The Spiritual Self as the Unifier of all Experience: Why Hume’s Bundle Theory is a flawed theory of Personal Identity and Why we should accept the Psychology of William James David Hume’s “Bundle Theory” is a flawed theory of personal identity. Hume holds that there is no such thing as the self, no compresence, nothing that ties our perceptions and our stream of consciousness together. According to his philosophy, the mind is but a mere theatre in which perceptions come and go, yet do not constitute something that connects one’s experience.
For Hume the self amounts to no-thing and identity is but a fiction. In this paper I argue that Hume’s Bundle Theory is a flawed theory of personal identity because it discounts the very sanctuary of human …show more content…
In my own personal philosophy I see this self as also part of the divine. William James sees this unity of experience and center of ourselves as the ‘Spiritual Self’. According to his Principles of Psychology (1950), “The constituents of the Me may be divided into two classes, those which make up respectively—[1] The material me, [2] the social me, [3] the spiritual me” (James, 1962, p. 191). The spiritual self is radically different than our successive perceptions because it is at the center of all of them. It is no one of the many passing perceptions that cross our minds, but the very unity of all of them. “[R]ather the entire collection of my states of consciousness,” says James (1950, p. 194). The center of this entire collection of states of consciousness possess our psychic faculties and also unify our feeling states. “This collection can at any moment become an object to my thought at the moment and awakens emotions like those awakened by any of the other portions of the Me…The more active-feeling states of consciousness are thus the more central portions of the spiritual Me” (James, 1962, p. 194). By neglecting unifier of all our faculties, Hume neglects the self that is the very sanctuary of all human …show more content…
211). The spiritual self reigns over all the other selves as the unifier of all experience. The hierarchical scale places the bodily self at the very bottom, the various social selves and the extra-corporeal material selves between, and the spiritual self residing on top. (James, 1962, p. 202). However, we must also have the wisdom to understand that the spiritual self is the true or authentic self. “[T]he seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real” (James, 1962, p. 199). This is why it is the spiritual self that is the self of
For Hume the self amounts to no-thing and identity is but a fiction. In this paper I argue that Hume’s Bundle Theory is a flawed theory of personal identity because it discounts the very sanctuary of human …show more content…
In my own personal philosophy I see this self as also part of the divine. William James sees this unity of experience and center of ourselves as the ‘Spiritual Self’. According to his Principles of Psychology (1950), “The constituents of the Me may be divided into two classes, those which make up respectively—[1] The material me, [2] the social me, [3] the spiritual me” (James, 1962, p. 191). The spiritual self is radically different than our successive perceptions because it is at the center of all of them. It is no one of the many passing perceptions that cross our minds, but the very unity of all of them. “[R]ather the entire collection of my states of consciousness,” says James (1950, p. 194). The center of this entire collection of states of consciousness possess our psychic faculties and also unify our feeling states. “This collection can at any moment become an object to my thought at the moment and awakens emotions like those awakened by any of the other portions of the Me…The more active-feeling states of consciousness are thus the more central portions of the spiritual Me” (James, 1962, p. 194). By neglecting unifier of all our faculties, Hume neglects the self that is the very sanctuary of all human …show more content…
211). The spiritual self reigns over all the other selves as the unifier of all experience. The hierarchical scale places the bodily self at the very bottom, the various social selves and the extra-corporeal material selves between, and the spiritual self residing on top. (James, 1962, p. 202). However, we must also have the wisdom to understand that the spiritual self is the true or authentic self. “[T]he seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real” (James, 1962, p. 199). This is why it is the spiritual self that is the self of