Introduction

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691161006.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Galen Strawson

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

Central Point ◽

Thomas Reid ◽

Joseph Butler

This book defends John Locke's account of personal identity, first published in 1694, against claims that it is blatantly circular and inconsistent. Joseph Butler and Thomas Reid were the main representatives of the circularity and inconsistency objections, and their influence has been such that few since then have had a chance to read what Locke wrote without prejudice. The extent of the misreading of Locke is remarkable, which is difficult to comprehend considering that he makes his central point extremely plain over and over again. The book argues that Locke's notions of person, consciousness, and concernment are partly responsible for the misunderstanding.

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Special Concern and Personal Identity

Principles and Persons ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192893994.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 15-38

Author(s):

David O. Brink

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

David Hume ◽

John Locke ◽

Compensation Principle ◽

Self Interest ◽

Henry Sidgwick ◽

Explanatory Priority ◽

Special Concern ◽

Joseph Butler ◽

Equal Concern

As discussed by John Locke, Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid, prudence involves a special concern for the agent’s own personal good that she does not have for others. This should be a concern for the agent’s overall good that is temporally neutral and involves an equal concern for all parts of her life. In this way, prudence involves a combination of agent relativity and temporal neutrality. This asymmetrical treatment of matters of interpersonal and intertemporal distribution might seem arbitrary. Henry Sidgwick raised this worry, and Thomas Nagel and Derek Parfit have endorsed it as reflecting the instability of prudence and related doctrines such as egoism and the self-interest theory. However, Sidgwick thought that the worry was unanswerable only for skeptics about personal identity, such as David Hume. Sidgwick thought that one could defend prudence by appeal to realism about personal identity and a compensation principle. This is one way in which special concern and prudence presuppose personal identity. However, as Jennifer Whiting has argued, special concern displayed in positive affective regard for one’s future and personal planning and investment is arguably partly constitutive of personal identity, at least on a plausible psychological reductionist conception of personal identity. After explaining both conceptions of the relation between special concern and personal identity, the chapter concludes by exploring what might seem to be the paradoxical character of conjoining them, suggesting that there may be no explanatory priority between the concepts of special concern and personal identity.

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Personal identity

Locke on Knowledge and Reality ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190662196.003.0009 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 143-170

Author(s):

Georges Dicker

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

Thomas Reid ◽

Christian Doctrine ◽

Definition Of ◽

John Perry

This chapter analyzes Locke’s seminal treatment of personal identity and examines objections to it and replies to them. It (1) discusses his sharp divorce between a person’s identity and the identity of any substance, (2) formulates in analytical style his definition of personal identity in terms of memory, and (3) explains his view that personal identity is a “forensic” notion. Regarding (1), it argues that although Locke’s same substance/different person scenario makes sense, his same person/different substance scenario crosses the bounds of sense. Regarding (2), it shows how a definition of personal identity in terms of memory can be refined so as to avoid counterexamples proposed by Berkeley, Thomas Reid, and John Perry. Regarding (3), it argues that such a refined definition is incompatible with Locke’s forensic view of personhood, unless one appeals to Christian doctrine about the afterlife and about Judgement Day—as indeed Locke was prepared to do.

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Reid

Sacrifice Regained ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198840473.003.0011 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 132-136

Author(s):

Roger Crisp

Keyword(s):

Human Nature ◽

Common Sense ◽

Well Being ◽

Thomas Reid ◽

Self Interest ◽

Similarities And Differences ◽

Joseph Butler ◽

Rational Egoism

This chapter discusses the views on self-interest and morality of the Scottish ‘common-sense’ philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–96). The influence of Joseph Butler on Reid’s conception of human nature is explained, and the similarities and differences between their positions elucidated. Reid’s arguments against rational egoism are discussed. His view that virtue is a component of well-being is outlined, and it is suggested that his position on the pleasures of virtue may be said to be somewhat exaggerated. Reid’s appeal to the afterlife to guarantee complete overlap between self-interest and morality is explained.

