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Personal Identity

Body Criterion

(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. The ‘body criterion’ of personal identity claims that we can determine that the human person persists through time just in case the same human body persists, irrespective of its mental properties.
  2. What it is that makes a body – in this case a human body – continue the same body over time?
  3. I need to do some further research in this area, but it is not important as – while considering ‘bodies’ as the bearers of human identity was a step in the right direction – it has been superseded by the treatment of human beings as living bodies, namely Organisms², for which the Biological Criterion³ is more relevant.
  4. When I to continue research in this area, I would consider:-
     1. Bodies as “lumps of matter”.
     2. Mereological⁴ matters – such as mereological essentialism – as far as they apply to bodies.
        
  5. One of the troubling⁵ areas for animalism⁶ – the corpse problem – arises from the denial that I am identical to my “corpse to be”, and that when I die, a new item – my corpse⁷ – which is not identical to my pre-mortem body (which was an organism) because it has different persistence conditions⁸ – comes into existence. This sudden popping into existence seems counter-intuitive – but otherwise there seem to be two items co-located pre-mortem – the organism and the body. Eric Olson gets round the problem by denying the existence of “bodies” – but this isn’t very intuitive either.

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  Further Remarks
  1. The two related Notes:-
     • Bodily Continuity⁹, or
     • Body¹⁰
     … will cover more general issues, though I’ve not quite decided how the labour would be best distributed.
  2. As noted above, the segregation of books and papers between these three related Notes is currently somewhat arbitrary. Currently, the categorised reading-list on this topic is fairly diminutive. Most potentially-relevant items appear under “Body”. Some of the items in the lists below are somewhat speculative.

References

• Relevant Works cited above: No items to list.
• For a Page of Links¹¹ to this Note, Click here.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹², include the following:-
  • General:
    1. "Blatti (Stephan) - Animalism and its Implications", 2005, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Garrett (Brian) - Criteria of Personal Identity", 1998
    3. "Mavrodes (George I.) - The Life Everlasting and the Bodily Criterion of Identity", 1977, Internal PDF Link
    4. "Noonan (Harold) - An Initial Survey", 2003, Annotations
    5. "Schechtman (Marya) - Reidentification: Conclusion", 1996
    6. "Thomas (Janice L.) - The bodily criterion", 2000
    7. "Thomas (Janice L.) - What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection", 2000
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Bourgeois (Warren) - Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Wiggins and Williams", 2003
    2. "Garbacz (Pawel) - What is a level of a criterion of identity?", 2002
    3. "Garver (Newton) - Criterion of Personal Identity", 1971, Internal PDF Link
    4. "Hudson (Hud) - I am Not an Animal!", 2007, Read = 11%
    5. "Hudson (Hud) - The Criterion of Personal Identity", 2001
    6. "Johnston (Mark) - Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To?", 2010, Read = 78%
    7. "Johnston (Mark) - Remnant Persons: Animalism's Undoing", 2016, Read = 15%
    8. "Lowe (E.J.) - What Is a Criterion Of Identity?", 1989, Internal PDF Link, Read = 11%
    9. "Madell (Geoffrey) - Body", 1985
    10. "Meincke (Anne Sophie) - Body or Organism? Eric T. Olson’s Charge of Cartesianism against the Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity", 2010, Internal PDF Link, Read = 7%
    11. "Olson (Eric) - Is there a Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity", 2006, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Sider (Ted) - Criteria of Personal Identity and the Limits of Conceptual Analysis", 2001, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 11%
    13. "Wallace (Kyle) - Shoemaker and Personal Identity", 1973

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.
• This is mostly a place-holder¹³.

