Friday, February 5, 2016

Self and Sympathy

Hume has two concepts of Self.  One is explicitly estabished and well-recognized: 'a bundle of perceptions'.  The other is undeveloped and has been rarely noticed, deriving from his fundamental Moral principle, i. e. Sympathy.  For, the latter entails a perception of Self and of an Other.  Now, that a perception of Self and a perception of non-Self are conjoined but distinguishable within Sympathy, indicates that neither is derived from the Self qua bundle of perceptions,   Furthermore, since it is plain in Hume's system that Passion has priority over Reason, insofar as there are two concepts of Self, one Cognitive, one part of a Feeling, it is the latter one that has priority.

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