Bernard Williams’ article entitled “The Self and the Future” contains two thought experiments with purpose aimed at critiquing identity theory. The first case tells of an experiment that allows people to “change bodies”, and a second case tells of an evil tyrant has you in his power and is telling you about horrible things he will do to you in the near future. In this paper I will analyze the arguments in Williams’ reading for why he believes those two cases are actually the same scenario. I will evaluate the conclusion Williams reaches for why he believes that the key determinant of personal identity is neither psychological contuinity nor bodily continuity. Firstly, we must define the terms at hand. Psychological continuity is the concept of an uninterrupted connection between a person and their mind. One’s personal identity would then be determined by the success of ensuring that the qualities of the mind, such as self-awareness and personality, are consistent from one moment to moment. Bodily continuity is the concept that what is important to one’s personal identity is that they continuously exist in terms of physical substance, in other words, they maintain a bodily existence, Williams …show more content…
The personalities, memories, and mental intricacies of both “A” and “B” are collected and transferred to the other subject. After the transfer, the person in A’s old body has the memories of the original person B, and the person in B’s old body has the memories of the original person A. Prior to the transfer, both subjects are informed that once the switch is complete one of them will receive one-hundred thousand dollars and the other will be painfully tortured. Before the decision has been made by the experimenters, both persons A and B are allowed to voice their preferences regarding which physical body is to receive which
Parfit’s view on the nature of persisting persons raises interesting issues in terms of identity. Though there are identifiable objections to his views, I am in favor of the argument he develops. This paper will layout Parfit’s view on that nature of persisting person, show support as well as argue the objections to the theory. In Derek Parfit’s paper Personal Identity, Parfit provides a valid account of persisting persons through time through his clear account of psychological continuities. He calls people to accept the argument that people persist through time but people do not persist or survive by way of identity.
Hume, David. "Of Personal Identity." Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy. Ed. G. Lee Bowie, Meredith W. Michaels and Robert C. Solomon. 4th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, 2000. 348-352
Identity is like a lock. The only way to find out what is on the other side is to find the keys. There are many ways identity can be created, and many people try to describe identity such as the following authors: Guy de Maupassant’s, “The Necklace”, Sherman Alexie’s, “Superman and Me”, ABC News’, “More Facebook Friends, Less Real Ones” , and “Mirror Stage”, by CommonLit Staff. There are two keys that are absolutely necessary to unlocking identity: one’s surroundings and one’s outer appearance.
In this paper I offer an explication of John Perry’s dialogue on the problem of personal identity, and my evaluation of the strongest account of personal identity between the body, mind, and soul. In this paper I will argue that the strongest account of personal identity is that a person can be identified by their soul. By having the sameness of soul you will then be able to solve the problem of personal identity. Your soul is the foundation of whom you are and by definition, personal identity means “The persistent and continuous unity of the individual person normally attested by continuity of memory with present consciousness.” And without your soul memory could not exist.
Although the concept of identity is recurrent in our daily lives, it has interpreted in various ways.
Porus, V. N. "Identity of the Ego: Conflicting Interpretations." Cultural-Historical Psychology 3 (2011): 27-35. Print.
Print "Id, Ego, Superego, and the Unconscious in Psychology 101 at AllPsychOnline. " Psychology Classroom at AllPsych Online. 21 Mar. 2004. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard' of the 'Standard' of the Web.
The question of personal identity is very intuitive, yet very difficult to define. Essentially, what makes you, you? John Locke was one philosopher who attempted to answer this question. He proposed a psychological theory to define personal identity. His theory does have some merit, but it is not a correct definition of personal identity, since there are some counter-examples that cannot be accounted for. My argument will prove that Locke’s theory of personal identity is false.
In his 1971 paper “Personal Identity”, Derek Parfit posits that it is possible and indeed desirable to free important questions from presuppositions about personal identity without losing all that matter. In working out how to do so, Parfit comes to the conclusion that “the question of identity has no importance” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:3). In this essay, I will attempt to show that Parfit’s thesis is a valid one, with positive implications for human behaviour. The first section of the essay will examine the thesis in further detail, and the second will assess how Parfit’s claims fare in the face of criticism. Problems of personal identity generally involve questions about what makes one the person one is and what it takes for the same person to exist at separate times (Olson, 2010).
