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Personal Identity
Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)
(Text as at 05/04/2016 23:19:41)
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Abstract
- This Chapter gives an account of Lynne Rudder Baker’s thesis that human persons are not identical to human animals, but are – temporarily at least – constituted by them.
Research Methodology
- Follow this Link1 for a generic statement of how I intend to pursue each Chapter.
- The method is broken down into 12, possibly iterative, stages.
- Follow this Link2 for my progress dashboard on these tasks.
Chapter Introduction
- Baker’s account of constitution is not the standard mereological3 account, of some larger body being constituted by its parts, but is her own idea that requires explication.
- Baker also has a commitment to PERSONs being substances in their own right, rather than being an honorific title applied to substances that at other times might not deserve the honorific.
- She also reifies a useful idea – that of a First-person Perspective. It is the FPP that individuates persons, according to Baker, so the FPP requires explanation as well.
- Further detail to be supplied.
Main Text
- To be supplied.
Links to Books / Papers to be Addressed4
- In this Chapter I will consider the following papers or book chapters (together with some others referenced by these). There are doubtless many more that are relevant and which will be addressed in the course of the thesis, but these are probably sufficient to get us going.
- I’ve not been overly careful to segregate the reading-list of this Chapter from that of Chapter 95. I will address the segregation in due course. There will, in any case, be some overlap.
- Baker
- Constitution
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Constitution Revisited", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Mereology and Constitution", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - On Making Things Up: Constitution and Its Critics", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Unity without Identity: A New Look at Material Constitution", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Why Constitution is Not Identity", Baker
- "Blatti (Stephan) - Material Constitution", Blatti
- "Doepke (Frederick) - The Constitution Relation", Doepke
- "Fine (Kit) - A Counter-Example To Locke's Thesis", Fine
- "Fine (Kit) - The Non-Identity of a Material Thing and Its Matter", Fine
- "Hazlett (Allan) - Disassembly and Destruction", Hazlett
- "Jubien (Michael) - Things and Their Parts", Jubien
- "Merricks (Trenton) - Against the Doctrine of Microphysical Supervenience", Merricks
- "Noonan (Harold) - Constitution Is Identity", Noonan
- "Noonan (Harold) - Identity, Constitution and Microphysical Supervenience", Noonan
- "Rea (Michael), Ed. - Material Constitution - A Reader", Rea
- "Rea (Michael) - Constitution and Kind Membership", Rea
- "Rea (Michael) - Lynne Baker on Material Constitution", Rea
- "Wasserman (Ryan) - The Constitution Question", Wasserman
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Theories of Masses and Problems of Constitution", Zimmerman.
- Mereology6
- Co-Location7
- "Bennett (Karen) - Composition, Colocation, and Metaontology", Bennett_K
- "Bennett (Karen) - Spatio-Temporal Coincidence and the Grounding Problem", Bennett_K
- "Burke (Michael) - Cohabitation, Stuff and Intermittent Existence", Burke
- "Burke (Michael) - Coinciding Objects: Reply to Lowe and Denkel", Burke
- "Burke (Michael) - Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper: A Challenge to the Standard Account", Burke
- "Burke (Michael) - Dion and Theon: An Essentialist Solution to an Ancient Puzzle", Burke
- "Burke (Michael) - Dion, Theon, and the many-thinkers problem", Burke8
- "Burke (Michael) - Preserving the Principle of One Object to a Place: A Novel Account of the Relations Amongst Objects, Sorts, Sortals, and Persistence Conditions", Burke
- "Burke (Michael) - Tibbles the Cat: A Modern Sophisma", Burke
- "Carter (William) - Dion's Left Foot (and the Price of Burkean Economy)", Carter
- "Denkel (Arda) - Theon’s Tale: Does a Cambridge Change Result in a Substantial Change?", Denkel
- "Lowe (E.J.) - Coinciding Objects: In Defence of the ‘Standard Account’", Lowe
- "Olson (Eric) - Dion's Foot", Olson
- "Olson (Eric) - Material Coincidence and the Indiscernibility Problem", Olson
- "Parsons (Josh) - Dion, Theon, and DAUP", Parsons
- "Sutton (Catherine S.) - Colocated Objects, Tally-Ho: A Solution to the Grounding Problem", Sutton
- "Wiggins (David) - On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time", Wiggins
- First-Person Perspectives
- Constitution View
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Everyday Concepts as a Guide to Reality", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Material Persons and the Doctrine of Resurrection", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - On Being One’s Own Person", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Precis of 'Persons & Bodies: A Constitution View'", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Review of 'A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person' by Hud Hudson", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - The Difference that Self-Consciousness Makes", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - The Ontological Status of Persons", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Do Persons Begin and End?", Baker
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Does a Person Begin?", Baker
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Persons, Bodies and the Constitution Relation", Corcoran
- "Lizza (John) - Persons, Humanity, & the Definition of Death", Lizza
- "Lowe (E.J.) - Identity, Composition, and the Simplicity of the Self", Lowe
- "Merricks (Trenton) - Objects & Persons: Preface", Merricks
- "Olson (Eric) - Lowe's Defence of Constitutionalism", Olson
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution", Olson
- "Thomson (Judith Jarvis) - People and Their Bodies", Thomson
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Philosophers and the Words 'Human Body'", Van Inwagen
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Reply to Reviewers", Van Inwagen
- "Wilson (Robert) - Persons, Social Agency, and Constitution", Wilson
- Many aspects of these papers will need to be either ignored or reserved for other chapters.
- The motivation for these works is as follows:-
The Cut
- There had already been a lot of cutting in the various selections of the original reading list – the reading lists attached to the Notes run on and on – and these items just represent the works in my possession (though I have sought out all that I’ve heard of that look relevant).
- However, the items in the lists following were given some attention, and have been culled – at least temporarily – from the lists above, where they originally appeared. I’ve not always given a reason as I’ve not studied them sufficiently closely. But, you have to draw a line somewhere.
- I’m well aware that the cut has not been sufficiently rigorous. Further items beyond the items below are likely to be culled when I come to process them.
Links to Notes
- Baker10,
- Constitution11,
- Constitution View12,
- First-Person Perspective13,
- Mereology14,
- Dion and Theon15,
- Others to be supplied?
Final Remarks
- This is work in progress16.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 4:
- See the section on Research Methodology for what is to be done with these.
- The author’s surname is repeated in the text to make it easier for me to see what’s going on in the encoded text I work on.
Footnote 6: While Baker’s understanding of constitution is distinct from a mereological one, it is necessary to understand mereology.
Footnote 7: I’m not sure whether this section belongs here, but it must go somewhere!
Footnote 8: This may properly belong to one of the Chapters on Animalism.
Footnote 9: This Chapter has rather more to do with distributive ethics than personal identity or the FPP.
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