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Table of the Previous 8 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	3498	Body Criterion
11/04/2022 00:01:26	3117	Body Criterion
07/02/2021 19:46:34	2496	Body Criterion
17/05/2020 22:04:48	2133	Body Criterion
12/03/2018 21:17:17	3442	Body Criterion
02/02/2018 19:01:55	3000	Body Criterion
27/06/2011 18:57:36	1409	Body Criterion
25/05/2010 14:58:34	84	Body Criterion

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Body Criterion	Logic of Identity

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Animalism	Animalism - Objections	Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Biological Criterion	Bodily Continuity
Body Criterion	Corpses	Mereology	Note Links Explanation	Organisms
Persistence Criteria	Plug Note Apologia	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Baker - Persons in the Material World	Biological Criterion	Biological View	Bodily Continuity	Body
Brain	Functionalism	General Surveys	Olson - What Are We? Animals	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3
Snowdon - The Self and Personal Identity	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction), 2	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It), 2	Thesis - Personal Identity, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Persons in the Material World	Paper		Yes
Clark (Andy) & Kuhn (Robert Lawrence)	Aeon: Video - Andy Clark - Virtual immortality	Paper		Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper		Yes
Hudson (Hud)	I am Not an Animal!	Paper
Johnston (Mark)	Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To?	Paper
Kingma (Elselijn)	Were You Part of Your Mother?	Paper		Yes
Meincke (Anne Sophie)	Body or Organism? Eric T. Olson’s Charge of Cartesianism against the Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity	Paper
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper		Yes
Schechtman (Marya)	Personhood and Personal Identity	Paper
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper		Yes
Snowdon (Paul)	The Self and Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Biological Criterion	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Biological View	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Bodily Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Body	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Brain	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Functionalism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - General Surveys	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8	Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Persons in the Material World	Paper - Referencing	Baker (Lynne) - Persons and Bodies, Chapter 1, pp. 3-88	Yes
Blatti (Stephan)	Animalism and its Implications	Paper - Cited	OU Website (now deleted)	Yes
Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds.	Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity	22%
Bourgeois (Warren)	Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Wiggins and Williams	Paper - Cited	Bourgeois - Persons: What Philosophers Say about You, 2003, Chapter 11	No
Bourgeois (Warren)	Persons: What Philosophers Say about You	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	15%
Garrett (Brian)	Criteria of Personal Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Garrett - Personal Identity and Self-consciousness, 1998, Chapter 3	Yes
Garrett (Brian)	Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Garrett (Brian) - Personal Identity and Self-consciousness	Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	52%
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper - Referencing	Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek, Chapter 4	Yes
Hudson (Hud)	I am Not an Animal!	Paper - By Subtopic	Van Inwagen (Peter) & Zimmerman (Dean) - Persons: Human and Divine	11%
Johnston (Mark)	Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To?	Paper - Referencing	Johnston (Mark) - Surviving Death, 2010	78%
Johnston (Mark)	Remnant Persons: Animalism's Undoing	Paper - By Subtopic	Blatti & Snowdon - Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity, 2016: Part I, Chapter 5, pp. 89-127	15%
Johnston (Mark)	Surviving Death	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	13%
Kingma (Elselijn)	Were You Part of Your Mother?	Paper - Referencing	Mind, Volume 128, Issue 511, July 2019, Pages 609–646	Yes
MacBride (Fraser), Ed.	Identity and Modality	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	MacBride (Fraser), Ed. - Identity and Modality	5%
Mavrodes (George I.)	The Life Everlasting and the Bodily Criterion of Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Nous 11.1, March 1977, pp. 27-39	Yes
Noonan (Harold)	An Initial Survey	Paper - By Subtopic	Noonan - Personal Identity, 2003, Chapter 1	Yes
Noonan (Harold)	Personal Identity	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Noonan (Harold) - Personal Identity	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Is there a Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	MacBride - Identity and Modality, 2006, Chapter 11	No
Olson (Eric)	What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper - Referencing	What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, Chapter 2 (November 2007: Oxford University Press.)	Yes
Schechtman (Marya)	Reidentification: Conclusion	Paper - By Subtopic	Schechtman - The Constitution of Selves, 1996, Conclusion to Part 1	Yes
Schechtman (Marya)	The Constitution of Selves	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Schechtman (Marya) - The Constitution of Selves	6%
Thomas (Janice L.)	Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	The bodily criterion	Paper - By Subtopic	Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection	Paper - By Subtopic	Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Body Criterion	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Van Inwagen (Peter) & Zimmerman (Dean)	Persons: Human and Divine	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Van Inwagen (Peter) & Zimmerman (Dean) - Persons: Human and Divine	3%

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Text Colour Conventions

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

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