All through life people strive to become someone with a specific identity; to be classified as a “somebody” rather than a “nobody”. This classification is most noted amongst high school students. Often youth identities are developed through the activities they participate in, the jock, the cheerleader, the nerd, the band geek. Yet, people are not the activities they participated in in high school. People graduate, go to college, work toward a career, have children. Then at the ten year reunion, those same high school jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, and band geeks gather once again to reminisce over the past. These people are no longer the high school activities of the past nor are these people the activities they participate in currently, their identities now, at this reunion, are judged by something different. The peers at the reunion do not look the same, but such qualitative identity is not important; a person does not have to look specifically the same to be the same person. Yet, how do peers judge a person’s identity, know James is still the same James and has survived time, besides the name tag they wear? Arguably, the most sufficient response to this question of personal identity is the use of the body criterion.
Personal identity, in the context of philosophy, does not attempt to address clichéd, qualitative questions of what makes us us. Instead, personal identity refers to numerical identity or sameness over time. For example, identical twins appear to be exactly alike, but their qualitative likeness in appearance does not make them the same person; each twin, instead, has one and only one identity – a numerical identity. As such, philosophers studying personal identity focus on questions of what has to persist for an individual to keep his or her numerical identity over time and of what the pronoun “I” refers to when an individual uses it. Over the years, theories of personal identity have been established to answer these very questions, but the
Many philosophers and psychologist from Jean Piaget to William James have theorized what makes a person who they are, their identity. Jean Piaget believed that the identity is formed in the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. This means that a child is forming his identity as late to the age of seven (Schellenberg, 29) However, identity is strongly impacted by society such as school, church, government,and other institutions. Through our interactions with different situations our personality develops (Schellenberg 34). "In most situations there is a more diversified opportunity for the development of social identities, reflecting what the individual wants to put forth to define the self as well as what others want to accept,"(Schellenberg 35). Therefore, humans, much like animals, adapt to different situations based on who they are with. Individuals are always changi...
What is personal identity? This question has been asked and debated by philosophers for centuries. The problem of personal identity is determining what conditions and qualities are necessary and sufficient for a person to exist as the same being at one time as another. Some think personal identity is physical, taking a materialistic perspective believing that bodily continuity or physicality is what makes a person a person with the view that even mental things are caused by some kind of physical occurrence. Others take a more idealist approach with the belief that mental continuity is the sole factor in establishing personal identity holding that physical things are just reflections of the mind. One more perspective on personal identity and the one I will attempt to explain and defend in this paper is that personal identity requires both physical and psychological continuity; my argument is as follows:
The problem of personal identity is difficult to solve, especially since there is ambiguity in the terms. Identity may mean the same person or how one sees oneself. Anyhow, philosophers wish to assess this issue and find a suitable explanation, one motivation being responsibility. Humans will hold others responsible for acts such as murder, theft, and fraud. However, the person who will face the consequences must be the one who truly committed the wrongful act. A second motivation is interest in the future. An individual may become concerned or excited for an event that will occur in the future. Surely, these emotions entail that they will be the same person once that event occurs. The last motivation for resolving personal identity is immortality; basically, what will connect a person to whatever lives on after their physical death. Something can be identical in two ways: quantitatively or qualitatively. To be quantitatively identical is to be numerically identical, and to be qualitatively identical is to share exact qualities. There are two criterions on which personal identity is based, but the most important is the metaphysical criterion, which attempts to explain “being” or existence, without the necessity of physical evidence ...
Self-identity is one of the main themes of philosophy throughout its history. In general, “self-identity” is a term that means thoughts or feelings with which you distinguish you from others, and we use the term in ordinary conversation without a solid concept of “self-identity”. However, arguing about self-identity philosophically, there arise many questions: whether there is any essence of yourself, whether you are the same person as you when you were a baby, whether memory or experience makes you, and what is “self-identity.” To solve these questions, many philosophers have been arguing the topic “self identity” for so long.