A Critical Consideration of Hume’s View of the Origin andContent of the Belief in Human Soul/Spirit

David Hume, an empiricist philosopher, accounts for the contents of conceptions and beliefs by observing their origins; since he thinks that according to the copy principle a conception or belief with a vague origin—one that cannot be traced back to a specific impression—has no specific content and will thus be absurd. Hume adopts the same approach in his account of the origin and content of the belief in the human soul or self or spirit, concluding that the belief in souls is neither rational, nor intuitive (the negative view)—indeed, it is originated in imaginations and is, therefore, erroneous and yet unavoidable (the positive view). In this paper, we will draw on the descriptive-analytic method to consider and criticize Hume’s account of this and show that, on the one hand, his positive view is not satisfactory, involving a number of epistemic gaps, and on the other, he has ignored the role of knowledge by presence in his account of the belief in the soul.