scholarly journals Locke on Persons and Personal Identity

Author(s):  
Ruth Boeker

This book offers a new perspective on John Locke’s account of persons and personal identity by considering it within the context of his broader philosophical project and the philosophical debates of his day. Ruth Boeker’s interpretation emphasizes the importance of the moral and religious dimensions of his view. She argues that taking seriously Locke’s general approach to questions of identity over time, means that his account of personhood should be considered separately from his account of personal identity over time. On this basis, Boeker argues that Locke endorses a moral account of personhood, according to which persons are subjects of accountability, and that his particular thinking about moral accountability explains why he regards sameness of consciousness as necessary for personal identity over time. Moreover, she shows that Locke’s religious beliefs in an afterlife and a last judgement make it attractive to distinguish between the ideas of persons, human beings, and substances, and to defend a consciousness-based account of personal identity. In contrast to some neo-Lockean views about personal identity, she argues that Locke’s account of personal identity is not psychological per se, but rather his underlying moral, religious, metaphysical, and epistemic background beliefs are relevant for understanding why he argues for a consciousness-based account of personal identity. Taking his underlying background beliefs into consideration not only sheds light on why many of his early critics do not adopt Locke’s view, but also shows why his view cannot be as easily dismissed as some of his critics assume.

Author(s):  
Ruth Boeker

This chapter brings together the results of the previous chapters and shows what role Locke’s moral, religious, metaphysical, and epistemic background beliefs play in his thinking about persons and personal identity. Locke breaks with traditional metaphysical debates, first, by adopting a metaphysically agnostic stance with regard to the materiality or immateriality of thinking substances and, second, by arguing for a kind-dependent approach to questions of identity over time. Locke’s moral and legal conception of a person, according to which persons are subjects of accountability, is informed by his moral and religious beliefs. His thinking about moral accountability can be challenged and has been challenged by his contemporaries. Although Locke has good reasons for distinguishing our idea of a person from that of a human being and of a substance, these reasons are based on his metaphysical agnostic views and his religious belief in an afterlife.


2015 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Eric T. Olson

AbstractDerek Parfit claims that we are not human beings. Rather, each of us is the part of a human being that thinks in the strictest sense. This is said to solve a number of difficult metaphysical problems. I argue that the view has metaphysical problems of its own, and is inconsistent with any psychological-continuity account of personal identity over time, including Parfit's own.


Mind ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (515) ◽  
pp. 715-735
Author(s):  
Eric T Olson* ◽  
Karsten Witt

Abstract It is widely held that every person is a person essentially, where being a person is having special mental properties such as intelligence and self-consciousness. It follows that nothing can acquire or lose these properties. The paper argues that this rules out all familiar psychological-continuity views of personal identity over time. It also faces grave difficulties in accounting for the mental powers of human beings who are not intelligent and self-conscious, such as foetuses and those with dementia.


Author(s):  
Galen Strawson

This chapter examines the difference between John Locke's definition of a person [P], considered as a kind of thing, and his definition of a subject of experience of a certain sophisticated sort [S]. It first discusses the equation [P] = [S], where [S] is assumed to be a continuing thing that is able to survive radical change of substantial realization, as well as Locke's position about consciousness in relation to [P]'s identity or existence over time as [S]. It argues that Locke is not guilty of circularity because he is not proposing consciousness as the determinant of [S]'s identity over time, but only of [S]'s moral and legal responsibility over time. Finally, it suggests that the terms “Person” and “Personal identity” pull apart, in Locke's scheme of things, but in a perfectly coherent way.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Figà Talamanca

Abstract Joint action among human beings is characterized by using elaborate cognitive feats, such as representing the mental states of others about a certain state of affairs. It is still debated how these capacities evolved in the hominid lineage. I suggest that the consolidation of a shared practice over time can foster the predictability of other’s behavior. This might facilitate the evolutionary passage from inferring what others might know by simply seeing them and what they are viewing towards a mutual awareness of each other’s beliefs. I will examine the case for cooperative hunting in one chimpanzee community and argue that it is evidence that they have the potential to achieve common ground, suggesting that the consolidation of a practice might have supported the evolution of higher social cognition in the hominid lineage.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Guk-jo Jeon

This work is, most of all, designed to wrestle with taken-for-granted explanations as to how hanzi is composed and in what ways the composition the Four Ways of Writing (四書) can be analysed. Beginning with posing a self-reflective question on the academic identities of us, the hanzi civilisation researchers, and looking for a possible answer to it within the context of an Eagletonian conceptualisation of human animality or creatureliness, the work then methodologises the multi-dialectical analysis by virtue of méta-linguistique, transduction, and abstraction concreté. The full-scale analysis of the Four Ways of Writing comes next, taking four steps: first, synthesising the existing definitions, explanations and interpretations of them; second, abstracting the synthesis up to the multi-dialectical analysis; third, introducing a topology of the Four Ways of Writing; and fourth, analysing characters related to and expanding from two radical characters of 門 and 刀 with the aid of a dynamics of trialectics between the form, sound and meaning. Resting upon all the analyses performed, the work suggests the following conclusion. Amongst hanzi’s main characteristics is morphographicality (表形性), still the most distinctive within the analytical framework of the Four Ways of Writing. It is the very form of hanzi, as a matter of fact, that also turns out to be multi-dialectical: first, that which constitutes writing as the character trialectically related with both the sound and meaning; second, that which characterises writing as écriture of the dialectical relationship between human beings and nature; and last, that which dialectically elucidates who we are and what we are capable of.


