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Personal Identity

Essentialism

(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. The topics of relevance to my Thesis to cover under this head will include:-
     1. Mereological² essentialism; the doctrine that wholes have all their parts essentially – that is, that a whole ceases to exist at the moment it loses or gains a particle, however small; mutatis mutandis for abstract objects.
     2. A second topic will be essential properties³; those whose loss cause their owner to cease to exist.
  2. Mereological⁴ essentialism
     1. Whether we have any essential parts depends on what we are⁵.
     2. If we are fundamentally psychological beings, then it’s unclear whether we have proper parts – particularly if we are souls⁶; at least Descartes thought we didn’t, given that the mind is not extended. However, we would not survive the loss of our psychology⁷, but – and this is a problem for any psychological view⁸ – it is vague⁹ just how much psychology is enough to ensure our survival¹⁰.
     3. If we are organisms¹¹, then we can lose – indeed do lose₁₂ – all our parts over time.
     4. Provided change¹³ is gradual, and enough of lost particles are replaced, we persist¹⁴. There is an argument within the animalist¹⁵ camp whether our brains are “just another organ” or whether their regulatory function means they are essential to our survival¹⁶.
     5. If we are brains¹⁷ – or proper parts thereof – then our brains would seem to be essential parts of ‘us’, though there might be some quibbling about whether they might be chiselled down a bit.
     6. "Chisholm (Roderick) - Which Physical Thing Am I? An Excerpt from 'Is There a Mind-Body Problem?'" – seemed to think we are mereological atoms, though the identity of the atom is obscure. If there is such a thing, it would be our only essential part.
        
  3. Property¹⁸ essentialism
     1. If “being a person” is a property that we have, and we are human animals¹⁹, then – animalism²⁰ claims – we would survive even when we no longer qualify as persons²¹ (and also existed²² before we became persons).
     2. Most philosophers who aren’t animalists²³ say that we are essentially persons²⁴, so can’t survive if we are no longer persons, or even if our personality²⁵ has changed too radically. Some of our mind’s²⁶ properties may be essential, others not so.
     3. I’m not sure whether Lynne Rudder Baker treats the First Person Perspective²⁷ as a property of the person, or the person itself. But, if it is a property, it will be an essential one.
        

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Chisholm (Roderick) - Which Physical Thing Am I? An Excerpt from 'Is There a Mind-Body Problem?'", 1998, Write-Up Note²⁸, Read
• For a page of Links²⁹ to this Note, Click here. Unfortunately, there are far too many to take advantage of at this stage.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read³⁰, include the following:-
  • Aeon:
    1. "Smith (David Livingstone) - The essence of evil", 2014, External Link
  • General:
    1. "Chisholm (Roderick) - Which Physical Thing Am I? An Excerpt from 'Is There a Mind-Body Problem?'", 1998, Write-Up Note³¹
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Bottani (Andrea C.), Carrara (Massimiliano) & Giaretta (Pierdaniele), Eds. - Individuals, Essence And Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics", 2002, Book, Read = 1%
    2. "Brody (Baruch) - A Theory of Essentialism", 1975
    3. "Brody (Baruch) - Identity and Essence", 1980, Book
    4. "Brody (Baruch) - Why Settle for Anything Less than Good Old-Fashioned Aristotelian Essentialism", 1973, Internal PDF Link
    5. "Cartwright (Richard) - Some Remarks on Essentialism", 1968, No Abstract, Internal PDF Link
    6. "Copi (Irving M.) - Essence and Accident", 1977, Read = 7%
    7. "Della Rocca (Michael) - Essentialists and Essentialism", 1996, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Doyle (Robert O.) - The Growing Argument", 2018+, No Abstract, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Fine (Kit) - Semantics for the Logic of Essence", 2000, Internal PDF Link
    10. "Fine (Kit) - The Logic of Essence", 1995, Internal PDF Link
    11. "French (Peter), Uehling (Theodore) & Wettstein (Howard) - Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Vol XI) - Studies in Essentialism", 1986, Book
    12. "Gupta (Anil) - Essentialism and Trans-World Identity", 1980, No Abstract
    13. "Heller (Mark) - Anti-Essentialism And Counterpart Theory", 2005, Internal PDF Link
    14. "Hirsch (Eli) - Essence and Identity", 1971, No Abstract
    15. "Hull (David L.) - The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy - Two Thousand Years of Stasis (I)", 1965, Internal PDF Link
    16. "Hull (David L.) - The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy - Two Thousand Years of Stasis (II)", 1965, Internal PDF Link
    17. "Jubien (Michael) - Necessity and Essentialism", 1993
    18. "Lowe (E.J.) - Essentialism", 2002
    19. "Melia (Joseph) - Quinian Scepticism", 2003
    20. "Oderberg (David) - How to Win Essence Back from Essentialists", 2001, Internal PDF Link
    21. "Oliver (Donald) - Essence, Accident, and Substance", 1954, Internal PDF Link, Read = 17%
    22. "Paul (L.A.) - The Context of Essence", 2003, Internal PDF Link
    23. "Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and Essence", 2005, Book, Read = 4%
    24. "Shalkowski (Scott A.) - Essence and Being", 2008, Internal PDF Link, Read = 8%
    25. "Van Cleve (James) - Why a Set Contains its Members Essentially", 1985, Internal PDF Link
    26. "Wiggins (David) - Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity: Part 3: Summary of First Two Parts, and Essentialist Postscript", 1967, No Abstract

