An enactive resolution to Hume's problem of personal identity

1
An enactive resolution to Hume's problem of
personal identity

• Tom Froese
• Life and Mind 22

2
Outline of the talk

• Humes problem of personal identity
• Identity of living bodies
• Identity of mind
• Causality
• The enactive account of identity
• A phenomenological resolution

3
A bundle theory of identity

• Hume famously observed that when I turn my
  reflection on myself, I never can perceive this
  self without some one or more perceptions nor
  can I ever perceive any thing but the
  perceptions. Tis the composition of these,
  therefore, which forms the self (THN. App.15).
• In other words the mind is kind of theatre,
  where several perceptions successively make their
  appearance pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle
  in an infinite variety of postures and
  situations. There is properly no simplicity in it
  at one time, nor identity in different . The
  comparison of the theatre must not mislead us.
  They are the successive perceptions only, that
  constitute the mind (THN. 1.4.6.4).

4
A psychological account

• On epistemological grounds Hume rejects the
  existence of a substantial self as a possible
  explanation for why we tend to attribute identity
  to some of our changing perceptions. Thats an
  issue for metaphysicians.
• For Hume this psychological propensity can only
  be explained in terms of distinct perceptions and
  certain relations, most notably resemblance and
  causation.
• He is interested in how our belief in identity
  gets formed. Under what circumstances is identity
  disclosed in our experience? How is it
  constituted?

5
Different kinds of identity

• Hume identifies 3 different kinds of identity
  which are disclosed to our experience
• The identity of inanimate natural objects
• The identity of inanimate artificial objects
• The identity of animate objects
• The identity of mind (i.e. personal identity)
  most closely resembles that of animate objects
  (i.e. living bodies).
• How are these different identities constituted?

6
Inanimate natural identity

• Hume provides a psychological explanation of how
  we come to ascribe an identity to a particular
  subset of the total perceptions which constitute
  the ongoing flow of our experience, leading to a
  belief in an identical object
• He appeals to the relation of resemblance there
  is a smooth and easy transition between the
  different perceptions so that through our
  imagination we are led to believe that tis
  nothing but continud survey of the same object
  (THN. 1.4.6.8).
• Nevertheless, if sufficient small changes in such
  an object add up to a considerable change in
  proportion to the whole, the ascription of
  identity ceases.

7
Inanimate artificial identity

• Hume notes that our propensity to attribute
  identity is increased when the imagination is
  faced with an object where there is a reference
  of the parts to each other, and a combination to
  some common end or purpose (THN. 1.4.6.11).
• As an example he considers the classic story of
  the ship, which over time has a considerable
  amount of its parts and materials replaced, but
  is still considered to be the same ship.
• When faced with humanly designed artifacts the
  common end, in which the parts conspire, is the
  same under all their variations, and affords an
  easy transition of the imagination from one
  situation of the body to another (THN.
  1.4.6.11).

8
Identity of living bodies

• But this is still more remarkable, when we add a
  sympathy of parts to their common end, and
  suppose that they bear to each other, the
  reciprocal relation of cause and effect in all
  their actions and operations. This is the case
  with all animals and vegetables where not only
  the several parts have a reference to some
  general purpose, but also a mutual dependence on,
  and connexion with each other. The effect of so
  strong a relation is, that tho every one must
  allow, in a very few years both vegetables and
  animals endure a total change, yet we still
  attribute identity to them, while their form,
  size, and substance are entirely alterd. (THN.
  1.4.6.12)

9
Mechanisms of identity attribution

• The 3 different types of identity are ordered in
  increasing propensity for identity attribution
  due to the following mechanisms
• Inanimate natural object resemblance
• Inanimate artificial object common end
• Animate object reciprocal causality
• What about the identity attributed to mind?

