Hume on personal identity

Abstract

This paper argues that Hume’s discussion of personal identity in treatise i.iv.6 is misinterpreted and overrated. Far from seeking a justification for ascribing identity to persons, Hume dismissed all such ascriptions as mistaken; his ‘account’ in i.iv.6 is an attempt to explain how the supposed mistake arises. His own criteria of unity/identity, on the strength of which he excludes persons, are themselves ill-founded: they are criteria for individuating etc., ’things’, the only ones Hume, who failed to grasp Locke’s point that identity goes with classified items, was able to find.