Analysis Of Locke And Hume On Personal Identity

Compared to Locke, Hume offered a stricter empirical explanation regarding personal identity, because he believed knowledge was only attainable through “sense-perception”. Unlike Locke, Hume avoided appeals to God and did not trust the human senses—seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and tasting. For instance, Locke stated, “God is without beginning…and therefore concerning his identity there can be no doubt” (x); nevertheless, Hume rejected appeals to God and focused on experiences, which influenced him to introduce two new, enlightening ideas—impressions and ideas. Impressions refer to intense sensations or passions that are experienced by the senses while ideas were mentally thought-out or “faint images” of these urges or experiences (x). …show more content…
In other words, memory helps the individual recall past experiences, which causes the individual to find identity within those experiences. For example, humans can reflect on the past and remember painful or pleasant memories. Hume contrasted the human mind from the soul by describing it as a “republic or commonwealth” where “several members are united by the reciprocal ties of government” (x). Hume meant that the council (soul) follows a strict policy, and it accepts anyone who upholds that traditional policy. This can be seen when individuals accept others who share the same personalities, interests, beliefs, etc.. Hume did believe in uniqueness, because individuals can differ from one another by upholding different “character[s] and disposition[s]...[and] impressions and ideas, without losing [their] identity” (x). Despite all of this information, Hume still proved himself as a genuine philosopher by declaring that personal identity can never be undoubtedly proven, because there must be a judgment between the causal relationship of identity and the relation of ideas, which he did not