Space and the Self in Hume’s Treatise

Hume’s discussion of the idea of space in his Treatise on Human Nature is fundamental to an understanding of his treatment of such central issues as the existence of external objects, the unity of the self, the relation between certainty and belief, and abstract ideas. Marina Frasca-Spada’s rich and original study examines this difficult part of Hume’s philosophical writings and connects it to eighteenth-century works in natural philosophy, mathematics and literature. Focusing on Hume’s discussions of the infinite divisibility of extension, the origin of the idea of space, geometry, and the notion of a vacuum, she shows that the central questions of Hume’s ‘science of human nature’ - what does the ‘science of human nature’ reveal about the mind and its operations? what is experience? - underlie all of these discussions. Her analysis points the way to a reassessment of the central current interpretative problems in Hume studies.

Part I. The Two Parts of Hume’s System of Space: the Centrality of the Self: 1. Reality and the coloured points; 2. A bundle of (organised) perceptions; 3. Intermezzo: the minds of an author and his readers; Part II. Hume’s Objections Answer ‘D’: Clues to the Operations of the Mind: 3. Truth, passion and the a priori; 4. Talking about a vacuum; Conclusion: Space and the self.