¹ McRae, Robert, “The Import of Hume's Theory of Time,” Hume Studies, 6, 2 (11 1980): 119–32, p. 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by Norton, David Fate and Norton, Mary J. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Hereafter, “T”; parenthetical references show Book, Part, Section, and Paragraph numbers.

³ McRae, , “The Import of Hume's Theory of Time,” p. 122.Google Scholar

⁴ Johnson, Oliver, “Time and the Idea of Time,” Hume Studies, 15, 1 (04 1989): 205–19, p. 213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ McRae, , “The Import of Hume's Theory of Time,” pp. 122–23.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid., p. 122. McRae is not alone in viewing Humean duration as a fiction. For example, see Saul Traiger's “Impressions, Ideas, and Fictions” (Hume Studies, 13, 2 [11 1987]: 381–99, p. 385).Google Scholar

⁷ McRae, , “The Import of Hume's Theory of Time,” p. 123.Google Scholar

⁸ Broughton, Janet, “Impressions and Ideas,” in The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise, edited by Traiger, Saul (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 43–58, p. 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ I understand how this could be a controversial point. Later in this article I will elaborate more on the nature of Humean memory. However, I offer up the couplet (Pair Principle) suggestion as a way to make sense of Hume's phenomenological difference between impressions and ideas, his comments about impressions and ideas always appearing in the mind as double, and what he says about memory ideas being intermediate between an impression and an idea. Although, admittedly, this Pair Principle raises serious questions regarding how we can truly differentiate between having a memory of an experience and actually having the experience if the impression remains with the idea, Hume nevertheless felt that memory impressions do not necessarily disappear from the mind. For example, see n.28.

¹¹ This will become clearer to the reader when I analyze the different aspects of memory later in this article.

¹² Waxman, Wayne, Hume's Theory of Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 203–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Nidditch, P. H. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 2.14.3; p. 182.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Berkeley, George, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I, 5th ed., edited by Winkler, Kenneth (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1995).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Unfortunately there is not enough room here for me to get into the debate about Hume's alleged commitment to an external world of objects; needless to say, I reject the reading of Hume being a causal realist.

¹⁶ Waxman, , Hume's Theory of Consciousness, p. 204.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Traiger, , “Impressions, Ideas, and Fictions,” p. 382.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 386.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 385.

²⁰ Raynor, David, “Berkeley et la Théorie des Minima Sensibilia” in Science et épistémologie selon Berkeley, edited by Charles, Sébastien, translated by Malinowski-Charles, Syliane (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2004), pp. 89–100, esp. p. 91Google Scholar. “Though both Berkeley and Hume maintain that we always perceive an array of sensible points, and never perceive one on its own, Hume at least thinks that we can consider one on its own.”

²¹ Johnson, , “Time and the Idea of Time,” pp. 210–11.Google Scholar

²² Baxter, Donald, “Hume on Steadfast Objects and Time,” Hume Studies, 27, 1 (04 2001): 129–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted that Baxter has published a revised version of this article in his Hume's Difficulty: Time and Identity in the Treatise (New York: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar. However, the elements of his argument on which I focus appear to be essentially the same except for changes in terminology. (My analysis of Baxter's latest work is forthcoming in my review of this book in De Philosophia.)

²³ Baxter, , “Hume on Steadfast Objects and Time,” p. 140.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 133–36.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 141.

²⁶ The “great philosopher” would be John Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2.14.7–15; pp. 184–86).Google Scholar

²⁷ Stout, George Frederick, Mind and Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), p. 217.Google Scholar

²⁸ With regard to my earlier claim concerning the couplets of the Pair Principle, notice, for example, Hume's “for even supposing these impressions shou'd be entirely effac'd from the memory …”—he does not indicate that impressions actually do become “entirely effac'd from the memory,” but only what would happen if we “suppose” that they do.

²⁹ Driscoll, John, “Unity, Succession, and Personal Identity in Hume,” in Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Vol. 6, edited by Ryan, John K. (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1973), pp. 121–34, p. 130.Google Scholar

³⁰ Since we have already observed that due to the Pair Principle succession is the foundation for the existence of all other relations, we need not be bothered by Hume's inclusion of contiguity (spatial relation) and other relations within this claim that succession exists in experience before it is fully apprehended by the understanding.

³¹ Driscoll, , “Unity, Succession, and Personal Identity in Hume,” pp. 125–27, p. 131.Google Scholar

³² Ibid.

³³ Ibid., pp. 131–33.

³⁴ Ibid., p. 132.

³⁵ The objection might be made that, if the retentive memory is not able to fully distinguish the individual impressions, it is then unable to copy them to make ideas. I suggest the response to that is that it is precisely because the retentive memory is not able to fully separate them that they are copied. The copying of the impressions is not performed for an arbitrary reason, but rather is an attempt by the retentive memory to focus more strongly on the individual perceptions in succession. That is why the imagination successively receives the copies (ideas) to fully separate them from their preceding impressions.

³⁶ I would like to thank David Raynor for his many helpful suggestions.