Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2015 - September)
(Text as at 07/10/2015 00:27:22)
*** 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)
Rationale for this Project
- I am researching the subject of Personal Identity primarily because of its intrinsic interest and importance. It is really a sub-topic in my Philosophy of Religion1 project, with its penultimate chapter considering the metaphysical possibility of resurrection.
- While I’m interested in the topic of my research in its own right, I think when I’ve sorted it out a bit, and have something to say, I’ll want to engage with other philosophers active in this field – and re-starting a PhD at Birkbeck or elsewhere might be the only effective way to do this.
- While a PhD is not an end in itself, and certainly not the ultimate aim of my doing philosophy, it’s still true that a PhD would teach me research techniques, provide focus and direction, and furnish a professional qualification should I want to publish any results in this or any other area of philosophy.
- The jumping-off point for my thesis is here2, and a progress dashboard (which needs updating) is here3.
Summary of Progress during July - September 2015
- I spent 260 hours in 3Q15 (896 hours YTD, where for “YTD” – Year to Date – I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2014) on my Thesis or Thesis-related work. That’s 110% of the planned effort (82% YTD). Overall, 42% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 36% YTD) – as against 36% planned (42% YTD).
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List (Click_Here4).
- This quarter, effort was yet again expended on a vast number of tasks, as listed in the task list below, but key items immediately follow …
- Purchased and started reading:-
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies",
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit",
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One",
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Two",
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves",
- "Sytsma (Justin), Ed. - Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind",
- "Taylor (Richard) - Metaphysics".
- Completed Brief file-notes are required.
- Acquired and catalogued the available works of:-
- Invested a lot of effort into listening to, and taking notes on, a couple of BBC R4 “History of Ideas” series:-
- Discovered the podcasts related to "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person" and listened to most of them while walking Henry. Purchased the book.
- Made extensive notes on "Snowdon (Paul) - Philosophy and the Mind/Body Problem" from the above.
- Updated various Thesis Notes, so that now there is at least some minimal text – and a reading list – for all. In particular "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Christian Materialism".
- More detail follows:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 236.25)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 198.25)
- "Agar (Nicholas) - Biocentrism and the Concept of Life" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Agar (Nicholas) - Whereto Transhumanism?: The Literature Reaches a Critical Mass" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: Introduction" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Augustine (Keith) & Fishman (Yonatan I.) - The Dualist’s Dilemma: The High Cost of Reconciling Neuroscience with a Soul" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Selfless Persons: Goodness in an Impersonal World?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bakhurst (David) - Training, Transformation, and Education" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Belshaw (Christopher) - Review of Paul Snowdon's 'Persons, Animals, Ourselves'" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies" (Read / Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Broks (Paul) - Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Campbell (Tim) & McMahan (Jeff) - Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Churchland (Patricia) - The Brains Behind Morality" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Cole (David) - Artificial Intelligence and Personal Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Cole (David) - Functionalism and Inverted Spectra" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Cole (David) - Thought and Thought Experiments" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Crane (Tim) - The Mental States of Persons and their Brains" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dainton (Barry) - From Phenomenal Selves to Hyper-Selves" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit: Prologue" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Dainton (Barry) - The Phenomenal Self" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Dunne (John S.) - City of the Gods: A Study in Myth and Mortality" (Read, 2.5 hours)
- "Fuller (Gary) - Functionalism and Personal Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Genova (Lisa) - Still Alice" (Read, 10.5 hours)
- "Girle (Rod) - Argument and Modality" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Hacker (P.M.S.) - An Intellectual Entertainment - The Nature of the Mind" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - A Hylomorphic Account of Thought Experiments Concerning Personal Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - A More Palatable Epicureanism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - An Argument for Limited Human Cloning" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Animals, Persons and Bioethics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Are There Too Many Hylomorphic Individuals Thinking about this Life and the Next?" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Death, Dignity and Degradation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Embryos, Four-Dimensionalism and Moral Status" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Explaining the Psychological Appeal of Viability as a Cutoff Point" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Four-Dimensional Animalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - How a Hylomorphic Metaphysics Constrains the Abortion Debate" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Personal Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Merrick's Identification of the Person and Organism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Misunderstanding the Moral Equivalence of Killing and Letting Die" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Olson's Account of Function and Substance Concepts" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Organisms and their Bodies: Response to LaPorte" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Organisms, Artifacts, and Eliminativism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Perdure and Murder" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Persons as Proper Parts of Organisms" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Problems with a Constitution Account of Persons" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Review of David DeGrazia’s Human Identity and Bioethics" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'" (Read / Write, 9.5 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Soulless Organisms? Hylomorphism vs. Animalism" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - The Memory Criterion and the Problem of Backward Causation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - The Metaphysical Problem of Intermittent Existence and the Possibility of Resurrection" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - The Thesis of Vague Objects and Unger's Problem of the Many" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Vague Existence Implies Vague Identity" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) - Who Doesn't Have a Problem of Too Many Thinkers?