Philosophy ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 48 (186) ◽  
pp. 363-379
Author(s):  
A. C. Ewing

Philosophers have not been sceptical only about metaphysics or religious beliefs. There are a great number of other beliefs generally held which they have had at least as much difficulty in justifying, and in the present article I ask questions as to the right philosophical attitude to these beliefs in cases where to our everyday thought they seem so obvious as to be a matter of the most ordinary common sense. A vast number of propositions go beyond what is merely empirical and cannot be seen to be logically necessary but are still believed by everybody in their daily life. Into this class fall propositions about physical things, other human minds and even propositions about one's own past experiences based on memory, for we are not now ‘observing’ our past. The phenomenalist does not escape the difficulty about physical things, for he reduces physical object propositions, in so far as true, not merely to propositions about his own actual experience but to propositions about the experiences of other human beings in general under certain conditions, and he cannot either observe or logically prove what the experiences of other people are or what even his own would be under conditions which have not yet been fulfilled. What is the philosopher to say about such propositions? Even Moore, who insisted so strongly that we knew them, admitted that we did not know how we knew them. The claim which a religious man makes to a justified belief that is neither a matter of purely empirical perception nor formally provable is indeed by no means peculiar to the religious. It is made de facto by everybody in his senses, whether or not he realizes that he is doing so. There is indeed a difference: while everyone believes in the existence of other human beings and in the possibility of making some probable predictions about the future from the past, not everybody holds religious beliefs, and although this does not necessarily invalidate the claim it obviously weakens it.


ATLAS JOURNAL ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (40) ◽  
pp. 1740-1758
Author(s):  
Kayhan ATİK

The need for cover is a requirement in all parts of the world. More or less this need has been realized in almost every society. In addition, clothing is one of the basic needs of human beings. This basic need has become a pleasure over time, and the temporary innovation that has entered the life of society with the desire to dress completely or the need for change has turned into an excessive, common indulgence shown by the society for a certain period of time. When we evaluate clothing in terms of nations, it has gained very different meanings with the effect of the cultural structure of the society. Considering this situation in the context of civilizations, of course, we can say that it has presented a similar privilege. In short, every society has made its dress code suitable for its culture and civilization. As in the rest of the world, the robes, dresses, turbans and fabrics of the Ottoman sultans showed themselves clearly as an indicator of the position, wealth and status. Especially caftans, fabrics and patterns, each one is a masterpiece of art. Despite having a simple form according to researches, Ottoman caftans have a very magnificent appearance and beauty. The decorations made for these caftans, lining and moldings, fur ornaments, ornaments made with buttons are very perfect. These caftans have aroused the admiration of the whole world with their fabric, motif and splendor, and many researches have been done on these caftans, which have been exhibited and preserved in various local and foreign museums. The sultan's clothes in the Topkapı Palace Museum Sultan's Clothes Archive consist of approximately 2500 pieces. Most of these are hilat, robes and shalwars. In addition, although it is less, there are also children's (prince's) clothes, so there are no women's clothes. RESEARCH ARTICLE ATLAS Journal International Refereed Journal On Social Sciences e-ISSN:2619-936X Arrival Date : 19.03.2021 Published Date : 30.04.2021 2021, Vol:7, Issue:40 pp: 1740- 1758 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31568/atlas.676 ATLAS INTERNATIONAL REFEREED JOURNAL ON SOCIAL SCIENCES Year: 2021 Vol:7 Issue: 40 1740 Here, 21 caftans belonging to Fatih Sultan Mehmet, 77 caftans belonging to Suleiman the Magnificent, 13 caftans belonging to I. Ahmet, II. 30 caftans belonging to Osman, IV. While it is known that there were 27 caftans belonging to Murat, the caftans belonging to six rulers before Fatih Sultan Mehmet were not mentioned by name. In this study, the money spent for the clothes of the sultan in the Archives of the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, Topkapı Palace Museum, the cocks and dresses that the sultan had to buy from the council; In dâbü's-sâ, we will focus on the kafân, sarık, other items and values that are deserved by the landlords, the palace-i Atiq aghas, the boys, the Treasury, the cellar, the lords of the Voyage rooms and the people in charge. Keywords: Ottoman, Sultan, Bureaucrat, Clothes, Fabric, Special Items.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (04) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
Adrian Bejan

This paper describes human application of their knowledge and technological ability to fly and continue to enhance that power. Through application of their knowledge and technological ability, human beings have evolved the ability to fly and continue to enhance that power. Aircraft technology evolution is about the evolving design of the human movement on the Earth’s surface: people, goods, materials, and everything else. As the whole vehicle or animal evolves toward becoming better at moving mass on the landscape, the organs remain imperfect, because each represents a compromise. The whole vehicle or animal is a construct of organs that are ‘imperfect’ only when examined in isolation. The vehicle design evolves over time and becomes a better construct for moving the vehicle mass on the world map. Flow architectures are evolving right now, throughout nature and in technologies. The legacy of all flow systems (animate and inanimate) is: they have moved weight horizontally and improved the efficiency of that movement because of design evolution.


Author(s):  
Loredana TEREC-VLAD ◽  

We are human beings, and what distinguishes us from other beings is the anguish of finitude, the reason, the articulate language, and so on. Associating and forming groups are the characteristics specific to the human beings, because since the antiquity as it has been said that we were social beings. Communication occupies an important place nowadays. Whether written, oral, internal or external, the communication is essential nowadays. In this context, Anca Raluca Purcaru brings to the fore a new perspective in terms of communication, through her work ”Elemente de comunicare simbolică” (“Elements of symbolic communication”), published by the Lumen Publishing House of Iasi.


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