Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Write-up₁ (as at 03/07/2026 09:40:19): Psychological Continuity

Plug Note²

• Thesis Text:
  1. Like any persisting thing, the persistence³ of a psychology requires continuity to an appropriate degree of the entity supposedly persisting: hence ‘psychological continuity’.
  2. I’m not quite sure what ‘a psychology’ is supposed to be, but it is supposedly constitutive of personal identity for those accepting the Psychological View⁴
  3. Popularly, we say that an individual is ‘not the same person’ as they were before if their character or aims differ too much from that former state. Hence, such characteristics would seem to be constitutive of a psychology.
  4. It is usual for someone’s character to develop gradually over time, often in a positive sense, though there may be Dorian Grey like declensions. However, there can also be sudden changes, as when someone has a religious or political conversion experience, though – even there – there is continuity of more general psychological factors.
  5. We are comfortable with gradual changes – new memories are added and lost gradually, and tastes stay fairly constant; knowledge is acquired gradually. But, over time, these gradual changes accumulate to the degree that one might not recognise the child in the adult, say. But usually, we allow that such gradual changes are identity-preserving, even though psychological connectedness⁵ is to some degree lost.
  6. All this is associated with one’s First Person Perspective⁶ (FPP), one’s window on the world₇ from which standpoint one anticipates the future, enjoys the present, and remembers the past.
  7. So, psychological continuity (and connectedness⁸) is central to personal identity for those who adopt the Psychological View⁹. However, it is said by some animalists¹⁰ - Eric Olson in particular – to be irrelevant to our survival¹¹, given that we are¹² Human Animals¹³.
  8. Following on from discussions on survival¹⁴, maybe the way to put things is that without psychological continuity I might survive, but not with what matters¹⁵ to me in survival.
  9. If “Person¹⁶” is a phase sortal¹⁷ of “Human Animal¹⁸”, can there be sequential but different persons within the same animal (as Lewis¹⁹ suggests, though not from the perspective of animalism²⁰, in his “Methuselah²¹” case) or can there be different and encapsulated First Person Perspectives²² (either synchronically – as in MPD²³ – or diachronically) within the same animal?
  10. “Person” may indeed come apart from “animal”, but even then, the person cannot “float free” of the animal, but supervenes²⁴ upon it. See the CV²⁵ for this.
  11. I also distinguish between backward and forward psychological continuity²⁶. The former – traditionally involving memory²⁷ and psychological traits – is the usual focus, but it is not necessarily identity-preserving even for those espousing the PV²⁸, on account of reduplication objections²⁹. The same may be true of fission³⁰ of the FPP³¹, but this is more difficult to imagine.

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  Further Remarks:
  1. This topic is related to others in this general area (in addition to those already noted):-
     → Psychology³²
     → Psychological Criterion³³
     → Psychopathology³⁴