Dog Days of Summer

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Identity is not even in question in Hume; the veil of "tradition"
>tactfully intervenes.
>-- Dennis

Identity (both the principle of identity _in general_ & personal 
identity in particular) is in question _for Hume_ (though Hume says 
that not just "vulgar" views but also "philosophical" views fail to 
question it properly).  The specific question of personal identity is 
discussed in _A Treatise of Human Nature_.  For instance, Hume argues:

*****   In order to justify to ourselves this absurdity [that is, the 
ascription of identity to distinct perceptions], we often feign some 
new and unintelligible principle, that connects the objects together, 
and prevents their interruption or variation.  Thus we feign the 
continued existence of the perceptions of our senses to remove the 
interruption; and run into the notion of a _soul_, and _self_ and 
_substance_, to disguise the variation, we may farther observe, that 
where we do not give rise to such a fiction, our propensity to 
confound identity with relation is so great, that we are apt to 
imagine something unknown and mysterious, connecting the parts, 
besides their relation; and this I take to be the case with regard to 
the identity we ascribe to plants and vegetables.  And even when this 
does not take place, we will feel a propensity to confound these 
ideas, tho' we are not fully able to satisfy ourselves in that 
particular, nor find anything invariable and uninterrupted to justify 
our notion of identity.   (_A Treatise of Human Nature_, ed. L.A. 
Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2nd edn., pp. 
254-5)   *****

According to Harold W. Noonan, however, even aside from Hume's view 
on the propensity to cover over gaps through notions such as soul, 
self, & substance & to create a fiction of personal identity, 
_identity in general_ has to be defined away for Hume from the 
get-go: "As we observed here, given the account of the genesis of the 
idea of identity that Hume gives, it cannot just be to _variable_ or 
_interrupted_ objects, in his view, that identity fails to apply. 
The same must also be true of invariable and uninterrupted objects 
[if such things can be said to exist].  The idea of identity, to be 
distinct from that of unity, must imply duration, but duration 
implies change.  Thus nothing _could_ answer to Hume's notion of 
identity, not even a constant and uninterrupted series of perceptions 
and not even 'a _soul_, and _self_ and _substance_" (Noonan, _Hume on 
Knowledge_, New York: Routledge, 1999, p. 192).

Hume is _not_ interested in pursuing the logic of his argument to 
radical scepticism of the Pyrrhonian kind (and its recommended 
attitudes of epoche & ataraxia -- suspending judgement for the 
Pyrrhonian sceptics meant living without belief [dogma]).  "Thus the 
sceptic still continues to reason and believe, even tho' he asserts 
that he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he 
must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho' 
he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its 
veracity.  Nature has not left this to his choice..." (_Treatise_, p. 
187).  What Hume _is_ interested in is the causes of our _belief_ in 
an external world, causal necessity (as opposed to merely contingent 
experiences of constant conjunctions), identity, etc. that (for him) 
cannot be _known_ philosophically (Hume insists on distinction 
between belief & knowledge).

As for the veil of custom, tradition, etc., Butler wouldn't be happy 
with such old-fashioned terms, to be sure.  She'd like us to use new 
terms (like discourse, the symbolic, performance, and so forth), 
instead of old ones.  As if to say, "Now, something completely 
different!"  Is Butler less conservative than Hume, however?  Hume 
(rightly) doesn't think that our belief in causal necessity can be 
abolished (even though he [wrongly] thinks it cannot be justified by 
reason); Butler (wrongly) doesn't think that gender can be abolished. 
Her philosophy _conserves_ gender.  Instead of arguing for the 
abolition of gender through political struggles, she advocates -- to 
the extent that her theory can be said to advocate anything -- 
mobilization, subversion, and proliferation of genders. 
Gender-bending, instead of abolitionism.  For me, gender is primarily 
an effect of oppression, and if we can make the oppression that 
causes genders disappear, we can make genders disappear as well (and 
we'll arrive at a more useful, humane, & interesting theory of human 
biology with an X-sex model).  To come back to the article Kelley 
posted (at 
http://www.theposition.com/coverstories/cover1/00/07/17/cover1/default 
2.htm), while I don't begrudge Gungirl her pleasure in bending gender 
her way in her free time, I don't think gunplay in sex, however 
exciting it may be for some, will help us abolish gender oppression 
(much less capitalism).  The same goes for Butler's performance 
theory.

Yoshie