David Hume boldly went against convention in claiming that there is no such thing as a

self. This seems irrational and becomes confusing when trying to use language which
presupposes the self. It had been generally held that every person had a self, a personality, a soul.
Kant challenged this and instead said that all man has are bundles of perceptions with no
unifying perception to call the self. Immanuel Kant refutes this idea in his works by answering
the question of what unifies perceptions and thus gives definition to the self. Through his
explanations of the modes of time, Kant points out the manifold in which all perceptions happen
and shows how the self holds that manifold together.
As an empiricist, Hume believes that all knowledge comes only through experience.
According to Hume, every idea can be traced back to a previously held impression, or lively
perception. Upon reflection of ones life, all that can be found is a collection of impressions
from past experiences. Hume points out that man cannot find a solid impression of the self but
instead can only find impressions that happened to the self.
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
anything but the perception (Hume 134)
Hume posits that the self cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions or from
any other that the idea of self is derived, and, consequently, there is no such idea (Hume, 134).
Instead, the supposed self is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions, similarly to how all
objects are bundles of matter. He supports this with the metaphors of Theseuss ship and the
chariot, supporting the Buddhist view of identity. In both analogies, he explains that the identity
of the ship or chariot is not contained within the matter of the object. This is true because, if any
part of the ship or chariot was removed or replaced, they would no longer be the same object.
Furthermore, all matter is in constant flux which would eliminate all identity if identity was tied

solely to matter. It is understood that if you remove a wheel from a chariot or replace a sail on
the ship, that that object retains its identity. They are able to do so by way of a two-fold truth: on
a superficial level, all things do exist as is. The chariot and ship can retain their identity because
their identity is superficially real and is not tied strictly to matter but to a concept. On the other
hand, no true identity exists because all is changing and interconnected. This leads to a form of
emptiness in objective identity and is the ground to much Buddhist philosophy.
Hume makes the assumption that the self cannot exist because we cannot reflect on any
unifying perception of the self. This only leaves a bundle of perceptions. Hume fails to explain
how it is that all of mans perceptions are ordered and connected. If a self did not exist and there
was no constant to unify the perceptions, then there would be no way to tell which perceptions
came first, which persisted through time, or if any of them coexisted. It would be analogous to
having all of lifes perceptions laid out as pictures, scattered across a table with no order or flow.
This is not true of human experience; rather, humans perceptions are logically ordered in the
way they happened in experience. This leaves the question of what it is that allows these
perceptions to be ordered and in community with one another.
This unifying thing is the first-person experience of man. It is similar to how a video
camera works: a camera simply captures images, or perceptions, from the world around it. It can
only do this through its lenses. The result is a flow of images which are chronologically ordered.
It would be preposterous to claim that the camera does not exist simply because it is not an
object in any of the pictures. The camera simply cant record itself because of its firstpersonhood. Furthermore, all of the single images that make up the video flow in the manner in
which they happened rather than being random and scattered. The question remains how it is that
these perceptions are unified within the self. This is where Emanuel Kants Critique of Pure
Reason brings light to the subject.

In this work, Kant introduces the concept of synthetic apriori judgments. Here a predicate
that does not exist in the subject is added to give further meaning to the subject. This is in
contrast to analytic judgments which simply describe some part of the subject with one of its
contained predicates. He then explains that the concepts of space and time are these synthetic
Apriori truths, which are necessary yet not sufficient for human experience. They are the
unifying truths that give order to human perceptions. Kant explains this through three modes of
time: duration, succession, and coexistence.
The first mode, duration, is proven through the dual concept of substance and accidence.
For any perceivable change or characteristic of an object, there must be a basic framework or
constant to which the change or characteristic can be compared. If no constant exists, all things
would simply come into existence upon perception and then constantly be destroyed and remade
for every subsequent instant. Kant takes objection to this idea, stating that In all change of
appearances substance is permanent; its quantum in nature is neither increased nor diminished
(401). Substance therefore is the constant, the backdrop that allows change to be perceived. It is
what allows man to perceive the same object over time. It is this persistence of substance that is
called duration.
The second mode, succession, is proven through the dual concept of cause and effect. The
General Causal Principle states that every effect had a cause. Kant uses the analogy of a ship
passing to illustrate that some perceptions happen in an irreversible fashion. When a ship sails
down a river, different parts of it are perceived at different times depending on where the eye
focuses first. If someone looks first at the stern of the ship and then scans to the bow, it would be
impossible for that same person to see the bow at the beginning of the river. Perceptions happen
in a successive fashion due to the General Causal Principle. Giving structure to experience, Kant

