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Personal Identity

Numerical Identity

(Text as at 14/07/2019 18:05:46)

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Plug Note¹

• This Note is really a sub-topic of that on the Logic of Identity²
• There is, however, an initial ambiguity that needs clearing up. To quote the Synopsis of "DeGrazia (David) - Human Identity and Bioethics":
  1. When philosophers address personal identity, they usually explore numerical identity: what are the criteria for a person's continuing existence?
  2. When non-philosophers address personal identity, they often have in mind narrative identity³: Which characteristics of a particular person are salient to her self-conception?
• DeGrazia explores both conceptions, and acknowledges a debt₄ to Eric Olson for the former and Marya Schechtman for the latter.
• Anyway, numerical identity is the relation a thing holds to itself and to nothing else. The term “numerical” is used because we use the concept of numerical identity in counting things. Things picked out under different concepts are only counted once if they are numerically identical – if they are the very same thing. I may be a man, a person, a father, a grandfather, a student of philosophy but I’m only to be counted once.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read⁵, include the following:-
  1. TBA.
• A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
  1. TBA.
• This is mostly a place-holder⁶. Currently, just see the categorised reading-list.