Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 35 of 138
Hume finds no experience of the self
Hume made devastating criticisms of the Cartesian account of the self and personal identity. There is no experience of the self, according to Hume; and the identity that we ascribe to ourselves through the changes in our lives is an entirely fictitious identity. It is a kind of systematic illusion. Many other philosophers follow Hume in supposing that there is no such thing as a self in addition to the sequence of our particular experiences. Lichtenberg thought that the “I” in sentences such as “I think” gives us the illusion that there is an “I” that does the thinking; but he says we should say rather “It thinks,” where the “it” is like the “it” in “It’s raining.” It does not actually refer to an entity.