Theo Todman's Philosophy Page

(Text as at 18/03/2026 18:34:34)



*** 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)

Thesis Document1Original Full Version of Thesis2Thesis - Current Stance3Personal Identity Notes Jump Table
Personal Identity Status Report4Status: Thesis Dashboard5PID Note, Book & Paper Usage6Research Databases7

Introductory Note
  1. This page aims to focus the casual browser or interested contact on what my main philosophical concern is; namely the production of a consolidated research document investigating the topic of Personal Identity, which will be converted into a PhD Thesis in due course if things work out well.
  2. I’ve recently (March 2026) updated this page to reflect this more clearly, and the Preface and Chapter Abstracts of the Thesis appear immediately below.
  3. Further down this page are the explanations of two sets of links to other pages on this site – most of which appear above – either directly or tangentially related to my research on this topic.

Thesis Preface
  1. This document – a draft Thesis8 that seeks – in addition to recording the results of my researches into the question of Personal Identity – to model a ‘new way’ of doing analytic philosophy – is in the course of construction.
  2. My high-level ‘Current Stance’ on the general topic of Personal Identity is here9. Currently, this also finds a home in the concluding Chapter.
  3. The Thesis seems to fall naturally into three sections (other than the Introduction and the Conclusion); namely,
    • Setting up the problem (Chapters 2-5),
    • Olson and Baker’s views contrasted (Chapters 6-9); and
    • Testing the preferred solution (Chapters 10-11).
  4. The general approach is abductive – that of ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’ of the facts of – and our intuitions related to – what personal identity is and what our persistence conditions are.

Thesis Chapter Abstracts
  1. Introduction10: Provides a motivating statement for the study of the particular path through the topic of Personal Identity I pursue and a brief historical survey of the subject to situate my particular stance.
  2. What are We11: The topic “personal identity” has historically presupposed that we are (in the sense of “identical to”, or “most fundamentally”) persons, whereas I (along with other animalists) claim that we are identical to human animals. “We” requires explanation. This chapter will sort out the topic of discussion for the Thesis as a whole.
  3. What is a Person?12: This chapter canvasses the various views and considers how important issues in this area are to my main understanding of our identity.
  4. Basic Metaphysical Issues13: We must consider the logic of identity, as non-standard logics are favourite means of escaping from some of the puzzle cases. We ask – along with Parfit – whether identity matters. Substances and sortals are central to the persistence of anything and define their persistence conditions. In particular my claim is that persons are phase sortals of human animals (the substances). The question of Kinds – and in particular Natural Kinds – are related to those of Substance and are important in considering whether PERSON is a natural kind concept. Metamorphosis might be important if it is claimed that we can change kind. Another position that needs to be considered is the process view – that focusing on things rather than processes is a mistake. This is particularly relevant if we are animals, though I doubt it makes much difference to identifying what we are, only how we should think of what we are.
  5. Persistence and Time14: I consider what persistence is and what sort of things may be said to persist. If time is unreal, or the past doesn’t exist, there’s no such thing as persistence. Also, a number of thought experiments that feature in Chapter 10 seem to fail if perdurantism is true (because the reduplication objections fail). While this complex area is impossible to deal with adequately within a fairly limited word-count, it deserves some consideration.
  6. Animalism and Arguments for it15: This Chapter describes what Animalism is, with an excursus on animals and organisms and their persistence – and in particular whether we should consider them to be substances or processes. It puts forward the arguments in favour of animalism, those against being reserved for Chapter 816. It focuses on the account of Eric Olson, the primary contemporary exponent of Animalism.
  7. The Constitution View and Arguments for it17: 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. Counter-arguments are given in Chapter 918.
  8. Arguments against Animalism19: A discussion of the arguments against animalism, as given by those of anti-animalist persuasion and defended by the principal animalists (with a focus on Olson), with a critique.
  9. Arguments against the Constitution View20: A discussion of the arguments against the Constitution View, focusing on the principal animalists, with a critique. In particular, I critique Olson’s “thinking animal” argument against the Constitution View and against other views – such as the Psychological View – that drive a wedge between the Person and the Animal. I think the “thinking animal” argument is unnecessary to establish the case for Animalism.
  10. Thought Experiments21: Any account of personal identity needs to give an account of what is going on in the various thought experiments that have been thought relevant to the topic. It’s also the area that’s most fun. It needs to account for our intuitions (if there is a universal response) or explain them away as confused. The entire Thesis is an exercise in inference to the best explanation of these intuitions. I briefly consider the propriety of using thought experiments in this domain of enquiry, and then consider the usual suspects.
  11. Resurrection22: If mind-body substance dualism is false, and we are identical to human animals, then the only possibility for post-mortem existence is some form of bodily resurrection. Since the body is destroyed at death, it would seem that any resurrected individual could only be a copy of the original. It might think of itself as the resurrected pre-mortem individual, but it would be wrong. Consideration of arguments by Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman in this regard. This chapter is likely to be controversial, so needs to be very carefully argued, and factually correct concerning what is actually believed by intellectually-aware Christians, Jews and Muslims (unlike what seems to be the case with most swipes against religion). I also cover reincarnation and other possibilities for post-mortem survival, in particular “uploading” to computers.
  12. Conclusion23:
    • We are human animals,
    • Human persons fall under phase sortals of the concept HUMAN ANIMAL,
    • The person is inseparable from the animal,
    • The animal is utterly destroyed at death,
    • Substance dualism is false, and
    • Consequently (given the sort of thing we are) resurrection or any other post-mortem survival is impossible for us.
  13. References24
  14. Appendix: Outstanding Tasks25