10
Identity of mind

• In order to proceed in this manner will not be
  easy, since to explain it perfectly we must take
  the matter pretty deep, and account for that
  identity, which we attribute to plants and
  animals there being a great analogy betwixt it,
  and the identity of a self or person (THN.
  1.4.6.5).
• tis evident, the same method of reasoning must
  be continud, which has so successfully explaind
  the identity of plants, and animals, and ships,
  and houses, and of all the compounded and
  changeable productions either of art or nature.
  The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of
  man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like with
  that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal
  bodies (THN. 1.4.6.15).

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Identity as a fiction?

• Hume often refers to aspects of our experience as
  fictions. These are generally constituted by the
  imagination and strongly compel our belief.
• In the case of personal identity it is our belief
  in a simple identity even when faced with a
  composite identity.
• what we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or
  collection of different perceptions, united
  together by certain relations, and supposd, tho
  falsely, to be endowd with a perfect simplicity
  and identity (THN. 1.4.2.39).

12
Identity of mind

• Hume proposes that, like the identity of living
  bodies, personal identity is a non-substantial,
  non-localized, relational, composite identity.
• This identity is autonomous and self-organizing.
• It has the capacity for active constitution and
  generating interaction through simple mechanistic
  principles such as habit/custom and different
  kinds of association.

13
So far, so good?

• So what is wrong with this account of personal
  identity such that Hume famously disavows it in
  the Appendix to the Treatise?
• all my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the
  principles, that unite our successive perceptions
  in our thought or consciousness. I cannot
  discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction
  on this head. In short there are two principles,
  which I cannot render consistent nor is it in my
  power to renounce either of them, viz. that all
  our distinct perceptions are distinct existences,
  and that the mind never perceives any real
  connexion among distinct existences. Did our
  perceptions either inhere in something simple and
  individual, or did the mind perceive some real
  connexion among them, there woud be no
  difficulty in the case. (THN. App.20-21)
• We have already seen why Hume rejects the notion
  of substance identity. But what about the second
  principle?

14
Causality

• Humes rejection of the real connections needed
  for his account of identity is based on his
  account of how causality is disclosed to us.
• Imagine event A then event B!
• In this case all we can know is that B followed
  A. Even if the sequence repeats several times,
  there is nothing new about each individual
  situation. However, if we experience this
  sequence often enough we actually start to
  believe that A causes B.
• Accordingly, Hume claims that this sense of a
  necessary connection between the events is not
  intrinsic to the sequence but rather constituted
  by our mind through force of habit and then
  projected onto the events. It is therefore
  another fiction of our imagination.
• Why is this a problem for Humes account of
  personal identity?

15
Humes problem of personal identity

• We have no philosophical grounds to transfer the
  determination of the thought to external objects,
  and suppose any real intelligible connexion
  betwixt them that being a quality, which can
  only belong to the mind that considers them
  (THN. 1.3.14.27).
• Now we are in a position to understand Humes
  problem of personal identity as resulting from an
  internal incoherence of his philosophy. Since he
  has rejected the notion of substance while still
  retaining the claim that perceptions are distinct
  from each other, it follows that the perceptions
  of the mind form a whole only by being connected
  together. But no connexions among distinct
  existences are ever discoverable by human
  understanding (THN. App.20).
• If Hume is unable to resolve this issue then when
  his philosophical framework is applied
  exclusively to the world (including other agents)
  it commits him to the undesirable position of
  idealistic solipsism, and when applied to his own
  personal identity it becomes self-refuting.

16
Enactive account of individuality

• Hume has been credited with having brilliantly
  formulated the discovery of selfless minds, a
  discovery of fundamental relevance to the human
  situation, but as unable to conceive of a way
  to bring that discovery together with everyday
  experience (Varela, Thompson Rosch 1991, p.
  129-130) through notions such as
  self-organization and emergence.
• While there is certainly a problem regarding the
  reconciliation of his account of personal
  identity with his own experience, it is not
  because of his discovery of selfless minds as
  such, but rather because he was forced to
  conceive of them as mere powerless fictions.

