we are intimately conscious, it must be able to bestow on whatever is
related to it the same quality, call it firmness, or solidity, or force, or vivacity, with which
the mind reflects upon it, and is assur'd of its present existence" (T. 106). Thus reflecting
on our minds or entering "intimately" into ourselves involves the re-focusing of our
attention from the objects of our perceptions to the perceptions themselves. In a way,
such re-focusing allows a primaryperception to act as impression, the copy of which is
the secondaryidea we use to think about that perception'srole in our mental economy.
In the second of the two relevant passages, Hume describes this re-focusing as a
change in perspective. We "change the point of view, from the objects to the percep-
tions" (T.169) when we reflect on our thought. This passage deals with the nature of the
causal connection between our ideas and impressions; it is, Hume says, akin to all other
causal connections-dependent on our tendency to associate ideas of event-types upon
having experienced a constant conjunction of instances of the two types of events-and
thus can only be noticed by us in so far as we have had experience in observing, via
secondary ideas, the operations of our minds. Such experience eventually causes our
(secondary) idea of impressions to be associated with our (secondary) idea of ideas, and
thus supportsour belief that impressionscause ideas.
Hume relies on our having such an idea when, throughoutBook III of the Treatise, he
equates the virtues or vices with "qualities of mind" (e.g. T.575). Recognizing one
another as the bearers of such qualities require only that we have a determinateenough
idea of mind to see behavior as issuing from people's passions and beliefs, not that we
think of their minds as bundles of perceptions.
tionally reflect on our minds, formingthe secondaryideas by means of which
we observe the perceptionsthat are their objects, and thus we come to recog-
nize the mind as the bundle of perceptionsthatHume takes it to be.
It follows from this that Hume must reject the second of the two Lockian
points noted above-the claim that an analysis of persons as subjects of
thought capturesthe importantaspects of our everyday notion. Since think-
ing of ourselves as such subjects requires the unusual mental posture of
'intimateentry', and most people have only an indeterminateunderstandingof
themselves in these terms, this "abstruse"notion cannot be what we rely on
in everyday life. What does Hume think that we do rely on? He hints at how
he answers this question in the Section when he distinguishes between
"personalidentity, as it regardsour thought or imagination,and as it regards
our passions or the concern we take in ourselves" (T.253). Our everyday
notion of self, the notion tied up with our self-concern, is here linked to the
passions. And in the portionof the Treatisedevoted to the passions (Book II),
Hume explores the so-called indirectpassions of pride and humility, both of
which cause us to focus our attention on ourselves (T.277) by "making us
think of our own qualities and circumstances"(T.287). Feeling proud of a
house, for example, causes us to think of ourselves as homeowners. Indeed,
on Hume's analysis, our everyday sense of ourselves as embodied agents,
defined by our values, commitments,friends, family, possessions, and so on,
seems to springfrom our experienceswith the indirectpassions.11
After making the distinction between the two kinds of personal identity,
Hume declares that his topic for the rest of the Section will be personaliden-
tity "as it regardsour thoughtor imagination"(T.253). We are now in a posi-
tion to be clear about what this amounts to. He has already established that
the minds of all of "mankind"are "bundlesor collections of differentpercep-
tions" (T.252). And one of his fundamentalclaims about perceptions is that
different perceptions are distinguishable and separable from one another
I have discussed Hume's treatment of the passional self in more detail in "Scepticism
about Persons in Book II of Hume's Treatise," Journal of the History of Philosophy 37
(1999),469-92. Otherdiscussions of the distinctionbetween the passional self and the self
of thought and imaginationare: Terence Penelhum, "Self-identityand Self-regard,"in A.
0. Rorty (ed.), The Identities of Persons (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1976),
253-80, and "The Self of Book I and the Selves of Book II" Hume Studies 18 (1992),
281-91; and J. L. McIntyre, "PersonalIdentity and the Passions," Journal of the History
of Philosophy 27 (1989), 545-57.
At T.261, Hume notes that his analysis of our beliefs about our minds' simplicity and
identity is "corroborated"by our everyday passional idea of self "by the making our
distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past
or future pains or pleasures."His point here is that the philosophical analysis of the mind
as a bundle of perceptions that we believe to continue identically through time fits with,
e.g., our everyday expectations that a future harm to us is to be avoided, in that the
connections between our perceptionsthat these expectations involve are such as to facili-
tate the philosopher's belief in the identity of mind when these perceptionsare observed.
(T.207, 233, 244, 252, 634). This means that "thereis properly no sinmplic-
ity in [a mind qua bundle] at one time, nor identity in different"(T.253). The
only question to ask is why we nonetheless believe that the mind has
simplicity and identity. But since, as we have seen, most people do not ever
consider their minds-or only rarelyand indeterminately-Hume must mean
for this question to apply not to the beliefs of the vulgar, but to the beliefs of
those philosophers who reflectively investigate their minds in the course of
their studies. For they must believe that the minds they observe are each one
identicalmind, if their observationsare going to be helpful for an explanation
of our mental economies. We can conclude, then, that the positive portions
of the Section, in which Hume offers a psychological mechanism for the
generationof the beliefs in mental simplicity and identity, are meant to deal
with the beliefs of philosophers who are observing their minds, not the
beliefs of those inhabitingcommon life, where, despite the occasional spon-
taneous secondary idea, the questions of the identity and simplicity of mind
do not arise.12
?2. Philosophical Beliefs in the Identity and

