...be echoing a famous passage from David Hume about the systematic elusiveness of the self. Hume says: There are some philosophers who imagine we are every...moment intimately conscious of what we call our self. . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular...

...quite contradictory. In Book I of his Treatise, he writes, There are some philosophers who imagine that we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF. . . . Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded...

...good. Descartes had argued for the indubitibility of the self. Hume acknowledges the Cartesian claim. "There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every...demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity [N]or is there any thing, of which we can be certain, if we doubt of this."10 But Hume does doubt the...

...personal identity should already suspect that it is. "There are some philosophers," begins the chapter, "who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious...existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of the demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most violent...

...is structurally similar. Hume proposes to examine the belief of "some philosophers, who imagine that we are every moment intimately conscious of what we...demonstration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity" (Treatise, I.iv.6, 164). He first objects that we do not "have any idea of self, after the manner it...

...(T, 1.4. 5. 35/250). /4 In his discussion of personal identity (T, 1.4.6), Hume begins by noting that there "are some philosophers, who imagine we are every...moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF; and that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence...