Shortly after opening Book II of the Treatise, Hume presents us with a curious claim. He declares that “pride and humility, tho’ directly contrary, have yet the same OBJECT. This object is self.”1 This passage is puzzling on several counts, not least of which is deciding what to make out of this idea of the self. For the penultimate section of Book I, concluded a scant 14 pages before, develops a highly skeptical account of personal identity that seems to deny that we have a well-defined sense of self. Hume there takes aim at those “who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF, … certain, …its perfect identity and simplicity.” Instead, he maintains:
when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schmitter, A.M. (2009). Making an Object of Yourself: On the Intentionality of the Passions in Hume. In: Miller, J. (eds) Topics in Early Modern Philosophy of Mind. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2381-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2381-0_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2380-3
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2381-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)