Who is a western philosopher whose commitments to empiricism led him to conclude the self was but a fiction?

Answer 1

David Hume.

Although the view that humans have no self is characteristic of Buddhist thought, there were a few Western philosophers that put forward a very similar view. Chief of which was David Hume.

It was in his book, A Treatise of Human Nature, where Hume argued that all real knowledge is based on what we can actually perceive with our senses: ie. Empirical evidence: what we can see, hear, touch, smell, taste and feel. He goes on to point out that we can never actually "perceive" the self and consequently therefore there is no self; "the notion of self is a fiction made up by Traditional Philosophers.

1. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford:Clarendon, 1896. pg. 6.

Answer 2

David Hume is a western philosopher known for his empiricist approach to philosophy. His skepticism about the self led him to argue that personal identity is a fiction created by the mind's habit of associating one event with another. He famously wrote that when he turned his attention inward, he could never catch himself without a perception, leading him to question the existence of a lasting and unchanging self.