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Personal Identity
Multiple Personality Disorder
(Text as at 11/03/2018 20:19:41)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Plug Note1
- MPD is otherwise known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
- This condition is normally viewed as psychopathological2, to be treated by therapy. It occurs where a human being3 is, or appears to be, “home” to more than one person4, or at least more than one personality5.
- These persons/personalities may be radically dissimilar, and are (as the alternative designation implies) dissociated from one another. They can be like Locke’s night and day man “incommunicable consciousnesses”, unaware of one another’s existence – hence being in Lockean terms different persons; or, they can be aware of one another, but as of distinct persons.
- No doubt one could complain that the clinically-recorded cases are exaggerated, fabrications or otherwise unreliable. But there seems nothing wrong with them as TEs6, and ones least open to cavil given their approximation to reality.
- Effectively, we have a brain7 running more than one mind8-program (on the “mind-as-software” approach); or a brain segregated into more than virtual machine (on the “mind as hardware”) approach to the mind-brain relationship.
- MPDs pose no problems to those espousing the Psychological View9 (PV) – other than ethical issues concerning “therapeutic” suppression or unification of the alleged multiple persons (see "Shoemaker (David) - Moral Issues at the End of Life"), but what is the response of or the Constitution View10 (CV)? Can we have more than one person – with more than one First Person Perspective11 (FPP) – constituted by the same human body? Animalism12 ignores psychological factors altogether as far as identity is concerned, so won’t be troubled.
- Works on this topic that I’ve actually read13, include14 the following:-
- A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
- This is mostly a place-holder15. Currently, just see the categorised reading-list.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 1:
- A number of my philosophical Notes are “promissory notes” currently only listing the books and papers (if any) I possess on the topic concerned.
- I’ve decided to add some text – whether by way of motivation, or something more substantive – for all these identified topics related to my Thesis.
- As I want to do this fairly quickly, the text may be confused or show surprising ignorance.
- The reader (if such exists) will have to bear with me, and display the principle of charity while this footnote exists.
Footnote 13:
- Frequently I’ll have made copious marginal annotations, and sometimes have written up a review-note.
- In the former case, I intend to transfer the annotations into electronic form as soon as I can find the time.
- In the latter case, I will have remarked on the fact against the citation, and will integrate the comments into this Note in due course.
- My intention is to incorporate into these Notes comments on material I’ve already read rather than engage with unread material at this stage.
Footnote 14:
- I may have read others in between updates of this Note – in which case they will be marked as such in the “References and Reading List” below.
- Papers or Books partially read have a rough %age based on the time spent versus the time expected.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of the 6 Earlier Versions of this Note
Table of the 5 Later Versions of this Note
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
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Summary of Note Links to this Page
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026