Simplicity of Mind
Hume models his account of philosophers' beliefs in their minds' simplicity
and identity on his account of the general humantendency to find simplicity
and identity in cases where we have complex and diverse experiencesthat are
congenial to our natural associative principles (T.253); for philosophers'
beliefs, though different in content, are generated according to the same
fundamentalprinciplesof humannatureas are operativein the vulgar. Hume
explains that when we have experiences, the objects of which are related by
causation, resemblance, or contiguity, the associations among our percep-
tions lead us to overlook the differences between our experiences and to
suppose that we are dealing with one simple and identical object."3He calls
this 'imperfect identity' (T.256), in contrast to the 'perfect identity' we
attribute to objects when our attention remains fixed on them and they
undergo no change at all (T.65, 254).14 It is because the mental activity
involved in cases where we attribute perfect identity feels similar to the
mental activity involved in interruptedexperiences of changing objects that
we treatthese changing objects as if they had the same kind of identity as the
12 My claim that Hume's primaryinterest in the Section is the self-as-mind helps to explain
his equivocating throughout it between the terms 'self' (T.251, 252, 253, 254, 262),
'person' (T.251, 253, 259, 260, 262), 'soul' (T.254, 261), and 'mind' (T.253, 259, 260,
261, 263).
13 Of course, causal relations between objects are partly constituted by our tendency to
associate the ideas of causes and effects (T.92, 170).
14 The importanceof the distinction between perfect and imperfect identity is stressed in L.
Ashley and M. Stack, "Hume's Doctrine of Personal Identity,"Dialogue 13 (1974), 239-
54.
HUME S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 563
unchanging, constantly observed ones (T.255).15 Of course, we do not
attributeidentityto just anything.And so Hume spends the middle portionof
the Section (T.253-58) spelling out what kind of regularitiesour experience
must display for us to attribute imperfect identity to objects. There is a
"grammar"(T.262; see also T.255) of identity that we rely on in our imper-
fect-identity claims. (Although Hume does not spend as much time on it,
presumablya similar point can be made about simplicity claims.)
What happens when Hume uses this account of imperfect identity to
explain why, when philosophizing and reflectively observing our minds in
terms of their constituentperceptions,we nonetheless continue to believe in
their identities?16 Like our belief in the identity of an external object, this
belief is the result of our confusing the awarenesswe have of our related but
ever-changingperceptionsfor the awareness of something unchanging. The
relations between our perceptions, especially causation and memory-based
resemblance,createsuch a "smoothand uninterruptedprogressof ... thought"
(T.260) that we come to attributeto our minds the same imperfect kind of
identitythatwe attributeto interruptedand changingobjects.
Note, however, that this discussion occurs at a level once removed from
that concerning our identity ascriptionsto external objects. When we take a
tree to continue identically, for example, our ideas of the tree are associated
together because of the causal, spatial, and resemblancerelations among the
tree-glimpses that are the objects of these ideas. Because the tree in winter
resembles the tree in summer, because the tree's buds caused the tree to
flower, because the new branchesin the tree are contiguousto the old growth,
our ideas of the tree are associatedtogetherand it feels to us almost the same
as it would had we been uninterruptedlylooking at an unchangingtree. The
explanation of our beliefs about the tree involves the association of percep-
tions in the observers' minds. The parallel descriptionfor our beliefs in the
15
Several interpreters have suggested that Hume's bundle view of the self leaves him
unable to account for the various mental actions he invokes throughoutthe Treatise (see,
for example, J. A. Passmore,Hume's Intentions 3rd edition [London:Duckworth, 1980],
82-83 and Wade Robison, "Humeon PersonalIdentity,"Journal of the History of Philos-
ophy 12 [1974], 181-93). Don Garrett("Hume's Self-doubts about Personal Identity,"
Philosophical Review 90 [1981], 344 and Cognition and Commitmentin Hume's Philoso-
phy [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], 170) and Barry Stroud (Hume [London:
Routledge, 1977], 130-31) both point out that Hume can explain away any mental-action
talk simply by redescribing the action in terms of changes in the bundle of perceptions
constituting the mind; mental powers can be redescribed as conditionals true of these
changes.
16 Note that, despite Hume's occasional use of third-personlanguage and thought experi-
ments (T.259, 260), this question is irreducibly first personal. It is a question of how I
come to believe in the identity of my own mind, of how I come to take my perceptionsto
constitute me as a continuing thinking being. As we have seen, Hume suggests that I am
to become aware of the perceptionsmaking up my mind "by entering most intimately into
what I call myself' (T.252). It is only when we engage in an imaginative thought experi-
ment that Hume allows that we can directly observe someone else's perceptions (T.260).
identities of our minds when, as philosophers,we observe them as bundles of
perceptions, says: We take our perceptual bundles to continue identically
when our ideas of ourperceptionsare associatedtogetherbecauseof the causal
and resemblancerelationsamong the primaryperceptionsthat are the objects
of these ideas (spatial relationsdo not apply to perceptions;T.260). Because
my occurrentimpression of my computerresembles my memory-idea of it
yesterday, because my impressionof the coffee cup in front of me causes an
idea of it, my ideas of these perceptions are associatedtogetherand it feels to
me almost the same as it would had I been observing uninterruptedlyan
unchangingbundle of perceptions.17 The explanationof our beliefs about our
minds involves the association of perceptions in the observers' minds. The
point is that, for Hume's account of imperfectidentity to apply to minds, the
association of ideas that this account involves must be the association of
secondaryideas-ideas of perceptions,eitherimpressionsor ideas.'8
Given my claim that Hume's treatmentof personal identity addresses a
problem that arises only for philosophers who are investigating their minds
reflectively, it should not be too surprisingthat it involves secondary ideas.
For, as we have seen, Hume thinks that philosophersobserve their minds by
forming secondaryideas of theirprimaryperceptions;secondaryideas are the
vehicles of reflective thought.And Hume makes it clear that his explanation
of personalidentityinvolves secondaryideas:
17 Some of Hume's interpretershave suggested that his account of personal identity breaks
down here (S. C. Patten, "Hume's Bundles, Self-consciousness, and Kant,"Hume Studies
2 [1976], 59-75; and Stroud,Hume, 125-27). Our primaryperceptions, especially those
of sensation, do not seem to have sufficient relations among them to lead us to take them
to be a continuing mind. We see a computer screen and then a coffee cup, but these
impressions are neither causally related nor resembling. But Patten and Stroud overlook
the special context of Hume's considerationof the mind in the Section. We are not just
having an impression of a coffee cup, we are observing the impression by means of a
secondary idea of it. And immediately thereafterwe observe a causally related idea of
the coffee cup. We observe an impression of a computerscreen followed by the causally
related idea of it; and we can also observe our memories of previous encounters with
coffee cups and computers, ideas which resemble the currently observed perceptions.
Overall, Hume does not seem incorrect in suggesting that this "system" of perceptions
contains a complex enough networkof relationsto lead us to ascribe imperfect identity to
the observed perceptions. See Garrett,"Hume's Self-doubts," 347-50, Cognition, 172-
73, for anotherexaminationof this purportedproblem.
18 This difference in level has often been overlooked. Wade Robison, for example,
misquotes T.259 (see p. 8), as investigating what "associates ideas in the imagination,"
whereas Hume's concern is what "associates their ideas [sc. the ideas of "our several
perceptions"]in the imagination."Robison makes a similar mistake in his summaryof the
"Appendix."He thinks that Hume says that the "ideas in a mind 'arefelt to be connected
together, and naturally introduce one another"' (T.635; Robison's emphasis), whereas
Hume's actual statement concerns the felt connection between the "ideas of them [sc.
ideas of "past perceptions"]"(T.635) ("Hume's Appendix" in D. F. Norton, N. Capaldi,
and W. L. Robison [eds.], McGill Hume Studies [San Diego: Austin Hill, 1979], 93, 97).
HUME S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 565
[I]dentity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions,and uniting them together;
but is merely a quality, which we attributeto them, because of the union of their ideas [sc. the
secondary ideas of the primary perceptions] in the imagination, when we reflect upon them.
(T.260, emphasis added)
Also:
[A]s ... we suppose the whole train of perceptionsto be united by identity, a question naturally
arises concerningthis relation of identity; whetherit be something that really binds our several
perceptions together, or only associates their ideas [sc. the secondary ideas of the primary
perceptions]in the imagination.That is, in other words, whether in pronouncingconcerningthe
identity of a person, we observe some real bond among his perceptions, or only feel one
among the ideas we form of them [sc. the secondary ideas we form of the primary percep-
tions]. (T.259, emphasis added)
Hume, of course, takes the latter option, denying that we have any evidence
for real bondsbetweenperceptions.
But what of these secondaryideas? Hume relies on associations between
them in orderto explain our beliefs in personalidentity and he suggest that a
similar story accounts for our beliefs in the simplicity of mind (T.263).
These secondaryideas, however, remainas distinctexistences since there are
not ideas of them (tertiaryideas?) associated together with the ideas of our
other perceptions. And, Hume thinks, there is no other way to explain how
we believe a perceptionto be partof a simple, continuingmind otherthan by
the association of secondaryideas of it with other such secondaryideas. Yet
we nonetheless believe these secondaryideas are partof our minds. To deny
this would be to deny that the vehicles by means of which we are thinking
about our minds' constituentsare themselves partof the mind.
Here, I think, is the problem that Hume finally recognizes in the
"Appendix:"The process he has described to explain why we believe in the
identityand simplicityof our minds(the association of secondaryideas of our
primary perceptions) does not explain why the secondary ideas used in the
process are also taken to be part of our minds. The very explanation that
Hume offers for our beliefs in the simplicity and identity of mind invokes
mental items our belief in the unity of which with the rest of our minds
remainsunexplained.19
19 To a certain extent, then, my interpretationis in agreementwith those who see Hume's

