David Hume's Biological Continuity Theory

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Recommended: Philosophy journal essays on personal identity

Who are you? What makes me the same person over time? These are some of the questions that people often ask themselves. According to Sider “the question of what makes persons numerically the same over time is known to philosophers as the question of personal identity.” Different philosophers have different views on personal identity, and they all have different answers to those questions. We have looked at different views and theories from different philosophers. In this paper, I am going to defend why I think the psychological continuity theory is the most defensible, and why I disagree with the other theories.
First, Hume believes that there is no self. He thinks that humans are nothing but a bundle of different perceptions, so he believes …show more content…

He also believes in biological continuity. He does not agree with psychological continuity and he believes in biological continuity, he stated ‘‘what it takes for us to persist through time is what I have called biological continuity”, because he believes that a person is surviving purely on animal functions. I don't agree with Olson, I think that the animal functions – metabolism, breathing, circulating blood etc. are necessary in every human person to survive. It does not make sense for him to say that biological continuity is what makes a person the same person over …show more content…

He thinks that psychological continuity is what makes the same person over time, and it is the consciousness that creates our identity. According to Locke, “psychological continuity theory is when a past person is numerically identical to the future person, if any, who has that past person’s memories, character traits, and so on – whether or not the future and past persons are spatiotemporally continuous with each other.” In other words, Locke believes that personal identity is not the sameness of body; instead, he believes the consciousness creates our identity. He thinks that an individual can have different bodies and still have continuity, and the fact that we are aware of what is going on is who we are in that moment. Locke came up with the analogy of the prince and the cobbler. The memories and consciousness of the prince were transferred to the cobbler’s body. When the cobbler wakes up in the morning, he still thinks he is the prince because he has all the memories as being a prince. Likewise, the example in the movie Freaky Friday is similar. Lindsay Lohan and Jamie lee curtis’s souls were switched in the movie after they ate a Chinese fortune cookie. Lindsay’s mind was switched with Jamie Lee, so Lindsay had Jamie’s brain in her body. In other words, Lindsay was behaving exactly like Jamie, but just in her own body. Even though Lindsay and Jamie now look different, they are still the same person but just in different

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