claims that All alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and
effect (403). This realization of succession is accomplished by the supersensory faculty of
reason. This is what allows man to keep track of perceptions and unify them.
The third mode, coexistence, is proven through reciprocal interaction. This final mode of
time explains how one can trust that any objects or perceptions of objects are happening at the
same time rather than popping into and out of existence. In contrast to the ship, Kant uses the
analogy of a house to explain this concept. Here a house is perceived by a man. The man can
scan the house left to right or any way he chooses. Regardless of where he starts, nothing is
changed due to the reversibility of the perception. The man can scan one way, then another, yet
all of the parts of the house exist at the same time and can be seen in any order. This is possible
due to the dynamic community which all objects are in. They are all experiencing ongoing
interaction which ties them together in a patient agent relationship. Kant drives this point home
with the analogy of the moon and earths relationship: I can direct my perception first to the
moon and subsequently to the earth, or conversely, first to the earth and then subsequently to the
moon, and on this account, since the perceptions of these objects can follow each other
reciprocally, I say that they exist simultaneously (316). This perfectly illustrates how there are
necessary connections between objects in reality.
Kant stresses that coexistence is objective and within the objects themselves and not a
construct of the mind. This is also true of succession. This is important because it places the
unification of perceptions within the real world. It also gives credence to succession and
duration because if the community did not exist, then no object could affect another object and
all objects could be constantly new and nothing would be effected by anything else. If this was

true, then man would not be able to perceive any objects for they wouldnt have the power to be
perceived.
This all ties back into the self by giving a rational framework in which all experience
happens. Hume could not find this framework or unifying perception and concluded that there
was none to find as the result. The self does exist and is not simply a bundle of perceptions. The
self is the first personhood of each person which allows our perceptions to be perceived and held
in a logical order and unity. The self is more than just a camera that randomly collects light, but
includes a supersensical faculty that allows mankind to reflect and compare perceptions. The self
is fundamentally a point of reference in which all perceptions are collected from, and is what the
manifold of experience is held together by.
Some may take objection to Kants synthetic apriori truths because they are not purely
apriori. This is to say that they do require some amount of experience. The idea of a cause is not
contained in the concept of a happening or effect. Kant believes that the concept of a cause can
be necessarily tied to an effect, but experience is needed to do so. Hume would argue that this
synthesis is not strong enough and requires circular argumentation for any strength. Kants dual
categories do support each other, but they are not begging any question. Kant is also not claiming
anything about the totally objective world but merely pertains to human experience. This being
said, he is not claiming that the self exists outside of experience. The self belongs to the self and
is what allows for Kant to answer the question of how he knows any of the things that he knows
on a metaphysical, not epistemological scale.
In conclusion, the self was proven to exist through Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Here
Kant picks up where Hume left off, diving deeper into metaphysics and explaining how it is that
Humes bundle of perceptions exist in a perceivable unity. By explaining how it is that humans

perceive things within time, Kant brings confidence back to the self and proves its necessity for
all experience to take place.

Works Cited

Hume, David. "A Treatise of Human Nature ." Michael Johnson Philosophy. Clarendon Press,
n.d. Web. 5 Dec 2013. <http://michaeljohnsonphilosophy.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/5010_Hume_Treatise_Human_Nature.pdf>.
Kant, Immanuel. "Critique of Pure Reason." 2.hn.psu. N.p., 2013. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.