problem as having to do with mental activity (see n.15). The difference is that I do not
see Hume as having a problem with mental activity per se. But the mental activity
involved in Hume's explanation of our belief in personal identity turns out to requirethe
presence of secondary ideas, our belief in the unity of which with the rest of the mind
remains unaccounted for.
John Bricke is one of the few interpreters to acknowledge Hume's appeal to
secondary ideas (Hume's Philosophy of Mind [Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980], 74-99). We disagree, however, on where the problem with Hume's account is
located: Bricke thinks that Hume cannot adequately distinguish some secondary ideas
from the primaryperceptions that are their objects. I think that Hume's problem lies in
?3. The "Appendix"
In defense of this proposed interpretation,and to clarify it further,I would
like to test it against what I take to be the criteriathat any interpretationof
the "Appendix"must meet. Although it is probablytrue that Hume's second
thoughtsin the "Appendix"are underdeterminedby the text, the proliferation
of conflicting readings seems due in partto a lack of clarity among commen-
tators as to what an interpretationof the "Appendix"must account for.2"' The
criteriathat I suggest here presupposeonly thatthe "Appendix"is a response
to a problem in the Section that Hume would recognize from within his own
view.21
(1) The Principles: The first criterion requires that an interpreterspec-
ify what Hume thought he had overlooked in the Section. The first 11 para-
graphs(T.633-35) of the partof the "Appendix"devoted to personalidentity
summarize,for the most part,Hume's earlieraccount.In particular,once our
observational stance on the mind has served to "loosen all our particular
perceptions,"our belief in the mind's identity is attributedto the association
of secondaryideas:
[T]houghtalone finds personal identity, when[,] reflecting on the train of past perceptions,that
compose a mind, the ideas of them [sc. the secondary ideas of the past primaryperceptions]
are felt to be connected together, and naturallyintroduceeach other. (T.635; my italics)
He comments that this means that he agrees with those philosophers who
think that "personalidentityarises from consciousness,"where consciousness
is now defined as "reflectedthought or perception"(T.635). But he seems
now to recognize that his previous account applies only to our beliefs about
our belief in the unity of the secondary ideas with the rest of our minds. Part of the prob-
lem with Bricke's interpretationis that, given the centralityof secondary ideas to Hume's
project, it would be unlikely that his problem would be specific to the treatment of
personal identity. But Hume clearly thinks that the "Appendix"points to only the one
"considerablemistake" (T.623) in Books I and II. See my discussion of the Singularity
Criterion,?3 (6), below.
2() Garrett is an exception here. In "Hume's Self-doubts," 355, he presents three criteria,
similar to the first three I list below, that any interpretationof the "Appendix"must meet.
21 Thus I do not accept Corliss Swain's argument that, in the "Appendix," Hume means
merely to show the incoherence of traditional substantial theories of the mind ("Being
Sure of Oneself: Hume on Personal Identity,"Hume Studies 17 [1991], 107-24). 1 take
seriously Hume's admission that the Section contains a "considerablemistake"(T.623).
Those commentators such as Jane McIntyre ("Is Hume's Self Consistent?" in D.
Fate Norton, N. Capaldi, and W. L. Robison [eds.], McGill Hume Studies [San Diego:
Austin Hill, 1979], 79-88, and "FurtherRemarkson the Consistency of Hume's Account
of the Self" Hume Studies 5 [1979], 55-61) and Tom Beauchamp("Self Inconsistency or
Mere Self Perplexity,"Hume Studies 5 [1979], 37-44), who think that the "Appendix"is
a case of Hume's 'backsliding'-his losing the courage of his empiricist convictions-
must take up the burden of showing that the problems in the Section are not truly
Humean. And they should provide an account of why Hume would backslide in only this
one case.
ourpast perceptions.His problem arises when it comes to beliefs about our
present perceptions: "The present philosophy ... has so far a promising
aspect. But all my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that
unite our successive22perceptionsin our thought or consciousness" (T.635-
36).23 The problematic principles, whatever they are, should explain our
beliefs in the unity of our minds not only in the past, but during the very
period when we observe them; the problem thus primarily concerns our
beliefs in the simplicity of our minds (there is a derivativeproblem concern-
ing identity, since an object must have some kind of unity or simplicity
before its continuity throughtime can count as identity). It follows that any
interpretationof the "Appendix"should specify why his original account is
unable to explain the "uniting"of our current successive perceptions even
while it works when it comes to explaining our beliefs about our past percep-
tions.
My suggestion is that Hume's problem is explaining why we believe that
the secondaryideas, the association of which causes the belief in the identity
of mind, are also partof the mind. When the perceptionswe reflect on are in
the past, this accountsucceeds in explainingour currentbelief in the continu-
ity of the mind during thatprior stretchof time because our currentsecondary
ideas of the past perceptionsare run together so as to producethe belief that
those perceptionsconstituteda simple, identical entity. The fact that current
22
Wayne Waxman thinks that Hume's problem in the "Appendix"arises when he realizes
that, in the Section, he had presupposedthe successiveness of perceptionsto one another
prior to their being associated by the imagination. But, Waxman thinks, a succession is
constituted out of the association of its elements ("Hume's Quandary Concerning
PersonalIdentity,"Hume Studies 18 [1992], 233-53).
I find this suggestion doubtful. First, Hume allows that objects exist in succession
"independent of our thought and reasoning" (T.168). Second, Waxman supposes that
perceptions must be retained in memory before the imagination can associate them. And
thus he supposes that we must have "consciousness" of the succession of perceptions
before we can associate its elements (it is exactly this "consciousness" that creates the
problem he takes Hume to recognize in the "Appendix").But Hume does not think that
association is something done to perceptions of which we are already aware; rather,the
association of ideas is what explains why we think of one object after having experi-
enced (or thought of) another. And, third, Waxman treats "consciousness" as if it were
presupposed in all association, whereas Hume is quite clear that it is the equivalent of
"reflected"thought,thoughtthat is being investigatedreflectively.
As Waxman admits, his problem would go to the heart of Hume's treatment of
association and thus it is hardto reconcile with the "Singularity"(6) and "Insulation"(7)
criteria, below.
23 Stroud points out that this statementis ambiguous.Hume could be asking for an explana-
tion of the principles that actually produce a connection between our perceptions, or he
could be asking for an explanation of the principles in virtue of which we come to
believe that our perceptions are united (Hume, 133). It seems to me that unless the
'backsliding' thesis is correct (see n.21), the second option is clearly what Hume has in
mind, given his earlier statement that "the uniting principle among our internal percep-
tions is as unintelligible as that among external objects, and is not known to us any other
way than by experience" (T.169).
secondaryideas are involved in the productionof this belief poses no problem
because the belief does not concern current constituents of the mind. But
when it comes to the belief in the simplicity of the mind during the moment
we are reflecting,then the secondaryideas by means of which this reflection
takes place are themselves takento be partof our minds even though they are
not themselves "observed"in such a way that associations of ideas of them
can explain our beliefs aboutthem;for, since thereare not ideas of these ideas
in our minds, no association of ideas of them can take place. This means that
the very ideas in virtue of which we are able to think of our perceptions-the
ideas that are the vehicles of "consciousness,"that is, "reflectedthought or
perception"-are not themselves associatively integratedinto the rest of what
we take to be our simple identicalminds.
(2) The Inconsistency: In the twelfth paragraph of the relevant
portion of the "Appendix,"Hume tells us why he has been dissatisfied in his
attemptsto accountfor the unexplainedprinciples:
[T]here are two principles, which I cannot renderconsistent; nor is it in my power to renounce
either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind
never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. (T.636; Hume's italics)
These two principlesare centralto Hume's understandingof perceptionsand

