Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Reductionism

(Text as at 01/05/2022 18:20:10)

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

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. Reductionism in the field of Personal Identity has much the same meaning as elsewhere in philosophy, namely:-
     1. Explanatory Reduction: explaining PID in terms of simpler concepts², or
     2. Ontological Reduction: saying that persons³ are “really” other things, or are made up of or constituted by⁴ other things.
  2. This contrasts with the Simple View⁵, which denies either of these options.
  3. Currently, my thoughts on the matter are derived from:-
     1. "Garrett (Brian) - Personal Identity and Reductionism", and
     2. "Garrett (Brian) - Animalism and Reductionism",
        but I will add to the topic further over time.
        
  4. From my perspective, the interesting element is Garrett’s consideration of Phase Sortals⁶.
  5. "Cassam (Quassim) - Parfit on Persons" claims that Animalism⁷ is a non-reductionist account of PID – indeed, the best one!
  6. Derek Parfit is credited with introducing the term “Reductionism” into the field of Personal Identity from elsewhere in philosophy.
• Of course, Reductionism in the field of Personal Identity is a subset of Reductionism generally in science, and is open – invalidly in my view – to the same “nothing buttery” objections. I’ve included those items I’ve actually read that fall within this wider remit, but not (much) otherwise.
• An area that might be included under this heading is the question of reductionism in the philosophy of mind₈ – whether (for instance) mental events are reducible to physical events. I believe and assume that they are, and anything I have to say on the topic will be covered under my Note on Dualism⁹.
• For a page of Links¹⁰ to this Note, Click here. There were too many links to perform an updating run, so I’ve just eyeballed the results and selected a few titles.
• A number of items on the reading list are responses to Parfit’s ideas. I’ve not included many of his own writings under this head – see my Note on Parfit¹¹ for these
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹², include the following:-
  • General:
    1. "Alexander (Denis) - Review of 'Why Us?' by James Le Fanu", 2010
    2. "Baillie (James) - Problems in Personal Identity: Preface", 1993
    3. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Review of 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?' by Nancey Murphy", 2006, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    4. "Campbell (John) - The First Person: The Reductionist View of the Self", 1995
    5. "Cassam (Quassim) - Kant and Reductionism", 1989, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    6. "Cassam (Quassim) - Parfit on Persons", 1992, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Cassam (Quassim) - Reductionism and First-Person Thinking", 1992, Annotations, No Abstract
    8. "Catterson (Troy) - Introduction to Synthese Special Issue on Personal Identity", 2008, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Coliva (Annalisa) - Review of Gasser & Stefan, Eds. - Personal Identity: Complex or Simple?", 2013, Internal PDF Link
    10. "Corcoran (Kevin) - Soul, Body and Survival: Introduction - Soul or Body?", 2001
    11. "Crane (Tim) - Body", 2001, Write-Up Note¹³
    12. "Doepke (Frederick) - Spatially Coinciding Objects", 1982
    13. "Garrett (Brian) - Animalism and Reductionism", 1998, Annotations
    14. "Garrett (Brian) - Parfit and 'What Matters'", 1998
    15. "Garrett (Brian) - Personal Identity and Reductionism", 1991, Write-Up Note¹⁴, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    16. "Garrett (Brian) - Persons", 1998, 2004, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    17. "Hawking (Stephen) - The Objections of an Unashamed Reductionist", 1997
    18. "Hempel (Carl) - Theoretical Reduction", 1966
    19. "Hempel (Carl) - Theories and Theoretical Explanation", 1966
    20. "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Reductionism and religion", 1980
    21. "Lizza (John) - Persons, Humanity, & the Definition of Death: Preface", 2006
    22. "Markosian (Ned) - Time", 2002-14, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    23. "Nagel (Thomas) - Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness", 1979, Internal PDF Link
    24. "Nagel (Thomas) - The View from Nowhere: Introduction", 1989
    25. "Nagel (Thomas) - What is it Like to Be a Bat?", 1974, Internal PDF Link
    26. "Natsoulas (Thomas) - The Primary Source of Intentionality", 1980
    27. "Noonan (Harold) - Identity and Personal Identity", 2003, Annotations
    28. "Oderberg (David) - Johnston on Human Beings", 1989, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    29. "O'Hear (Anthony) - Scientific Reductions", 1989
    30. "Papineau (David) - Introducing Consciousness", 2000, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    31. "Parfit (Derek) - Nagel's Brain", 1986
    32. "Parfit (Derek) - Personal Identity and Morality", 1986
    33. "Parfit (Derek) - Personal Identity and Rationality", 1986
    34. "Parfit (Derek) - The Closest Continuer Schema", 1984
    35. "Peacocke (Arthur) & Gillett (Grant) - Persons and Personality: Introduction", 1987
    36. "Pollock (John L.) - How to Build a Person: Preface", 1989
    37. "Quine (W.V.) - Two Dogmas of Empiricism", 1980, External Link
    38. "Roache (Rebecca) - A Defence of Quasi-Memory", 2006, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    39. "Searle (John) - Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness", 1992
