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study’d with a peculiar ardour and application” (T 1.4.6.15). Hume’s own explanation of the nature of personal identity drew on the resources of his accounts of the imagination and the passions, and was therefore unique in many respects. Nevertheless, the debates

of the preceding decades had covered considerable ground, and the distinctive features of Hume’s own view emerge more clearly when seen in the context of what had come before.

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