17
A shared problem?

• The identity of the whole system is not
  substantial but rather emerges out of the
  interactions of the parts, and emergents, of
  course, do not have the status of ontological
  entities (substances) (Varela, Thompson Rosch
  1991, p. 118).
• The identity of an organism is nonsubstantially
  localized, and yet perfectly able to generate
  interactions (Varela 1997).
• Maturana claims it is inadequate to attribute
  causal relations to living systems since the
  notion of causality is a notion that pertains to
  the domain of descriptions, and as such it is
  relevant only in the metadomain in which the
  observer makes his commentaries and cannot be
  deemed to be operative in the phenomenal domain,
  the object of description (Maturana Varela
  1980, p. xviii).
• The enactive account shares Humes problem. Can
  it resolve it?

18
An enactive resolution

• The strategy pursued here will be to ground our
  notion of causality in the experience of our
  lived body in action rather than following Hume
  in attributing it to the operations of a
  disembodied observer.
• The evidence of causality in our bodily
  experience is considered by Hume in two footnotes
  in the Enquiry but quickly dismissed for two main
  reasons 1) the limited domain of applicability
  of the experience and the danger of
  anthropomorphism, and 2) the lack of conceptual
  clarity it can afford.
• Hume models his theory of perception on vision,
  which in its character is the most passive and
  objectifying sense. It is therefore the most
  conducive for knowledge, but easily leads to a
  dismissal of any kind of experiential evidence
  which, being not a datum but an actum,
  cannot be seen, i.e. objectified, but only
  experience from within when exerted or suffered
  (Jonas 1950).

19
The lived body in action

• If we remove the Cartesian straightjacket, which
  is constraining Humes rudimentary phenomenology,
  and extend his empiricism to include the full
  range of our lived experience, then the primary
  aspect of causality is not regular connection,
  not even necessary connection, but force and
  influence and, more importantly, that these are
  themselves original contents of experience
  (Jonas 1950).
• the source of this experience is, indeed, not
  sense perception, but our body exerting itself in
  action the source which Hume summarily
  dismisses under the head of animal nisus
  (Jonas 1950).
• A phenomenological re-conceptualization of
  causality!
• Note that this move entails (i) that causality is
  no longer just a groundless fiction of the
  imagination, and (ii) that a coherent
  non-substantial account of personal identity is
  now possible.

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Concluding remarks

• This solution provides a good reason to follow
  Jonas (1950) in proclaiming that the right of
  extrapolation from this source beyond its
  immediate range of deliverance is a question to
  be studied, without fear of the blame of
  anthropomorphism, by an organic philosophy.
• Fortunately, the phenomenology of the lived body
  is a central aspect of enactivism (e.g. Thompson
  2007).
• Moreover, since it already appeals to the
  evidence of our intrinsic teleology in us as a
  part of its account of autonomous agency (Weber
  Varela 2002), it is only a small step to also
  include our lived bodily experience of the
  animal nisus as another source of evidence.

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References

• Hume, D. (1739-1740), A Treatise of Human Nature,
  in D.F. Norton M.J. Norton (eds.), Oxford
  Philosophical Texts, Oxford, UK Oxford
  University Press, 2000
• Hume, D. (1748), An Enquiry Concerning Human
  Understanding, in T.L. Beauchamp (ed.), Oxford
  Philosophical Texts, Oxford, UK Oxford
  University Press, 1999
• Jonas, H. (1950), Causality and Perception, The
  Journal of Philosophy, 47(11), pp. 319-324
• Maturana, H.R. Varela, F.J. (1980), Autopoiesis
  and Cognition The Realization of the Living,
  Dordrecht, Holland D. Reidel Publishing Company
• Thompson, E. (2007), Mind in Life Biology,
  Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind,
  Cambridge, MA The MIT Press
• Varela, F.J. (1997), Patterns of Life
  Intertwining Identity and Cognition, Brain and
  Cognition, 34, pp. 72-87
• Varela, F.J, Thompson, E. Rosch, E. (1991), The
  Embodied Mind Cognitive science and human
  experience, Cambridge, MA The MIT Press
• Weber, A. Varela, F.J. (2002), Life after
  Kant Natural purposes and the autopoietic
  foundations of biological individuality,
  Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1, pp.
  97-125