    40. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Ethics", 2005-12, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    41. "Shoemaker (David) - The Death of Derek Parfit", 2017, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    42. "Snowdon (Paul) - Philosophy and the Mind/Body Problem", 2015, External Link
    43. "Sorensen (Roy) - Thought Experiments: Introduction", 1992
    44. "Strawson (Peter) - Review of Minds, Brains and People by T. E. Wilkerson", 1974, Internal PDF Link
    45. "Tye (Michael) - Qualia", 1997-2007, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    46. "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Précis of Material Beings", 1993, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    47. "Wiggins (David) - On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time", 1968, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    48. "Wiggins (David) - Preface: Sameness and Substance Renewed", 2001, Annotations
    49. "Wiggins (David) - The Concern to Survive", 1987, Annotations
    50. "Wiggins (David) - The Person as Object of Science, as Subject of Experience, and as Locus of Value", 1987, Annotations
    51. "Wilkerson (T.E.) - Two Kinds of Metaphysics", 1974
    52. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: Does God Know Our First-Person Perspectives?", 2015
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Baggini (Julian) - Psychological Reductionism About Persons: A Critical Development", 1996, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 1%
    2. "Baillie (James) - Aspects of Non-Reductionism", 1993
    3. "Behrendt (Kathy) - The New Neo-Kantian And Reductionist Debate", 2003, Internal PDF Link, Read = 6%
    4. "Belzer (Marvin) - Self-Conception and Personal Identity: Revisiting Parfit and Lewis with an Eye on the Grip of the Unity Reaction", 2005, Internal PDF Link, Read = 3%
    5. "Bennett (M.R.) & Hacker (P.M.S.) - Reductionism", 2003
    6. "Berglund (Stefan) - Identity and Reduction", 1995
    7. "Berglund (Stefan) - Problems of Reductive Personalism", 1995
    8. "Berglund (Stefan) - The Non-Reductive Personalist View", 1995
    9. "Berglund (Stefan) - Varieties of Reductive Personalism", 1995
    10. "Cassam (Quassim) - Reductionism", 1999, Read = 3%
    11. "Chappell (Tim), Chappell (Sophie Grace) - Reductionism about Persons; And What Matters", 1998, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    12. "Dainton (Barry) - The Phenomenal Self: Appendix - Reductionism", 2008, Read = 22%
    13. "DiGiovanna (James) - Literally Like a Different Person: Context and Concern in Personal Identity", 2015, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    14. "Franklin (Alexander) - Can Multiple Realisation be Explained", 2021, Internal PDF Link, Read = 6%
    15. "Franks Davis (Caroline) - The Reductionist Challenge", 1989
    16. "Garrett (Brian) - Non-Reductionism and John Searle's The Rediscovery of the Mind", 1995, Internal PDF Link
    17. "Hasker (William) - How Not To Be A Reductivist", 2003, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    18. "Johnston (Mark) - Reasons and Reductionism", 1992, Internal PDF Link, Read = 8%
    19. "Jubien (Michael) - Essential Properties and Reduction", 1970, Internal PDF Link
    20. "Jurjako (Marko) - Agency and Reductionism about the Self", 2017, Internal PDF Link, Read = 4%
    21. "Kim (Jaegwon) - Reduction and Reductionism: A New Look", 2000, Read = 7%
    22. "Midgley (Mary) - Do we ever really act?", 2004, Internal PDF Link
    23. "Midgley (Mary) - Reductivism, Fatalism and Sociobiology", 1984, Internal PDF Link
    24. "Mills (Eugene) - Dividing Without Reducing: Bodily Fission and Personal Identity", 1993
    25. "Murphy (Nancey) - Did my neurons make me do it? Reductionism, morality and the problem of free will", 2006, Read = 18%
    26. "Murphy (Nancey) - Non-Reductive Physicalism: Philosophical Issues", 1998, Read = 6%
    27. "Nagel (Ernest) - The Reduction of Theories", 1961, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 4%
    28. "Perrett (Roy W.) - Personal Identity, Minimalism, And Madhyamaka", 2002, Internal PDF Link
    29. "Poole (Michael) - Reductionism: Help or Hindrance in Science and Religion?", 2007, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    30. "Rose (Steven) - Lifelines - Biology, Freedom, Determinism", 1998, Book, Read = 1%, Note: Chapters 4 & 10.
    31. "Rose (Steven) - Précis of 'Lifelines: Biology, Freedom, Determinism'", 1999, Annotations, Internal PDF Link, Read = 50%
    32. "Rovane (Carol) - Branching Self-Consciousness", 1990, Internal PDF Link
    33. "Schaffer (Jonathan) - Causation and Laws of Nature: Reductionism", 2007, Read = 8%
    34. "Shoemaker (David) - The Irrelevance/Incoherence of Non-Reductivism About Personal Identity", 2002, Internal PDF Link, Read = 4%
    35. "Siderits (Mark) - Buddhist Reductionism", 1997, Internal PDF Link
    36. "Sklar (Lawrence) - The Reduction (?) of Thermodynamics to Statistical Mechanics", 1999, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    37. "Sklar (Lawrence) - Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics and the Complexity of Reductions", 1974, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    38. "Sklar (Lawrence) - Types of Inter-Theoretic Reduction", 1967, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    39. "Slors (Marc) - Non-Reductionism, Epiphenominalism, and Eliminitivism: The Relevance of the Personal Identity Debate", 1997
    40. "Wimsatt (William) - Emergence as Non-Aggregativity and the Biases of Reductionisms", 2003, Internal PDF Link
• This is mostly a place-holder¹⁵.