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Reid on Particularism, Habit, and Personal Identity

Journal of Scottish Philosophy ◽

10.3366/jsp.2015.0104 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 203-217

Author(s):

Jong Won Kim

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

First Principles ◽

The Self ◽

Philosophical Method ◽

Thomas Reid ◽

General Belief ◽

Philosophical System ◽

The Way

Are the first principles in the philosophy of Thomas Reid derived inductively from particular experience, or are they self-evident? Is Reid an epistemic particularist, or a methodist? Some scholars interpret him as an epistemic particularistic, while others hold that he is a methodist like other philosophers of his time. This debate was central to an exchange between Roderick Chisholm and Keith Lehrer. Taking the general belief in personal identity as an example, this paper aims to show which interpretation is more consistent with Reid's whole philosophical system. Although Reid believes that the general belief is self-evident without reasoning, it is not self-evident in the way that beliefs in particular cases are. Reid's overall philosophical method makes the self-evidence of particular beliefs more basic, the self-evidence of general beliefs being transferred from particular beliefs by means of habit. I conclude that the particularistic interpretation is more consistent with his whole philosophical system than the methodist interpretation.

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A objeção de Thomas Reid à teoria Lockiana da identidade pessoal

Principia an international journal of epistemology ◽

10.5007/1808-1711.2020v24n1p147 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 147-164

Author(s):

Vinícius França Freitas

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

Thomas Reid ◽

Psychological Continuity

The paper aims to present two distinct ways of defending John Locke’s theory of personal identity from Thomas Reid’s objection. First, it will be argued that this objection is not effective since it starts from a misunderstanding of Locke’s theory. The identity of a person is not preserved by the psychological continuity of consciousness, as Reid understood it, but by its ontological continuity: the existence of the same consciousness preserves the personal identity. Secondly, it will be argued that it is possible to reply to that objection in the light of the observation that the personal identity is preserved by the identity of the man: person and man are connected by means of the notion of body.

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F. M. Dostoevsky – great human-lover, expert in human, well-wisher of human, sage and visionary

Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology ◽

10.33581/2521-6821-2021-3-13-23 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 13-23

Author(s):

Evgenii M. Babosov

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

Human Life ◽

World History ◽

Central Point ◽

Political Leaders ◽

Life And Death ◽

Metaphysical Problem ◽

General Identity ◽

The Future ◽

Moral Lesson

The philosophical meaning and humanistic pathos of F. M. Dostoevsky’s work is revealed, embodied in his novels and «The diary of a writer». The depth and bottomlessness of a person – the writer’s symbol of faith – are presented. The philosophical, ethical and psychological generalisations of the Russian writer are presented as the central point of the metaphysical problem of man as a personality, her life, quest, suffering, love, faith. The theory of F. M. Dostoevsky’s creativity is reconstructed, for which a person is interesting when he embarks on only his own, individual path, but passing which, highlights something typical for the entire people, its historical fate and destiny, strength and weakness. Only in the personal identity of each person is the general identity of the nation embodied; to defend in any circumstances the honour of the Russian man and the honour of his people – this is precisely what the citizen writer saw as the vocation of Russia. The dialectic of love, freedom, beauty and immortality as components of the meaning of human life is revealed. Against this background, death is presented as an inevitable moral lesson, the meaning of which is to sharpen the feelings of love and humility: love for man and humility before God. This understanding of life and death is opposed by demonic, a phenomenon devoid of love and humility. For F. M. Dostoevsky, who had an acute presentiment of future social upheavals in Russia and Europe, devilry is embodied in the revolutionary ideas of seizing power, restructuring society and man according to the patterns of political leaders who only yearn for domination and submission of others to their will. The prophecies and premonitions made by F. M. Dostoevsky about the future of Russia and its place in world history are characterised. The emphasis is on the writer’s rejection of the revolution as a fratricidal war and the denial of the viability of communist ideas and ideals. Only religiously coloured humanism can be opposed to these gloomy forecasts: a better future will come when people, based on the implementation of the main Christian thesis, to love their neighbour as themselves, will be able to unite into a single harmonious whole or the paradise of Christ.

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