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Personal Identity
Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?)
(Text as at 22/07/2014 22:23:31)
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AbstractThe 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 attempts to sort out the topic of discussion for the Thesis as a whole.
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.
- Progress on this Chapter is unusual in that it was the sample Chapter on which I was working with my Supervisor when registered for the PhD at Birkbeck.
- This Chapter is at Stage 2/3.
Chapter Introduction
- This Chapter has the title “What Are We?”. The “We” is of some significance, as we will see in the course of this Thesis when we consider the social and reciprocal aspects of what it is to be a person. Nonetheless, should we not start with the singular, maybe even solipsist, question “What Am I?”, and expand out from there into the collective question? How we phrase our initial question has an impact on the course of our investigations, and may reflect our deepest presuppositions. The first-person question adopts the Cartesian stance of looking from the inside out, whereas the third-person question considers “us” collectively. The first-person question may presuppose that the answer to the question is that I am primarily a psychological being, whereas the third-person question may assume or expect the answer that I am fundamentally physical.
- Some of the potential answers to the question will be the same whether we phrase the question in the singular or the plural.
- Taking it in the plural for now, we need to distinguish, as candidates for what we might be on the physical side, (prefixing “human-” passim):-
- Animals,
- Organisms,
- Bodies,
- Beings, and
- Brains.
- On the psychological side, I might be a self or, more popularly, a person. I might even be a non-essentially-embodied entity like a soul.
- I will consider all these options in due course; with the exception of a detailed discussion of the concept PERSON, I will do so later in this chapter. However, for the moment I want to consider some themes connecting the possible answer to our question. Firstly, does there have to be a single answer? I know that I, and presume that my readers also, fall happily under the concepts HUMAN ANIMAL, HUMAN ORGANISM and HUMAN BEING. I at least have a human body and a human brain, though I would initially feel reluctant to say that I am one of either of these things. I would certainly claim to be a SELF, and also a PERSON, as no doubt would my reader. So, cannot all these answers be correct?
- This raises the question of what I mean by saying what I am (or we are) something. In saying that I am any of these things, what sort of relation is the “am”? Am I using am in the sense of an identity relation, a constitution relation, ascribing a predicate, or have some other sense in mind?
- There are two kinds of questions I want to ask. Firstly, what sort of being am I identical to? Secondly, what sort of properties do I have; both metaphysically essential properties (those without which I would cease to exist), and those I merely consider essential (that is, “very important”, though I would continue to exist without them)?
- Any “is” that does duty for the identity relation inherits the formal properties of an equivalence relation; in particular, it is a transitive relation. Additionally, the “two” identical entities either side of the copula must satisfy Leibniz’s law; “they” share (at a time) all their properties; actual and modal, intrinsic and relational. So, if I am identical to a human animal, and also identical to a human person, then that human animal must be identical to that human person. This would mean that these “two” entities are really one. They co-exist at all times in all possible worlds where either of “them” exists, and share all their properties and relations, at any time and world. Everything that happens to “one” at a world and time happens to the “other” at those coordinates. This places strong logical constraints on how much cake I can have and eat. I may want to say that I am identical both to a human animal, and to a human person, yet claim that a human person has certain mental properties essentially, but deny that a human animal does. However, I am then claiming what is logically impossible, at least for the classical logic of identity that denies that such notions as relative identity are coherent. As we will see, this point is essential to the animalist case that we are not identical to human persons (given the claim that we are identical to human animals).
- My thesis addresses the topic of personal identity, but we might claim that what we’re really interested in is in our identity. Not that we have doubts as individuals as to which particular individual we are (as though I, as Bill Clinton, don’t know whether I am Bill Clinton or George W. Bush), but what sort of individual we are, together with worries about our persistence (how long we are going to last, and in what form). Historically, it has been a standard presupposition that what we are most fundamentally is persons, or at least that’s all we care about. So, concern about our identity has been elided with concern for personal identity, almost as though we thought that the two questions are the same. Animalists argue that the two questions are indeed different, but for convenience, and the historical continuity of the general topic under discussion, still say they are talking about personal identity.
Main Text
- To be supplied.
Links to Books / Papers to be Addressed2
- 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. For ease of reference, the analytical Note for each reference is hyperlinked directly:-
- Many aspects of these papers will need to be left for later chapters.
- The motivation for these works is as follows:-
- The excerpt from Brandom raises some questions about the community we call “we”.
- The clump of articles involving Olson, Baker and DeGrazia examine Animalism and the Constitution View, the main battleground of this thesis.
- Baker often expresses indebtedness to Chisholm, who is reviewed on that account.
- Parfit’s position is intrinsically important with respect to the functionalist / reductionist position and the claim that identity isn’t what really matters to us.
- Swinburne thinks we are souls and Johnston thinks we are human beings.
- Baillie and Kagan provide useful overviews.
Links to Notes
- For an out-of-date skeleton giving a fuller reading list, follow this link21.
- Condidates for what we are:-
- Other technical matters & terms:-
- Logic30 of Identity
- Others to be Supplied?
Final Remarks
- This is work-in-progress31.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2:
- 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.
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