appearthroughoutBook I (T.207, 233, 244, 252); he even reiteratesthem in
the "Appendix"(T.634). And, as has oft been noted, they are not inconsis-
tent. Interpretersthus must both provide a plausible third (or more) principle
which leaves Hume facing an inescapable inconsistency and connect this
inconsistency with the problemof accountingfor the "uniting"of our succes-
sive perceptions.
Since, on my interpretation,Hume's problem in the "Appendix"is that
we still take to be ours the secondaryideas which, accordingto his explana-
tion of our beliefs in personalidentity and simplicity, ought to be viewed as
outside of our minds, I see the enthymematicinconsistency as pointing to the
following set of propositions:
(i) All our distinctperceptionsare distinctexistences (T.636).
(ii) The mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct exis-
tences (T.636).
(iii) We attribute simplicity and identity to the bundle of perceptions

making up our minds (T.635).
(iv) The only way to explain our belief that our successive perceptions
constitute simple identical minds is by the association of secondary
ideas of these perceptions(T.635).
(v) The secondary ideas in (iv) are distinct existences, (i), no ideas of
which are associated with the ideas of the otherperceptionswe take
to make up our minds. Nor can we discerna real connectionbetween
these secondaryideas and the otherperceptions,(ii).
(vi) From (iii) and (v), we know both that there are perceptions which
we take to be partof our minds and that there are not ideas of these
perceptions associated together with the ideas of our other percep-
tions. From (iv), we know that there is no other way to explain our
belief in the unity of our secondaryideas with the rest of our minds.
It might seem that (v) would not really trouble Hume. He is not, for
example, troubledwith the thought that some of our past experiences are so
irrecoverablethat we cannot form the propersecondaryideas of them neces-
sary for their integrationinto the bundle.It is enough that we can trace causal
connections between the forgotten experiences and those we remember
(T.262). Can Hume make a similar move to avoid the problem in (i)-(vi)?
Even though at a particularmoment, the secondaryideas used in the associa-
tion of our primaryperceptionsremain apartfrom the bundle, this need not
be a permanentsituation.We can reflect on our secondaryideas, make them
objects of tertiaryideas, and thus associatively integratethem-although not
the tertiary ideas-with the rest of the perceptions in the bundle. At each
level, a furtherreflection will both integratea set of higher-level ideas, and
introduce a new set of ideas of perceptions which, not being observed as
perceptions, remain distinct from the bundle. We might not get all of our
perceptionsinto the bundle all at once, but they can all be integratedat some
time or another.
True enough, but this does not solve the problem of our belief in the
mind's simplicity, the unity of the mind at a time. At any moment, when
reflecting on our minds, we take ourselves to be observing one mind. When
we recognize that, at that moment,we have perceptionswhich are not asso-
ciatively integrated into our mind-bundles, then our belief in the mind's
simplicity cannot be explainedsolely in terms of the associationof secondary
ideas. There remain these occurrentsecondary ideas, no ideas of which are
associated with the ideas of our otherperceptions,that we nonethelesstake to
be partof our minds.24
24
The fact that secondary ideas are caused by the primary perceptions that are their
objects (T.6) might seem to be enough to explain our belief that these ideas are part of
our minds. But recall that, for Hume, causal beliefs involve the association of the idea of
the cause and the idea of the effect (T.I.iii.6). Believing that primaryperceptions are the
causes of secondary ideas thus involves the association of (secondary) ideas of the
primary perceptions and tertiary ideas of the secondary ideas. And yet we believe that
these other secondary and tertiaryideas (those that constitute our belief that secondary
ideas are caused by primaryperceptions) are themselves part of our minds, even though
(3) The Escape: The problem with Hume's explanation of our belief
in personal identity would be avoided, he tells us, "[d]id our perceptions
inherein somethingsimple and individual,or did the mind perceive some real
connexion among them..." (T.636). I take this to mean that if we could
recognize connections between our perceptionsother than by the association
of their secondaryideas, we would not have to be reflectively observing our
perceptions in order to include them in what we take to be our minds. The
secondary ideas, which are not observed as perceptions in the process by
which he had originally thought we come to believe in personal simplicity
and identity, could then be recognized as partof a simple and identical mind
after all. But neither inherence nor "real connexions" are viable in Hume's
system, and so he is left with his insoluble problem.
(4) The Sceptic's Plea: This, of course, leads Hume to "plead the
privilege of a sceptic" (T.636). Clearly Hume thinks that this entitles him to
continue his project of using reflective observationof the mind to explain its
fundamentalprinciples even though he now recognizes that he is unable to
account for one of the beliefs presupposedby his method-the philosopher's
belief that the mind she observes is one identical mind. I have tried to stay
neutralin this essay on the controversialquestion of how to interpretHume's
scepticism.25But any such interpretationmust be able to make sense of his
response to the problem about personal identity that he recognizes in the
"Appendix."For he prefaceshis second thoughtsby saying thathis confusion
about persons is akin to "thosecontradictionsand absurdities,which seem to
attend every explication, that humanreason can give of the material world"
(T.633), the very problems which broughthim to embrace "trueskepticism"
in the "Conclusion"to Book I of the Treatise(T.273).
(5) Charity: A successful interpretationof the "Appendix"should also,
I think, make clear why Hume was so quick to recognize the limitations of
his original account in the Section. There must be a fairly natural move
which he had overlooked. At the same time, an interpretationshould explain
why Hume was likely to have missed that move in his initial consideration.
My claim that the problem arises from the role secondary ideas play in the
account leaves it close enough to the surface that it is plausible for Hume to
have discovered it on a re-reading. The harder question is why he was
convinced by his first discussion of the issue in the Section. I think that there
are four reasons for Hume's having initially overlookedthe problemposed by
no (higher order) ideas of them are being associated with our ideas of our other percep-
tions.
25 For two recent interpretationsof Hume's view that play up its 'naturalistic'explanatory
dimension, see Annette Baier, A Progress of Sentiments(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity
Press, 1991) and Garrett, Cognition. For more sceptical interpretations see Robert
Fogelin, Hume's Scepticism in A Treatise of Human Nature (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1985) and Wayne Waxman, Hume's Theory of Consciousness (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994).
his reliance on secondary ideas in explaining our beliefs in the identity and
simplicity of our minds.