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.
• This is mostly a place-holder³².

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 12:

1. That I mean here is that the matter that constitutes our various proper parts changes over time.
2. This is an empirical matter but is largely true.
3. We can also lose parts of our bodies or have them replaced. At least some parts, in some circumstances.

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Table of the Previous 9 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	4476	Essentialism
09/05/2022 17:15:22	4018	Essentialism
11/02/2021 11:29:46	3697	Essentialism
30/11/2019 22:58:05	3090	Essentialism
14/07/2018 00:23:02	5218	Essentialism
11/02/2018 13:33:36	3376	Essentialism
18/12/2010 19:58:05	488	Essentialism
26/11/2007 23:25:26	476	Essentialism
12/08/2007 10:17:46	80	Essentialism

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Essentialism	Substance

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Animalism	Animalists	Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Brain	Change
Chisholm - Which Physical Thing Am I?	Existence	First-Person Perspective	Human Animals	Mereology
Mind	Note Links Explanation	Organisms	Persistence	Person
Personality	Plug Note Apologia	Properties	Psychological View	Psychology
Souls	Survival	Vagueness	What are We?	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Baker - Materialism with a Human Face	Baker - Persons in the Material World, 2	Baker - The Very Idea of Constitution, 2	Change, 2	Christian Materialism
Dion and Theon	Logic of Identity	Mereology	Numerical Identity	Olson - What Are We? Animals, 2
Organisms, 2	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3, 4, 5	Scattered Objects	Snowdon - The Self and Personal Identity	Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues), 2, 3
Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time), 2	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It), 2	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8	Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)	Thesis - Personal Identity, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Persons in the Material World	Paper	2	Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	The Very Idea of Constitution	Paper	2	Yes
Duncan (Matt)	I Think, Therefore I Persist	Paper		Yes
Lyons (Siobhan)	Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics	Book		Yes
Meincke (Anne Sophie)	Human Persons – A Process View	Paper	2	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper	2	Yes
Orvell (Ariana) & Lebron-Cruz (Alexa)	Essentialism is insidious – but it might also be helpful	Paper		Yes
Smith (David Livingstone)	The essence of evil	Paper		Yes
Snowdon (Paul)	The Self and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Change	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Christian Materialism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Dion and Theon	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Logic of Identity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Mereology	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Numerical Idenity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Organisms	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Scattered Objects	Paper		Yes
Yablo (Stephen)	Identity, Essence, and Indiscernibility	Paper	2, 3, 4

