Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Thought Experiments

(Text as at 26/11/2007 23:25:26)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

In general, I’m in favour of using thought experiments in philosophy. However, I’d like to consider, following "Wilkes (Kathleen) - Real People: Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments", whether some thought-experiments in pursuit of clarifying issues in personal identity propose impossible scenarios, or trade on under-specification. Sometimes our intuitions are unreliable as to the truth or possibility of what we intuit. Some doubt the possible phenomenal consciousness of artificial systems, however complex, but is this anything other than a fallacious argument from personal incredulity? Descartes argued for the real distinction between mind and body¹ by thinking he could imagine their separation, but could he really? Sometimes, our intuitions may give us no clue one way or the other, or only a gentle lead (as Williams seems to be suggesting in "Williams (Bernard) - The Self and the Future"). "Snowdon (Paul) - Personal Identity and Brain Transplants" gives a helpful critique of Wilkes’s and Johnston’s arguments (see "Johnston (Mark) - Human Beings") against thought experiments.