The Bundling of the self: The empirical basis for the unity of the self in Hume and James (David Hume, William James)

We are inclined to believe that we are persisting, unified subjects that undergo experience, whether or not we believe in souls or substantial entities of some sort that are often posited as persisting subjects. Where does this belief come from? To deal with this question, I examine David Hume's and William James' accounts of the self, both of whom attempt to provide the empirical basis for such a belief.; In the Appendix to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume acknowledges that his account of our belief in a persisting self offered earlier in that work involves a profound problem that he has no hope to solve. Contrary to the common interpretation that puts Hume's newly-found problem in his very account of the idea of the self, I suggest that it arises from his presupposition throughout Book One of the Treatise that perceptions are initially bundled together. I argue that Hume's theoretical commitment to the radical independence of perceptions does not allow him to maintain the initial unity of perceptions (i.e., a unified self). Nor is he able to explain the formation of it. I call this the Bundling problem. In contrast, James improves upon Hume by developing more detailed descriptions of experience and simply avoids the Bundling problem by rejecting Hume's atomistic theory of experience, affirming that experience is fundamentally unitary and continuous, which he calls "the stream of consciousness." A rigorous analysis of experience enables James to account for our belief of a persisting subject on empirical grounds.; Consideration of James' accounts sheds a great light on Hume's fundamental problem. I argue that Hume's atomistic theory of experience---which proves to be the source of the Bundling problem---is a metaphysical theory, which is in conflict with his own professed empiricist methodology. The Bundling problem is not, therefore, inherent in his empiricism itself. Hence, there still is hope for an empiricist account of our belief in a persisting self, and this hope is found in James.