Persons in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy
Keyword(s):
This chapter examines the rise of the problem of personal identity and the relation between moral and metaphysical personhood in early modern Britain. I begin with Thomas Hobbes, who presents the first modern version of the problem of diachronic identity but does not apply it to persons. I then turn to John Locke, who grounds the persistence of persons in a continuity of consciousness that is important because it is necessary for morality, thus subordinating metaphysical personhood to moral personhood. Finally, I examine how the relationship between moral personhood and metaphysical personhood is treated in three of Locke’s critics: Edmund Law, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, and David Hume.
“Humbly dedicated”: Petiver and the audience for natural history in early eighteenth-century Britain
2004 ◽
Vol 31
(2)
◽
pp. 318-329
◽
Keyword(s):
Keyword(s):
Keyword(s):
Keyword(s):