First, in the Section, Hume follows in the footsteps of Locke by giving
most of his attention to our belief in the identity of mind. His treatmentof
our belief in its simplicity is clearly an afterthought (T.263). Since it is
exactly the issue of simplicity that creates the problems for him that he
confronts in the "Appendix,"his earlier neglect of the issue might go partof
the way towardsexplaining his originallymissing them.
Second, in comparing our belief in the identity of external objects with
our belief in the identity of our minds, Hume seems to have failed to notice
the significant differences between these two kinds of identification. Most
importantly,in the case of externalobjects, that to which we ascribe identity
(the object) is different from that which does the ascribing (the associative
tendencies in our minds). In the case of our minds, however, we are both the
objects of our internalinvestigation and the subjects doing the investigation.
We do not get outside of ourselves when we reflectively observe ourselves,
but remain simultaneously the observers and the observed. In the Section,
Hume treats the mind as if it were different from the observer, ignoring the
secondaryideas, the associationsof which explain our belief in the identity of
the mind. But in the "Appendix,"on my interpretation,he realizes that our
belief in the unity of these secondary ideas with the rest of the mind must
also be explained.
Third, Hume's prematuresatisfactionwith the Section might stem in part
from some of the analogies and thoughtexperimentsthat he uses there. Most
notably, at a crucial moment in the argument,Hume considers what would
happen were he able to observe the "breastof another"(T.260), that is, the
perceptionsin someone else's mind. And, he says, from that perspective, the
resemblances between and causal connections among the other person's
perceptionslead him to ascribe identity and simplicity to that person's mind.
He goes on to say that "[t]hecase is the same whetherwe consider ourselves
or others" (T.261). But, of course, these two cases are not the same. In the
thought experiment,Hume does (albeit only imaginatively) stand outside of
the observed mind and can thus observe all of that mind's occurrentpercep-
tions; the secondaryideas which have these perceptionsas their objects are in
his mind, whereasthe observedperceptionsare in the otherperson's mind. In
the first-personcase, however, these secondaryideas are part of the mind to
which we are attributingidentity and simplicity, even though we are not at
that moment observing them as perceptions.Our believing that they are part
of the mind needs to be accountedfor.
A similar problemcan be seen in one of Hume's most famous metaphors
for the mind, the theatre, where the perceptions constituting the mind are
comparedto the actors in a play (T.253).26But Hume goes on to explain our
beliefs in the identity and simplicity of mind from the perspective of the
observer of the mind, or, analogously, the spectatorof the play. And yet the
operationsin the mind of the observeror the spectatorare not recognized in
Hume's metaphor,even though in the case of the mind, these operationsare
also believed to be partof the mind being observed. Hume's disavowal of an
interest in the "place, where [the play's] scenes are represented,... [and] the
materials,of which it is compos'd" (T.253)-anything that might serve as a
substance-likesupportfor the actors-perceptions-seems to have blinded him
to his reliance on a position in the audience of his mind.
The fourth reason why Hume might originally have been satisfied with
his account of the belief in the mind's simplicity in the Section is that our
beliefs about our secondaryideas have a somewhat different status from our
beliefs about our primary perceptions. Hume thinks that usually we form
beliefs about perceptionswhen we "observe"them (T.252). But even though
we do not observe the secondaryideas involved in producingour belief in the
unity and identity of the observed perceptions, we nonetheless believe that
they are presentin our minds. But what is the natureof this belief? How is it
possible to believe that the secondary ideas by means of which we observe
our minds are themselves part of our minds without thereby having higher-
level ideas of them?Why does Hume not say that,just as we are not aware of
the perceptionof a tree when we are aware of a tree by means of that percep-
tion (recall Hume's denial of the first of the Lockian points), we are not
awareof the secondaryideas of our primaryperceptionswhen we are awareof
those perceptionsby means of those secondaryideas?
Indeed, I take it that this is how things normally work when we philoso-
phize. We remainunawareof the secondaryideas by means of which we make
claims about our minds. We have only an indeterminateunderstandingof the
place of our secondaryideas in our mindsjust as in common life people have
only an indeterminateunderstandingof the place of theirprimaryperceptions
in their minds (T. 189-90). But things are different when, in the context of a
discussion like the one that occurs in the Section, philosophersbring forward
the perceptual constitution of mind as a topic of discussion. For then we
believe that the mind is a bundle of perceptions at the same time as we
believe that secondary ideas are working behind our backs, as it were, to
produce our beliefs in the simplicity and identity of mind. Our secondary
26 "The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their
appearance;pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and
situations. There is properlyno simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different;what-
ever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The
comparison of the theatremust not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only,
that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these
scenes are represented,or of the materials,of which it is composed"(T.253).
ideas are the objects of a theoreticalclaim-that associationsamong them are
responsiblefor these beliefs-without being "observed"in the mannerneeded
for them to be associatively integratedinto the bundle.What then can explain
our nonethelessbelieving thatthe unobservedsecondaryideas, the presenceof
which is indirectlyrecognized given Hume's explanationof our beliefs about
the mind, are part of our simple, identical minds? This is what leaves Hume
in the "labyrinth"(T.633) he describesin the "Appendix."
(6) Singularity: Perhaps the most difficult problem for most interpre-
tations of the "Appendix"is that they fail to explain why Hume thinks that
his discussion of personal identity contains his single "very considerable
mistake" (T.623) in all of Books I and 11.27He seems to find the problem he
27 For example, those who see Hume's problem in the "Appendix" as having to do with
mental activity (see n. 15) will have difficulty explaining why this problem does not infect
the whole of Book I, since mental activities are endemic to it.
Also, several recent interpreters take Hume's problem in the "Appendix" to
concern how perceptions can be taken to be in a bundle in the first place. Garrettthinks
that this is a problem for Hume only in the case of those perceptions that lack spatial
properties(such as passions, tastes, and smells [T.235]) ("Hume's Self-Doubts," 350-58;
Cognition, 180-85). Stroudworries about how Hume can explain the discreteness of one
person's bundle from another's (Hume, 134-40). John Haugeland thinks that Hume's
