Hume Vs Kant

Madison Whittington

Total word count without questions: 1,397

What is Hume’s view of the self? What is Kant’s view of the self? Are these views more similar or more different? Whose view of the self do you favor, and why?

Hume is skeptical of personal identity. He’s skeptical of rationalism, of the ability of causes and effects to be known through our experiences, and argues that we don’t get knowledge of matters of fact through experience. He says that we are bundles of impressions. These impressions change as we have new experiences and perceptions, and are constantly changing. Hume doesn’t think that we have an enduring self. He doesn’t actually think that we can find necessary connections between ideas through logic or rationality alone,

He proposes the idea of a noumenal self which is made up of mental substances, and makes a distinction between things in themselves and things as they’re experienced. Because Kant has a lot of respect for Hume and builds off of a lot of his ideas, I think that their views of the self are more similar than they are different.

While Hume’s philosophy of the importance of experience over rationality resonates with me, I prefer Kant’s view of the self. Kant builds off of Hume’s ideas, but I appreciate that his view of consciousness is unified and that he’s less skeptical of the idea of a self or unitary “I.” Kant’s philosophy also has a place for moral accountability, which I think is important. I don’t think Hume’s philosophy allows for the same accountability as

The paradox of freedom and causation, according to Kant, is a problem because there needs to be room for moral ideas. According to Kant, freedom that is compatible with the idea of causation isn’t a good kind of freedom at all, but is determinism in disguise. The idea that freedom is compatible with necessity, as Hume claims, implies that our desires are determined by “nature” or some sort of natural law of causation. Kant, unlike Hume, thinks there’s a freedom of spontaneity, where one can be the source or cause of something new and different. Unlike Hume, Kant makes a distinction between the phenomena and the noumena with regard to freedom. Kant hates the idea of determinism and fears that Hume’s definition of freedom (as being compatible with necessity) puts us at risk of being unable to blame human beings for their actions. Hume holds that you can only be held to the approximate cause of what you do, while Kant insists that human behavior and morality must be blame