The Memory Theory Of John Locke And Locke's Personal Identity

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Personal identity examines what makes a person at one time identical with a person at another. Many philosophers believe we are always changing and therefore, we cannot have a persisting identity if we are different from one moment to the next. However, many philosophers believe there is some important feature that determines a person’s identity and keeps it persistent. For John Locke, this important feature is memory, and I agree. Memory is the most important feature in determining a person’s identity as memory is the 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 from a first-person point of view. This shows that the important feature, memory, is linking a person from the beginning of their life to the end of their life. Locke’s memory theory would look something like this: The self changes over time, so it may seem like personal identity changes too. However, even if you are changing, you are still retaining past memories. Therefore, if you can retain memories, memories are the link between you and an earlier you, so personal identity persists over time. So, memory is the necessary and sufficient condition of personal …show more content…

Butler accuses Locke’s theory of being circular. Butler believes that memory presupposes personal identity, meaning that I can remember only my own experiences, but it is not my memory that makes the experience mine, I remember it because it is already mine. 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

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