account of mental causation presupposes that perceptions come in bundles, but that he
can only explain their coming in bundles in terms of mental causation ("Hume on
Personal Identity;"this essay has circulated in manuscriptform for many years, and is
often cited as being co-authored by Paul Grice, but it has recently appeared in Hauge-
land's Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind [Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998], 63-71, where he clarifies his sole authorshipof it, and apprecia-
tion of Grice for his help with it [364]). Pearsthinks that the problemis understandingthe
causal relations between perceptions "as mental particulars"prior to the 'bundling' of
the "total mind" into "individual minds" (Hume's System [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990], 135-51).
The general problemwith these interpretationsis that they think that Hume startsout
with a notion of perceptions as existing in some free-floating way, such that their being
found in bundles constitutingindividuals' minds becomes a mystery. The text they take to
supportthis assumptionis Hume's comment that "thereis no absurdityin separatingany
particular perception from the mind; that is, in breaking off all its relations, with that
connected mass of perceptions,which constitutea thinkingbeing" (T.207). But we should
be wary of wrenching this statement from its unusual, dialectical context, where Hume
has announced that he will speak of objects and perceptions interchangeably (T.202,
211). I take it that his point in this passage is that we can always separate in thought a
perception from all others; we have the freedom to resist our associative impulses (T.10).
And there could be a mind with this single perception (T.634). In undertaking the
"science of man," we step outside of our minds, as it were, to observe its operations in
terms of perceptions.But we do not thereby observe all the perceptionsin the world!
In the end, it is hard to see how these interpretationscan explain Hume's thought
that his problem about personalidentity is singular:If he had recognized a grave problem
about bundling, he should have expressed concern about the overall success of his
project (Stroud acknowledges this consequence of his interpretation,Hume, 140, as do
Pears, Hume's System, 151, and Haugeland,"Hume,"70). These interpretationswill also
have problems with the "insulation"criterion, described below, (7), in that other occur-
rences of the idea of self in Books I and II would be jeopardized if Hume had indeed
recognized any problemswith bundling.
diagnoses in the "Appendix"to be a limited one, affecting only the Section
and not any other partof his treatmentof the understanding.Indeed, most of
the rest of Book I (the discussion of space and time, Partii of Book I, is the
notable exception) re-appearsin one form or another in the first Enquiry,
which he describes as differing from the Treatise only in the "manner"in
which his views are presented.28Accordingly, as much as we might see
general and pervasive problemsin Hume's quite austereempiricist program,
we ought not to read them into an interpretationof the "Appendix;"instead
we should explain why Hume thinks that the problem acknowledgedthere is
not a threatto his other views.
On my interpretation,Hume's problem is in explaining our belief in the
mind's simplicity-why we believe the secondaryideas to be partof the mind
even though no ideas of them are associated with our ideas of our other
perceptions. Given that, for him, the vehicles for mental observation are
secondary ideas which themselves remain unobserved, it will always be
impossible to have all of the mind in view all at once. But the only time he
needs to have this panoramicperspectiveon the mind is in his explanationof
our belief in its simplicity. We have seen that in other cases, if he needs to
consider the role of secondaryideas, he can always step back and bring them
into view, by formulating tertiary ideas of them. It follows that the
"Appendix,"which on my view depends on Hume's recognitionof this prob-
lem with mental observation, is a withdrawalonly from the account of the
belief in mental simplicity and identity. Hume's conception of scepticism
seems to allow him to take this problem to be a localized one, and thus not
to see his second thoughts as creatingdangerousproblems anywhere else in
his theory.
(7) Insulation: Not only does Hume think that his "mistake" in his
treatment of personal identity is singular, he also seems to think that this
mistake is insulated from the many other appearancesof the idea of self in
Books I and II of the Treatise. For example, even though Hume openly
appeals to his view of the mind as a "bundle"of perceptions at a crucial
moment in "Of scepticism with regardto the senses,"29he shows no sign of
28 Hume says: "I had always entertaineda notion, that my want of success in publishing the
Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and
that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion,in going to the press too early. I, there-
fore, cast the first part of that work anew in the Enquiryconcerning Human Understand-
ing" ("My Own Life," in D. Hume, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, E. F. Miller
[ed.], [Indianapolis: Liberty/Classics, 1987], xxxv). He says in a letter that the
"philosophicalprinciples are the same" in both the Treatise and the first Enquiry (Letters
of David Hume Vol. 1, J. Y. T. Grieg [ed.], [Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1932], 158).
29 "[W]hat we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions,
united together by certain relations, and suppos'd tho' falsely, to be endow'd with a
perfect simplicity and identity" (T.207; there is a footnote referringto T.I.iv.6 at T.206).
Robert Fogelin draws attentionto this passage when suggesting that Hume's problem in
the "Appendix" concerns the nature of the "connection" that is supposed to obtain
worry that he must re-visit this section in the "Appendix."3"On my view,
this is not a problembecause Hume, in the "Appendix,"is not backing off of
his claim that the mind is a bundle of perceptions, even though he now
recognizes that no one can view, at one time, all of her own mind as such a
bundle.31He is withdrawingonly from his explanation of our belief in the
mind's simplicity and identity.
Hume also seems to think that his problemwith his treatmentof personal
identity and simplicity does not infect his use of the idea of self in Book II of
the Treatise, even though the idea of self plays two centralroles there:First,
it is the object of the "indirectpassions" of pride and humility (T.277). And,
second, Hume relies on what he calls "the idea, or rather impression of
ourselves" (T.317) in his discussion of sympathy, a process by which other
between elements of the bundle. Hume needs to maintainboth that perceptions are sepa-
rable from the bundle, so that they could exist independent of it, and that they are inte-
grated into it in such as way as for associations involving its elements to produce the
belief in the mind's identity and simplicity (Hume's Skepticism, 105-8). As Fogelin
admits, if this were really Hume's problem, he should have recognized that it affects
more than the Section; in particular it applies to "Of scepticism with regard to the
senses." But, like those who see Hume's problem as one of bundling, Fogelin wrenches
Hume's discussion of 'unperceivedperceptions' (T.206-8), where the idea of separating
