Transition (Butler Dismissed)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
With Memory

This chapter examines John Locke's theory of personal identity, which he has defined in terms of the reach of consciousness in beings who qualify as persons (being in particular fully self-conscious, able to think of past and future, and “capable of a law”). It starts with the notion that a person is an object of a certain sort, and must exemplify a certain sort of temporal continuity, if it is to continue to exist. Locke assumes that any candidate person has such continuity. The chapter also considers which parts of a subject of experience's continuous past are features or aspects or parts of the person that it now is before concluding with an analysis of Joseph Butler's incorrect identification of consciousness with memory in his objection to Locke's argument that a person can survive a change in its thinking substance even if its thinking substance is immaterial.

scholarly journals The Soul and Personal Identity. Derek Parfit’s Arguments in the Substance Dualist Perspective

Perichoresis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Dmytro Sepetyi
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Psychological Profile ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
Brain Theory ◽  
Body Theory ◽  
Humean Theory ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Humean View

AbstractThis paper re-evaluates Derek Parfit’s attack on the commonly held view that personal identity is necessarily determinate and that it is what matters. In the first part we first argue against the Humean view of personal identity; secondly, we classify the remaining alternatives into three kinds: the body theory and the brain theory, the quasi-Humean theory, and the soul theory, and thirdly we deploy Parfit’s arguments and related considerations to the point that none of the materialistic alternatives is consistent with the commonly held view. This leaves us with the alternative: either we accept the radical and highly implausible materialistic view Parfit calls ‘Reductionism’, or we accept the view that we are nonphysical indivisible entities—Cartesian egos, or souls. The second part of the paper discusses Parfit’s objections against the Cartesian view: that there is no reason to believe in the existence of such nonphysical entities; that if such entities exist, there is no evidence that they are enduring (to span a human life); that even if they exist and are enduring, they are irrelevant for the psychological profile and temporal continuity of a person; that experiments with ‘brain-splitted’ patients provide strong evidence against the Cartesian view. We argue that these objections are in part mistaken, and that the remaining (sound) part is not strong enough to make the Cartesian view less plausible than Reductionism.

Bodily Theory and Theory of the Body

Philosophy ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (257) ◽  
pp. 339-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Giles
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Body ◽  
Plausible Candidate ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Over Time

What is it about having a body that might dispose us to think it a plausible candidate for the basis of personal identity? The answer seems plain: the body is a physical object which, as long as it exists, is spatio-temporally continuous throughout the different moments of its existence. In consequence, myself of today can be said to be the same person as myself of twelve years ago so far as my body of today is spatio-temporally continuous with my body of twelve years ago. Exponents of this view are not, of course, denying that over time a person's body will or may undergo various changes; rather they are claiming that so long as these changes occur within a body which maintains a spatio-temporal continuity, then the identity of the person whose body it is will be ensured.

scholarly journals Reconciling Locke’s Consciousness-Based Theory of Personal Identity and His Soteriology

Locke Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Diego Lucci
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Moral Accountability ◽  
Last Judgment ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Resurrection Of The Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Galen Strawson

This article maintains that Locke’s consciousness-based theory of personal identity, which Locke expounded in book 2, chapter 27 of the second edition of An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1694), perfectly fits with his views on the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and salvation. The compatibility of Locke’s theory of personal identity with his soteriology has been questioned by Udo Thiel and Galen Strawson. These two authors have claimed that Locke’s emphasis on repentance, which he described as necessary to salvation in The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), clashes with his notion of punishment as annexed to personality and, hence, to consciousness. Pace Thiel and Strawson, I argue that Locke’s theory of personal identity is compatible with his concept of repentance. To this purpose, I first explain Locke’s views on the soul’s death and the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day, when, according to Locke, we will all be raised from death by divine miracle, but only the repentant faithful will be admitted to eternal bliss while the wicked will be annihilated. Locke’s mortalism, along with his agnosticism on the ontological constitution of thinking substances or souls, played a role in his formulation of a non-substantialist account of personal identity, because it denied the temporal continuity of the soul between physical death and resurrection and it rejected the resurrection of the same body. I then analyze Locke’s consciousness-based theory of personal identity, with a focus on the implications of this theory regarding moral accountability. Finally, I turn my attention to Thiel’s and Strawson’s considerations about Locke’s views on consciousness and repentance. To prove that Locke’s views on salvation are consistent with his theory of personal identity, I clarify Locke’s soteriology, which describes not only repentance, but also obedience, faith, and the conscientious study of Scripture as necessary to salvation.

Ethnic Identity and Personal Identity.

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph H. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Personal Identity
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