HUME: what is the difference between diversity and identity?

Question

does it have to do with his association of ideas : resemblance, contiguity, and causation? help!!!

Answer 1

In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume points out that we typically think we are continuously aware of something we call our “self”, but when we look to our experience, there is nothing to substantiate this belief. “When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” So, instead of an identity, Hume finds diversity.
We often claim that an object at one time is identical with an object at another time, when in fact the two are just a succession of different objects. This is exactly what we do, according to Hume, when we think of the “self”. But what is it that induces us to mistakenly attribute identity to something while, being a succession of objects, it is really an instance of diversity? Hume says the answer must lie in the workings of the imagination. “The passage of thought from the object before the change to the object after it, is so smooth and easy, that we scarce perceive the transition, and are apt to imagine, that ‘tis nothing but a continu’d survey of the same object”. This is especially true when the changes are relatively small or when they occur very gradually.

So the bottom-line answer to your question is “imagination” which blurs together a lot of small or gradual changes and gives us the impression of a substantial object persisting over time.

Answer 2

http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/TreatiseI.iv.vi.htm

6. We have a distinct idea of an object, that remains invariable and uninterrupted thro' a suppos'd variation of time; and this idea we call that of identity or sameness. We have also a distinct idea of several different objects existing in succession, and connected together by a close relation; and this to an accurate view affords as perfect a notion of diversity, as if there was no manner of relation among the objects. But tho' these two ideas of identity, and a succession of related objects be in themselves perfectly distinct, and even contrary, yet 'tis certain, that in our common way of thinking they are generally confounded with each other.

7. 7. Thus the controversy concerning identity is not merely a dispute of words. For when we attribute identity, in an improper sense, to variable or interrupted objects, our mistake is not confin'd to the expression, but is commonly attended with a fiction, either of something invariable and uninterrupted, or of something mysterious and inexplicable, or at least with a propensity to such fictions. What will suffice to prove this hypothesis to the satisfaction of every fair enquirer, is to shew from daily experience and observation, that the objects, which are variable or interrupted, and yet are suppos'd to continue the same, are such only as consist of a succession of parts, connected together by resemblance, contiguity, or causation

Answer 3

Diversity - you can have a mixture of races working in the same company, of which there maybe some have different needs, for instance if someone is of a religion that has to pray at certain times of the day, the employer would need to accomodate this if not they could be seen to be treating them unfairly which could lead to tribunal. Now once the employer does accomodate this then they need to ensure that it is done in a fair way, so they would not be able to give them extra breaks, as this would again be treating them differently to other staff and this could lead to complaints/tribunal from the other members of staff, this is diversity. Equality Example - men and women doing the same job, men has starting wage at £18,000 women's starting wage £16,000 the woman complains and then discovers that it is only her not all women who ahve this starting wage, she can then ask them to put her inline with everyone else so then she would be equal!!

Answer 4

From my own gist of what I have read, and that only now in my memory, as I can not place my hand on the document, diversity is the truth of differences in identities, and identity is the quality of contiguous experience of (or for) self, that it changes not, remains to itself the same unreflectingly on its history. The association of ideas is an explanation for this contiguous assumption self has in regards to its self, its identity as known itself. "and we draw inferences, since we expect similar results to follow from similar causes, by reason of the principle of the custom or habit of conjoining different manifestations, i.e. by reason of the principle of the association of ideas. Hence there is no knowledge and no metaphysics beyond experience."

'Resemblance' is this conjoining of ideas when we 'remember' memories.

"Now when Hume goes on to consider more closely what is subsumed under experience, he finds categories of the understanding present there, and more especially the determination of the universal and of universal necessity; he took under his consideration more particularly the category of cause and effect, and in it set forth the rational element, inasmuch as in this causal relationship necessity is especially contained. Here Hume really completed the system of Locke, since he consistently drew attention to the fact that if this point of view be adhered to, experience is indeed the principle of whatever one knows, or perception itself contains everything that happens, but nevertheless the determination of universality and necessity are not contained in, nor were they given us by experience. Hume has thus destroyed the objectivity or absolute nature of thought-determinations. “Our conviction of the truth of a fact rests on feeling, memory, and the reasonings founded on the causal connection, i.e. on the relation of cause and effect. The knowledge of this relation is not attained by reasonings a priori, but arises entirely from experience; and we draw inferences, since we expect similar results to follow from similar causes, by reason of the principle of the custom or habit of conjoining different manifestations, i.e. by reason of the principle of the association of ideas. Hence there is no knowledge and no metaphysics beyond experience.” (4)"

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/hume.htm