perceptions from the bundle arises, out of context even though Hume is openly using a
non-standardnotion of perceptionat this point in his argument(T.202, 211).
30 In fact, the bundle view even re-appearsin Hume's final work, the Dialogues Concern-
ing Natural Religion, where all of the charactersassent to Demea's statement that "the
soul of man ... [is] a composition of various faculties, passions, sentiments ideas; united,
indeed, into one self or person, but still distinct from each other" (Norman Kemp Smith
[ed. and intro.], [Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill,1947], 159).
31 Our ideas of our minds as bundles of perceptions will, however, be "inadequate"(T.23,
29), Hume's term for ideas that do not fully capture the details of their objects (Locke
also uses this term, E.II.xxxi). Our ideas of higher numbers, for example, are usually
inadequate to their objects, in that we often do not have a distinct notion of 1000 (as
opposed to 1001) when thinking of it. Hume thinks that, since the mind has "the power of
producing"an adequate version of the idea when needed, the inadequacy of these ideas
does not make a difference in our reasoning (T.23). The fact that the idea of our mind as
a bundle of perceptions misses out on some of the unremembered perceptions is an
inadequacy somewhat similar to the inadequacy of our ideas of high numbers. If I need
to know whether I was the one who, say, went to England when I was two years old, I
can rectify the inadequacyof the currentidea of my mind by tracing out causal connec-
tions between my rememberedperceptions and the forgotten experiences of the trip to
England. Most of the time, the inadequacyof our ideas of our minds broughtabout by the
omission of the secondaryideas (by which we think about our mental contents as percep-
tions) can easily be fixed by a further reflection through which we make the missing
secondary ideas into the objects of tertiaryideas. But the fact that I can never form an
idea which captures all the perceptions in my mind at that very moment means that the
idea of self is necessarily inadequate.
Since the discussion of inadequacycomes as an aside in the discussion of generality
(T.I.i.7), I interpretGarrettto mean that the idea of self is inadequatewhen he suggests
that the idea of self is general ("Hume's Self-Doubts," 340). For surely it makes no sense
to treat the idea of self as a general idea. My idea of self-qua-mind is the idea of my
concrete bundle of perceptions, one that contains only the experiences I have undergone;
it is not the idea of mind-in-general.
people's sentiments are transfused into us so that we come to feel their
sentiments. An interpretationof the "Appendix"must be able to show that
his rejection of the Section's argumentdoes not affect his use of the idea of
self in these other contexts.
My interpretationcan easily satisfy this criterionbecause it points to the
special philosophical context of Hume's concern with persons in the Section
and the "Appendix."He is interestedin understandingour beliefs about our
minds, especially when we observe them philosophically. But as I noted in
?1 above, the self as it appears in Book II is the self "as it regards our
passions or the concern we take in ourselves"(T.253). There Hume describes
the mental principles that explain our everyday notion of persons. The fact
that he is unable to account for why, when reflecting on the mind's percep-
tual constitution, we take it to be simple and identical is irrelevantfor this
project.
?4. Conclusion
I am not the first person to have suggested that Hume's problems in the
"Appendix"concern the issue of reflection.Norman Kemp Smith, for exam-
ple, suggests that Hume came to recognize that the mind must include
"thoughtprocesses which amountto reflexion, in the ordinary,non-technical,
sense of that term,"32but that he was unable to explain the possibility of
reflective thinking. Unfortunately Kemp Smith does not explain what he
means by 'reflexion', nor he does spell out just why Hume would have prob-
lems with explaining this kind of thought. D. G. C. MacNabb wonders how
a bundle of perceptionscould reflectively be aware of itself.33But he misses
out on the fact that, for Hume, this means simply that there are perceptions
in the bundle which have other perceptions as their objects.34In the end,
neither of these interpretationsis successful because they do not show how
reflection would pose a problem for Hume, given his own understandingof
his project. And, more importantly,they fail to recognize the special charac-
ter of the reflectionpresupposedby our beliefs aboutour minds as bundles of
perceptions. They fail to see that the negative argumentat the beginning of
the Section means that the remainingpositive argumentsdeal with the beliefs
we hold when we reflectively observe our perceptionsin the course of philos-
ophizing.
What I have shown is that understandingreflection in the way that Hume
himself seems to understandit-namely, as making our perceptions into the
objects of our thoughtthroughthe use of secondaryideas-allows us to find
a truly Humean problem in the "Appendix."We cannot reflect on all of our
32 The Philosophy of David Hume (London:Macmillan, 1941), 556.
33 David Hume: His Theoryof Knowledgeand Morality(London:Hutchinson, 1951), 152.
34 Pike makes this point in "Hume's Bundle Theory of the Self: A Limited Defence,"
AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly4 (1967), 159-65.
perceptions at one time, even though the only Humean explanation we can
give for our belief in the mind's simplicity requiresjust such a reflection.
Hume saw no route out of this problem,I suggest, and he concluded that the
only method available for understandingthe operations of the mind-his
"science of man"-was of no use for understandingthis facet of humanexpe-
rience. Hume seems to have been remarkablyunconcernedabout this limita-
tion to his philosophical project.
But, in retrospect, we can see Hume's recognition of the inability of
introspective investigation to yield an explanationof our beliefs in the unity
of mind as setting the stage for Kant's innovation-transcendental appercep-
tion, a mode of self-awarenessboth differentfrom Humeanreflection (which
he calls 'inner sense') and in virtue of which our representationsare united.
Kant concedes the empirical point about self-awareness that Hume levels
against Locke and the other philosophers in the first few paragraphsof the
Section; it is true that we are not always thinking of ourselves when we go
about our business in the world. But, in anotherway, namely transcenden-
tally, Kant retains the first of the Lockian points about the omnipresence of
self-awareness.We are subjects of thoughtonly if our various ideas, percep-
tions, representations,call them what you will, are united in such a way as
for a person to be able to make judgements. This is a condition of the possi-
bility of thought. And thus even though Hume is right that the mind as
simple and identical only arises as a topic for those who reflect on their
minds, it nonethelessplays a role in our everyday lives because, even without
thinking of it, we presupposeit all the time.35
5 Critique of Pure Reason, N. Kemp Smith (tr.), (New York: St. Martin's, 1965). Kant
discusses transcendental apperception and its role in our thought throughout the
"TranscendentalDeduction" (A 84-130, B 116-69). For his agreement with Hume's
claim that there is no empirical support for the ever-presence of the idea of self, see A
107.