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Bottani (Andrea C.), Carrara (Massimiliano) & Giaretta (Pierdaniele), Eds.	Individuals, Essence And Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics	Book - Cited	Bottani (Andrea C.), Carrara (Massimiliano) & Giaretta (Pierdaniele), Eds. - Individuals, Essence And Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics	1%
Bottani (Andrea C.), Carrara (Massimiliano) & Giaretta (Pierdaniele), Eds.	Individuals, Essence And Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics	Paper - By Subtopic	Bottani (Andrea C.), Carrara (Massimiliano) & Giaretta (Pierdaniele), Eds. - Individuals, Essence And Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics	No
Brody (Baruch)	A Theory of Essentialism	Paper - Cited	Brody - Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View, 1975, Chapter 6	No
Brody (Baruch)	Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Brody (Baruch) - Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View	4%
Brody (Baruch)	Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	4%
Brody (Baruch)	Appendix: A Formal Theory of Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic	Brody - Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View, 1975, Appendix	No
Brody (Baruch)	Essence and Explanation	Paper - By Subtopic	Brody - Identity and Essence, 1980, Chapter 6	No
Brody (Baruch)	Identity and Essence	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Brody (Baruch) - Identity and Essence	No
Brody (Baruch)	The Essence of Humanity	Paper - By Subtopic	Brody - Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life : a Philosophical View, 1975, Chapter 7	No
Brody (Baruch)	The Theory of Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic	Brody - Identity and Essence, 1980, Chapter 5	No
Brody (Baruch)	Why Settle for Anything Less than Good Old-Fashioned Aristotelian Essentialism	Paper - Cited	Nous, Vol. 7, No. 4, Nov., 1973, pp. 351-365	No
Cartwright (Richard)	Some Remarks on Essentialism	Paper - Cited	The Journal of Philosophy , Oct. 24, 1968, Vol. 65, No. 20, (Oct. 24, 1968), pp. 615-626	No
Chisholm (Roderick)	Which Physical Thing Am I? An Excerpt from 'Is There a Mind-Body Problem?'	Paper - Cited	Van Inwagen & Zimmerman - Metaphysics: The Big Questions, 1998	Yes
Copi (Irving M.)	Essence and Accident	Paper - Cited	Schwartz (Stephen P.), Ed. - Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds	7%
Della Rocca (Michael)	Essentialism versus Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic	Gendler & Hawthorne - Conceivability and Possibility, 2002	No
Della Rocca (Michael)	Essentialists and Essentialism	Paper - Cited	Journal of Philosophy, 93, 1996, pp. 186-202	No
Doyle (Robert O.)	The Growing Argument	Paper - Cited	Personal Website	No
Edgington (Dorothy)	Review: The Metaphysics of Modality by Graeme Forbes	Paper - By Subtopic	The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-) , Jul., 1988, Vol. 38, No. 152 (Jul., 1988), pp. 365-370	17%
French (Peter), Uehling (Theodore) & Wettstein (Howard)	Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Vol XI) - Studies in Essentialism	Book - By Subtopic	French (Peter), Uehling (Theodore) & Wettstein (Howard) - Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Vol XI) - Studies in Essentialism	No
Gendler (Tamar Szabo) & Hawthorne (John)	Conceivability and Possibility	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Gendler (Tamar Szabo) & Hawthorne (John) - Conceivability and Possibility	1%
Gupta (Anil)	Essentialism and Trans-World Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	The logic of common nouns : an investigation in quantified modal logic, Chapter 4, 1980	No
Hull (David L.)	The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy - Two Thousand Years of Stasis (I)	Paper - By Subtopic	British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 15, No. 60, Feb., 1965, pp. 314-326	No
Hull (David L.)	The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy - Two Thousand Years of Stasis (II)	Paper - By Subtopic	British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 16, No. 61 (May, 1965), pp. 1-18	No
Jubien (Michael)	Necessity and Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic	Jubien - Ontology, Modality, and the Fallacy of Reference, 1993, Chapter 5	No
Jubien (Michael)	Ontology, Modality, and the Fallacy of Reference	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Jubien (Michael) - Ontology, Modality, and the Fallacy of Reference	No
Koslicki (Kathrin)	Essence and Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Metaphysics, Meaning and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, edited by Mircea Dumitru, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2020	8%
Lowe (E.J.)	A Survey of Metaphysics	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Lowe (E.J.) - A Survey of Metaphysics	No
Lowe (E.J.)	Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic	Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics, Chapter 6	No
Melia (Joseph)	Modality	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Melia (Joseph) - Modality	1%
Melia (Joseph)	Quinian Scepticism	Paper - By Subtopic	Melia - Modality, 2003, Chapter 3	No
Oderberg (David)	How to Win Essence Back from Essentialists	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophical Writings (No. 18, Autumn 2001): 27-45	No
Olson (Eric)	What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper - Referencing	What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, Chapter 2 (November 2007: Oxford University Press.)	Yes
Salmon (Nathan)	Hidden Essentialism in the K and I Mechanisms	Paper - By Subtopic	Salmon - Reference and Essence, 2005, Chapter 6	No
Salmon (Nathan)	Reference and Essence	Book - By Subtopic	Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and Essence	4%
Salmon (Nathan)	Reference and the Necessary A Posteriori	Paper - By Subtopic	Salmon - Reference and Essence, 2005, Chapter 3	No
Schwartz (Stephen P.), Ed.	Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	1%
Shalkowski (Scott A.)	Essence and Being	Paper - By Subtopic	Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62:49-63 (2008)	8%
Smith (David Livingstone)	The essence of evil	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 24 October 2014	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Essentialism	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Van Inwagen (Peter) & Zimmerman (Dean)	Metaphysics: The Big Questions	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	17%
Wiggins (David)	Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Wiggins (David) - Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity	5%
Wiggins (David)	Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity: Part 3: Summary of First Two Parts, and Essentialist Postscript	Paper - By Subtopic	Wiggins - Identity & Spatio-temporal Continuity, 1967, pp. 41-42	No

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026

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