David Hume: Laird of the Bundle

The Philosopher’s Philosopher on Scepticism, Science, and Selfhood

Portrait of David Hume, by Allan Ramsay, 1766 (edited by author) (Public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons). Hume believed that all objects in the universe are understood through units of information that he termed as sensations and ideas. Even our very selves are made up of these units — we are simply a “bundle” of ideas and sensations. There is nothing beneath this surface of impressions.

Towards the end of his groundbreaking A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) David Hume asks us to imagine the mind of an organism “even more simple than an oyster”. This organism possesses only one kind of perception, such as thirst or hunger. It knows nothing else.