Abstract

In this dissertation, I will present a solution to one of the most controversial aspects of David Hume's philosophy, the nature of the self as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature. I will present a thesis which I believe is both simple and straightforward. For Hume the personal indirect passions of pride and humility are constitutive of, or are equivalent to, the impression of the self. Pride and humility form a continuum of affective states along which conscious apperception moves. Thus each moment of conscious life involves the feeling of some degree of pride or humility, and this feeling always has reference to some conception of self. And in a similar fashion, the external indirect passions, love and hatred, are constitutive of, or equivalent to, our knowledge of other minds