Memory As Memory: The Definition Of Personal Identity

Personal identity deals with the question, what makes it true for a person at one time to be identical with a person at another? Many philosophers believe we are always changing and therefore, we cannot have the same identity if we are different from one moment to the next. However, many philosophers believe something is an important feature in determining a person’s identity. For John Locke, this something is memory, and I agree. Memory is the most important feature in determining a person’s identity as memory is a necessary and sufficient condition of personal identity. John Locke believes that A is identical with B, if and only if, A remembers the thoughts, feelings, and actions had or done by B. This shows that the something,

We do not always remember every event that happens in our life, but if we can remember a time when we did remember a memory that may now be forgotten, it is not really forgotten as the memory is preserved by a chain of memory. Another objection to Locke’s memory argument is by Joseph Butler. Butler accuses Locke’s theory of being circular. Butler believes that memory presupposes personal identity, meaning that you cannot remember what happened to other people. You may remember seeing what happened to someone else, but you cannot remember the experiences of someone else or remember doing things that you did not do. Butler’s argument says the following: my awareness of a past experience e is a memory if and only if: I believe I had experience e. I had experience e. My current belief is “counterfactually dependent” on that experience. If memory presupposes personal identity, then memory cannot be used to provide a reductive analysis of personal identity, as the memory theory becomes circular. While this objection is strong, Sydney Shoemaker has a good response to it that changes the clause before the “if and only if.” Shoemaker introduces a concept that is like memory but

A person quasi-remembers something if he or she has something that is “qualitatively indistinguishable” from a memory, but that does not presuppose identity. For example, you could quasi-remember everything that happened to me if someone copied my brain and then puts that information into your brain. Regular memories are a sub-class of quasi-memories, as they are quasi-memories of our own experience, yet they do not presuppose identity, so there will be no circularity if we use quasi-memories instead of genuine memories. While there are some convincing arguments against Locke’s memory theory, I believe the memory theory prevails. Even if we do not remember every memory, we have a chain of memories which is sufficient as we can remember a time when we once did remember the forgotten memory. The theory may also seem circular, but if we rephrase Locke’s argument to talk about quasi-memories, instead, his argument is preserved. Memory is a part of us and without our memories, we are not the same person we once were, which is why memory is the most important feature in determining a person’s identity as memory is a