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(Text as at 18/12/2010 12:00:00)

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Supervision: Monday 18th February 2008; 11:30

  1. The purpose: of the supervision was to discuss a paper1 on "Olson (Eric) - What Are We?". Discussion of the second part of a Note2 on "Baillie (James) - What Am I?" was held over (indefinitely?).
  2. Note on references to the literature: these appear obscure in the printed versions of my Notes (full details appear by following the links in the on-line version). Maybe best to route Jen to the “reading-list” version. Alternatively, indicate “book” or “paper” / “chapter”. Can anything be done about the font size of the printed version cum reading list?
  3. Scope of PhD: maybe pare down to discussion of Olson A ("Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology") versus Olson B ("Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology") and why he’s changed his mind. Baker ("Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", etc) will still feature heavily. Watch out for progression to Olson Z!
  4. Olson: Jen thinks Olson is a good philosopher, and was impressed by "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology". She wonders whether his views have changed for reasons to do with general issues in persistence, unconnected to problems of personal identity; hence his recent openness to 4-D. My view (based on this paper) is that he has realised that the TA argument applies just as much to animalism as to the CV. He has written 3 papers in the general area of persistence – eg. in the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. Maybe:- Maybe also see (I’d suggest):-
  5. Note: I need to review3 what Olson says in "Olson (Eric) - Dion's Foot", because of its relevance to overpopulation and the TA argument.
  6. People and Persons: General discussion on whether it is tendentious to refuse to use the term “persons” and rather to use “people” (or tendentious to insist on using “persons”). Descartes and Locke. Not just starting on the wrong foot. Are there other examples where we need a different term for the singular and plural? Does the term “people” mean “human beings” for Olson, or does it mean human beings with qualifying psychological capacities? Does anything substantial turn on our choice of terminology? Newspeak?
  7. Counting: the persons and people in the room. Could Olson say (as I could) “there are 5 people but only 4 persons in the room” (if one was an infant)? Yes – but he would just say “there are 5 people in the room, but one does not qualify as a person”.
  8. Non-human persons4: Discussion of the scope of the Locke/Descartes enquiry. They were interested in us, not in persons in general. Hence, they didn’t discuss God and the angels. Question about why their only interest is in us – my suggestion is that it is maybe because of not wanting to encroach on theology (Descartes was particularly sensitive in this regard). The Starship Enterprise-equivalent (us, God and the angels) is therefore irrelevant to their concerns.
  9. Whence derives the concept PERSON? Question of the genesis of personhood – not just of our concept, but a question of ontological priority. This depends on who is made in whose image. The Christian view is that we are made in God’s image – our personhood derives from God’s, whereas atheists claim that god is made in our image.
  10. Bodies: Olson cannot say “someone having a human organism”, whereas he can say “someone having a human body”. This passage is in any case informal and introductory, to indicate the topic under discussion.
  11. Qualities of a Person: Olson may not mention language use because he wants to avoid the social dimension altogether. Olson is setting the scope – of the sort of being he’s talking about.
  12. “Just”: saying “we’re just brains” is not meant to be pejorative. It intends no more than “we’re brains”. However, it seems to me that it does stress some limitation – “no more than”, or else an essence / kernel. Of the first category, cf. “you’re just a child”. I need to think5 of analogies of the other sort.
  13. Temporal Phases and Temporal Parts: reference to temporal phases makes no commitment to the 4-dimensional mereological ontology of temporal parts. So, if Baker is committed to persons being sums of phases of substances, this makes no commitment to an ontology of temporal parts.
  14. De dicto / de re: I’d made reference to this distinction passim throughout this paper – but the relevance of the distinction in this context had been rebutted in a previous supervision6, so Jen hadn’t read these remarks. However, I still think there might be life in the relevance of this distinction to our present context. Maybe I should write a brief paper7 on the topic (after reviewing Baker’s use in "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - What Am I?").
  15. Complex properties of substances: We cannot be any such thing, because such things cannot fall over. What I was trying to get at was the functionalist approach whereby Socrates can be reincarnated as Joe Soap if Joe and Socrates are appropriately mentally connected. What then is this thing that includes both Joe and Socrates as phases? Maybe Socrates is one person and Joe another, but what these two individuals share is a personality. The one thing here is the same personality. But what are personalities. I was suggesting that these might be complex properties of substances. This is also the topic for a paper8, when I get to consider the psychological view9 in more detail. Maybe the holders of this view are trying to erect a substance-concept when all they really have are properties of other substances.
  16. Relative Identity: an individual cannot fall under two different substance-sortals without falling into the incoherence of relative identity. So, if I am a person and I am a human animal, and both these concepts are substance-concepts, and they are different concepts, then we have relative identity. Since relative identity is incoherent, and HUMAN ANIMAL is a substance sortal, then PERSON cannot be a substance sortal, but at best a phase sortal. A way out of this might be that PERSON and HUMAN ANIMAL are really the same concept. Is this what Wiggins is claiming?

Next Supervision: Monday 3rd March 2008; 11:45. To complete discussion of the paper10 on "Olson (Eric) - What Are We?".


Previous Version of this Note:

Date Length Title
12/03/2008 08:05:17 6323 Jen_080218


Note last updated Reading List for this Topic Parent Topic
18/12/2010 12:00:00 None available None

Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Awaiting Attention (Supervisions) Baillie - What Am I? Jen_080204 (Brandom, Chisholm, Baillie) Non-Human Persons Olson - What Are We?
Psychological View        

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Bundle Theories Convention Holes & Smiles Olson Status: Personal Identity (Summary of Progress to Date), 2
Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?) Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues) Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It) Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View) What are We?

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author Title Medium Extra Links Read?
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Bundle Theories Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?) Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues) Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It) Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View) Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Convention Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Holes & Smiles Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Olson Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - What Are We? Paper Medium Quality Abstract   Yes


References & Reading List

Author Title Medium Source Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder) What Am I? Paper - Cited High Quality Abstract Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Mar99, Vol. 59 Issue 1, p151, 9p; Yes
JCS Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 14, Issue 05-06 (2007) Book - Cited (via Paper Cited) Medium Quality Abstract Bibliographical details to be supplied No
Olson (Eric) Composition and Coincidence Paper - Cited Medium Quality Abstract Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 77 (1996), pp. 374-403 No
Olson (Eric) Imperfect Identity Paper - Cited Low Quality Abstract Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106, Number 2, March 2006, pp. 247-264(18) Yes
Olson (Eric) Material Coincidence and the Indiscernibility Problem Paper - Cited Low Quality Abstract Philosophical Quarterly 51, No. 204, July 2001 Yes
Olson (Eric) Papers on Identity Boxes: Vol 13 (Olson) Book - Cited (via Paper Cited) Low Quality Abstract Bibliographical details to be supplied 16%
Olson (Eric) The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology Book - Cited Low Quality Abstract Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology Yes
Olson (Eric) What Are We? Paper - Cited High Quality Abstract Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 14, Issue 05-06 (2007), pp. 37-55 (19) Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Bundle Theories Paper - Referencing Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?) Paper - Referencing   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues) Paper - Referencing   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It) Paper - Referencing   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View) Paper - Referencing   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Convention Paper - Referencing Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Holes & Smiles Paper - Referencing Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - Olson Paper - Referencing Medium Quality Abstract   Yes
Todman (Theo) Thesis - What Are We? Paper - Referencing Medium Quality Abstract   Yes


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