Primary Links and Explanations
  1. Some important links are:-
    • Thesis Document26
      • This is the ‘one-page’ version of my draft Thesis that could be printed, should anyone so wish. .
    • Original Full Version of Thesis27
      • This is a version of the above, with a separate page per Chapter, and with considerably more links to reference material.
    • Thesis - Current Stance28
      • This is a brief statement of my current stance on the topic of Personal Identity. It is slightly artificial in that it tries to use each of the many sub-topics once.
    • Personal Identity Notes Jump Table
      • This is an alphabetically-arranged tabular array of links to all the sub-topics that go to make up my research into Personal Identity.
    • Personal Identity Status Report29.
      • This is the quarterly status report related to my research.
    • Web-Tools Status Report30.
      • This is the quarterly status report on my website activities. It’s mentioned here because of the centrality of my website for displaying the results of my philosophical researches.
    • Status: Thesis Dashboard31
      • This is a now outdated indicator of how far I’ve got – Chapter by Chapter – with my Thesis according to a set of 20 or so tasks or sub-tasks. I imagine this might be a sensible approach were I to live to 200. It hasn’t been updated in a while as I’m now adoption a top down rather than bottom up approach.
    • PID Note, Book & Paper Usage32
      • This is a huge technical and automatically-generated page that provides 4 datasets of what is used where together with 16 lists of items requiring my attention. It is allied to the ‘bottom-up’ approach, so I’ve not looked at it much recently, but it will be very useful when I get down to the nitty-gritty.

Secondary Links and Explanations
  1. Otherwise, this page was originally intended to be the jumping-off point to find the location and contents of all the books and papers I’d collected and all the papers I'd written since receiving formal training in philosophy, in addition to those specifically arising from my research into Personal Identity. However, I'm not sure how useful this is to anyone other than me. Its aim was to make it easier for me to get my hands on the various research materials I'd stashed away over the years, and hopefully see some wood for trees33. I hope their value will grow over time, as the data quality improves. Currently they are simply there to try out some ideas about the use of web technology in the service of philosophy.
  2. Below are some links to other possibly useful but sometimes outdated resources:-
    • Research Papers34.
      • This page lists my original research proposal, thesis outline, various essays, or look up abstracts (or at least lists) of the exciting books and papers on Personal Identity (and related topics).
    • Internet Resources35
      • For sundry web-links, and places to find on-line papers in areas however remotely connected with my research. It was useful when I was at Birkbeck, but you need to be allied to an institution to have free access to the resources (except those I have access to as a Cambridge alumnus).
    • Research Databases36
      • For further tables of books and papers in the wider areas of philosophy, and outside, follow the link.
    • BA Papers37.
      • As I haven't published any research papers yet, I've included a page of papers written in the final year of my BA, and a few earlier BA papers.


In-Page Footnotes

Footnote 8:
  1. This document is based on the fully-on-line version which contains vastly more information at various stages of completion.
  2. Ultimately, maybe, I will convert it into more of what is expected of a standard PhD Thesis. I will retain the hyperlinks, but convert the structure so that the text can be read in a linear manner. I am not worrying about this or about word-count for now.
  3. I’ve just completed the initial ‘tidying up’ phase having reserved larger tasks for later. Because of the way this research has been conducted and written up, there is much repetition in the document. I’m not worrying about this for now, either.
  4. Where something needs investigating and I’ve no time at the moment, I’ve included reference to it in an ‘Actions List’ that appears as an Appendix.
  5. Rather than addressing all these, my next focus is to beef up the central Chapters 6-9 on Animalism and the Constitution View, and the arguments for and against them.
  6. I discussed the on-line, hyperlinking methodology with my supervisor when I first started out on this research back in 2007 and at that time decided that working out the methodology of this approach in practical detail was more important than plodding through the formal acquisition of a PhD.
  7. A note on hyperlinks: Upper-case links are to clarificatory parts of the larger Thesis and ought not need to be followed up by the reader to follow the argument. They do, however, provide evidence on what I’ve written, read, encountered – or not – in great detail. Lower-case hyperlinks are to footnotes internal to this document which do need to be read.
Footnote 33:

Live Version of this Archived Note

Date Length Title
18/03/2026 18:34:34 14462 Theo Todman's Philosophy Page

Table of the 3 Earlier Versions of this Note

Date Length Title
01/10/2021 13:17:46 2199 Theo Todman's Philosophy Page
05/04/2016 23:19:41 1828 Theo Todman's Philosophy Page
15/12/2013 1808 Theo Todman's Philosophy Page


This version updated Reference for this Topic Parent Topic
18/03/2026 18:34:34 1140 (Theo Todman's Philosophy Page) None


Summary of Notes Links from this Page

PID Note, Book & Paper Usage (2) Status: Personal Identity (2025 - December) (2) Status: Thesis Dashboard (2022: December) (2) Status: Web-Tools (2025 - December) Theo Todman's BA Papers
Theo Todman's Internet Resources Theo Todman's Philosophy Research Theo Todman's Research Databases (2) Thesis - Chapter 00 (Preface) (2) Thesis - Current Stance (3)
Thesis - Personal Identity (17) Thesis - References      

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).



Summary of Note Links to this Page

Status: Summary Task List (2026: January - March) Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 25Q4 - 26Q1) Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 25Q4 - 26Q2) Status: Web-Tools (2026 - March)  

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).



Text Colour Conventions

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



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