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Hume's Reflections on the Identity and Simplicity of Mind

Hume's Reflections on the Identity

It is notoriously difficult to make sense of Hume's discussion of persons. In

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 557

?1. Philosophical and Common-life Ideas of Self

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,P. H. Nidditch (ed.), (Oxford: Clarendon

558 DONALD C. AINSLIE

6 For these philosophersalso think that self-knowledge has a foundationalepistemic role-

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 559

560 DONALD C. AINSLIE

['t]is certainthat there is no question in philosophy more abstrusethan that concerningidentity,

When we 'enter most intimately' into ourselves in the course of philosophi-

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 561

562 DONALD C. AINSLIE

?2. Philosophical Beliefs in the Identity and

HUME S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 563

564 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 565

19 To a certain extent, then, my interpretationis in agreementwith those who see Hume's

566 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 567

568 DONALD C. AINSLIE

These two principlesare centralto Hume's understandingof perceptionsand

(i) All our distinctperceptionsare distinctexistences (T.636).

(iii) We attribute simplicity and identity to the bundle of perceptions

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 569

570 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 571

572 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 573

574 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 575

576 DONALD C. AINSLIE

HUME'S REFLECTIONSON THE IDENTITYAND SIMPLICITYOF MIND 577

578 DONALD C. AINSLIE

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