David Hume on personal identity and the indirect passions

Abstract

To answer the question of why we have “so great a propension to ascribe an identity to these successive impressions” which make up experience, Hume says we must distinguish “betwixt personal identity, as it regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves.” This paper concentrates on the second part of the distinction and especially on the discussion of the indirect passions in book II of the Treatise. It shows that pride, humility, love and hatred are an important part of Hume’s answer to the above question.