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) & Koch-Hershenov (Rose J.) - Morally Relevant Potential" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Hershenov (David) & Taylor (Adam P.) - Split Brains: No Headache for the Soul Theorist" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Honderich (Ted) - Actual consciousness: database, physicalities, theory, criteria, no unique mystery" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Hospers (John) - Is the Notion of Disembodied Existence Intelligible?" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Hughes (Christopher) - Is a Thing Just the Sum of Its Parts" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Kamm (F.M.) - Audio: The Trolley Problem Mysteries: May We Harm Some to Save Others?" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Lewis (David) - Counterfactuals: Introduction - An Analysis of Counterfactuals" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - Could a Brain in a Vat Self-Refer?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - Externalism and Brain Transplants" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - Intention and the Self" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - Self-Consciousness and its Linguistic Expression" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - The Naive Topology of the Conscious Subject" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - The Persistence of Animate Organisms" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Madden (Rory) - The Place of The Self in Contemporary Metaphysics" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Madden (Rory) - Thinking Parts" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: Preface" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "O'Brien (Lucy) - Ambulo Ergo Sum" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Oderberg (David) - Could There Be a Superhuman Species?" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Oderberg (David) - Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Oderberg (David) - The Metaphysical Status of the Embryo: Some Arguments Revisited" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Oderberg (David) - The Origination of a Human Being - Rejoinder to Persson" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person: Introduction" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - On Parfit's View That We Are Not Human Beings" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Olson (Eric) - What Does Functionalism Tell Us About Personal Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One - Part 1: Reasons" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One - Part 2: Principles" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One - Part 3: Theories" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume One - Preface & Summary" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Two - Part 5: Responses to Commentaries" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Two - Part 6: Normativity" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - On What Matters: Volume Two - Preface & Summary" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Parfit (Derek) - We Are Not Human Beings" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Parfit (Derek) - What We Could Rationally Will" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Pink (Thomas) - Nature, Self, and Power" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Potter (Harry), Shears (Tara), Carlisle (Clare) & Broks (Paul) - Audio: How Can I Know Anything at All?" (Write, 4 hours)
- "Pross (Addy) - What Is Life?" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Reid (Jasper) - Kripke on Naming and Necessity (Course Notes)" (Write, 7.25 hours)
- "Scheffler (Samuel) - Audio: The Afterlife" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Shand (John) - An Essay on Philosophy and the Four Philosophical Virtues" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Functionalism and Personal Identity - a Reply" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Smith (Barry C.), Broks (Paul), Kennedy (A.L.) & Evans (Jules) - Audio: What Does It Mean to Be Me?" (Write, 15.5 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - [A & not-P] Cases: An Introduction" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - [P & not-A] Cases: An Introduction" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animalism" (Read / Write, 2 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animalism and Some Philosophical Problems" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animalism and the Unity of Consciousness" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animals and Persons" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Animals and Us" (Read / Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Brain Transplants, Animals, and Us" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Conclusions and Consequences" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Multiple Personality Disorder" (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves: Introduction" (Read / Write, 3.25 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves: Preface" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Philosophy and the Mind/Body Problem" (Write, 9 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Some Questions about Animals" (Read / Write, 2.75 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Strengthening the Rejection of Transplant Arguments" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Snowdon (Paul) - The Self and Personal Identity" (Read / Write, 19.75 hours)
- "Sprevak (Mark) & Statham (David) - Group Minds and Explanatory Simplicity" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Sutton (Catherine S.) - Against the Maximality Principle" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Sutton (Catherine S.) - Almost One, Overlap and Function" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Sutton (Catherine S.) - Composition as Identity - A Resource Page" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Sytsma (Justin) - Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Mind: Introduction" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Taylor (Richard) - Metaphysics: Preface & Introduction" (Read / Write, 2.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Baker" (Write, 6.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Christian Materialism" (Write, 16.