In his Treatise (Book 1, Part 4, sec. 6) David Hume suggested that the idea of an enduring discoverable self was unfounded. Introspection revealed 'nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.' Many people have noticed the similarity between Hume's position here and Buddhist discussion of the self. Alison Gopnik has discovered a possible route of influence.

Listen to Alison Gopnik on Hume and Buddhism

Read Alison Gopnik's paper 'Could David Hume have known about Buddhism?' (pdf)

Listen to an earlier Philosophy Bites interview with Alison Gopnik on the Imagination

Alison Gopnik's TED talk 'What Do Babies Think? (video)

There are reliable versions of David Hume's philosophical texts, (and reproduction of Hume's own manuscript of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) at www.davidhume.org