Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Personal Identity
What are We?
(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
- For the present, I just mention that I need to distinguish, as candidates for what we are, (human-)
→ animals2,
→ organisms3,
→ persons4,
→ bodies5,
→ beings6 and
→ brains7.
- Additionally, I need to treat of
→ selves8
and maybe contrast terms like “mensch” (Wikipedia: Mensch) with “person”.
- We: the use of the plural is significant. However, the determination of “we” as “the sort of entity likely to be reading this paper” isn’t quite right, even though Dennett and others use similar expressions.
- Read the first parts of "Brandom (Robert) - Toward a Normative Pragmatics" in "Brandom (Robert) - Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing & Discursive Commitment" for inspiration on “We”.
- Intelligibility: this is a reciprocal relationship. We find others (of “our” sort) intelligible, and it is important that they find us intelligible in return. Does this thereby make R = “finds intelligible” an equivalence relation, dividing the world into equivalence classes of mutually intelligible individuals, or does R come in degrees and fall prey to Sorites9 paradoxes?
- For my Thesis Chapter on this topic, follow this link10.
- Works on this topic that I’ve actually read11, include12 the following:-
- A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
- This is mostly a place-holder13. 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 11:
- 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 12:
- 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 4 Earlier Versions of this Note
Table of the 7 Later Versions of this Note
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).
Summary of Note Links to this Page
| Animalism |
Baillie - What Am I? |
Baker - Persons and Bodies, 2 |
Baker - Persons and Bodies - Precis, 2, 3 |
Baker - Persons and Bodies - Response to Noonan |
| Baker - Persons and Bodies (Book Summary) |
Baker - Persons in the Material World, 2, 3, 4 |
Baker - The Human Animal: Big-Tent Metaphysics |
Baker - The Human Animal: Response to Olson |
Baker - What Am I?, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
| Biological Criterion |
Blackburn - Has Kant Refuted Parfit? |
Bodily Continuity, 2 |
Brain, 2 |
Brain Criterion |
| Brain Transplants |
Brains in Vats |
Brandom - Toward a Normative Pragmatics (Introduction), 2 |
Disembodied Existence |
Human Animals |
| Information |
Jen_071112 (Thesis Chapter Breakdown), 2 |
Jen_071119 (Web Technology) |
Jen_080204 (Brandom, Chisholm, Baillie), 2, 3 |
Jen_080317 (Baker), 2 |
| Johnston - Human Beings |
Mereology |
Near Death Experiences |
Olson - Personal Identity - Oxford Bibliographies Online, 2 |
Olson - The Human Animal: Reply to Zimmerman, 2 |
| Olson - What Are We? The Question, 2, 3, 4 |
Olson - What Are We? What Now?, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
Origins |
Out of Body Experiences |
Psychological Continuity |
| Sortals, 2 |
Status: Birkbeck (Autumn 2007), 2, 3 |
Status: Birkbeck (Spring 2008) |
Status: Personal Identity (Summary of Progress to Date) |
The Future of Philosophy |
| The Singularity |
Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
Thesis - Outline, 2 |
Unmerited Suffering & Hominid Evolution - Response |
Uploading |
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026