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Contingent Identity" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Disembodied Existence" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Functionalism" (Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Leibniz" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Mereology" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Mind" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Modality" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Narrative Identity" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Occasional Identity" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Origins" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Parfit" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Psychological Criterion" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Quasi-Memory" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Reduplication Objections" (Write, 2 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Relative Identity" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Sleep" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Substance" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Thinking Animal Argument" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Thisness (Haecceity)" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Unity of the Person" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Vague Identity" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Wittgenstein" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Wilson (David C.) - Functionalism and Moral Personhood: One View Considered" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Wright (N.T.) & Kagan (Shelly) - Video: Living Well in the Light of Death: Two views on life - before (and after?) the inevitable" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: Can We Survive Our Death?" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: Does God Know Our First-Person Perspectives?" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: The Metaphysics of Time & God" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- Thesis - Discussions (Total Hours = 3.5)
- Thesis - Lectures (Total Hours = 25.25)
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 9.25)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 23.25)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 14.25)
- "Carter (J. Adam) & Pritchard (Duncan) - Cognitive Bias, Scepticism and Understanding" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Crystal (David) - The Stories of English" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Interaction - Philos-List" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Kamm (Oliver) - Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage" (Read, 1.25 hours)
- "Kirchhoff (Michael D.) & Hutto (Daniel D.) - Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Plantinga (Alvin) - Twenty Years Worth of the SCP" (Read, 0.5 hours)
- "Potter (Harry), Shears (Tara), Carlisle (Clare) & Broks (Paul) - Audio: How Can I Know Anything at All?" (Write, 10.5 hours)
- "Willis (David) - Degrammaticalisation" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- Thesis Background - Admin
- Thesis Background - Books Admin
- Thesis Background - Status (Total Hours = 4)
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- I now have a clear idea of what I want to do over the next 3 years5, which is to complete a thesis to my own satisfaction. As such I require rigorous focus on the priority tasks, books and papers. Lower-priority reading is not likely to get a look in, so will be cut. I’ve severely pruned the list from last quarter’s report, which had (again!) got out of hand.
- An “ideal” next step (and one previously suggested) is to ensure that everything of relevance that I have actually read is written up and incorporated in my Notes database and only later – and secondly – consider anything that I have not yet read. This would require discipline, in that interesting new stuff is always turning up, and would be an iterative process. Further, given I’m not getting any younger, it could also be wasting time which should be focussed on using the most relevant materials.
- So, if what I’ve read and written on – in the form of particular papers on a particular topic – is most relevant, I’ll “process” that, but otherwise will start anew.
- As far as effort is concerned, I plan to maintain the 18 hours / week planned (and exceeded) last quarter – though this will increase once I’ve caught up with the backlog of work on my web-tools6 project.
- So, the tasks for the next quarter are:-
- Continue with my Thesis7; in particular fill out those sections that I can write something on without further research.
- Complete a full review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those with least content.
- Make progress on specific Chapters, using the materials below …
- Chapter_28 (What Are We?). Focussing on:-
- Human Beings:-
- "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal", but first complete a review of
- "Johnston (Mark) - Human Beings".
- Selves:-
- "Dainton (Barry) - Self: Philosophy In Transit",
- "O'Hear (Anthony), Ed. - Mind, Self and Person".
- Chapter_69 (Animalism). Focussing on:-
- "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", my core text,
- "Merricks (Trenton) - Objects and Persons",
- "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument",
- "Olson (Eric) - On Parfit's View That We Are Not Human Beings",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Metaphysical Implications of Conjoined Twining",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Role of the Brainstem in Personal Identity",
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, Ourselves".
- Chapter_710 (The Constitution View):-
- Start a serious review of "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", my other core text.
- Read and review "Corcoran (Kevin) - Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul".
- Chapter_1111 (Resurrection):-
- Start a thorough review of "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death",
- In particular, complete the write-up of "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave", and
- Compare & contrast it with "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death",
- Start a review of "Luper (Steven), Ed. - The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death", especially
- "Olson (Eric) - The Nature of People",
- Read and review "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife",
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival".
- As background tasks:-
- Convert old PDF-précis, Etc. to Notes,
- Continue with "Marshall (Richard) - Philosophy at 3:AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers",
- Complete "Kamm (Oliver) - Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage",
- Complete "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- Read "Dunne (John S.) - City of the Gods: A Study in Myth and Mortality",
- Write file-notes on:-
- Keep up with the Journals via JSTOR12.
Summary of Progress to Date
This was hived off to a separate Note13 back in 2010, and hasn’t changed much since.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 5:
- Hopefully, I may complete, or get stuck, earlier.
- By “3 years”, I mean the period ending on my 65th birthday – ie. 13/11/2018. This is not to slip!
- On the plus side, I’m much further advanced than would be expected of someone commencing a PhD.
- On the minus side, I want to go into greater depth, and have other projects on the go – most notably my Web-tools project.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 58)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 41)
| This version updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 07/10/2015 00:27:22 |
518 (Status: Personal Identity (2015 - September)) |
Status: Summary (2026 - March) |
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026