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How do memories shape our identity
John Locke concept
John Locke and his philosophies
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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
In his essay “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” John Locke makes a connection between memory and consciousness and called this connection the memory theory. The memory theory states that if “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, [and is] the same thinking thing, in different times and places” then it is continuously the same rational being has a consciousness (Locke 1959). Locke ties the consciousness and memory together by saying that “as far as … consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person”; meaning that if a person has memories of their existence and actions they are the same person. Locke connects the memory
The belief that the human state of mind is blank or else referred to as tabula rasa and knowledge is obtained through experience is an omnipresent idea throughout Locke’s writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Written in the late 17th century, this philosophical work brings a ground-breaking thought on understanding the purpose of philosophy which focus should be placed on explaining thinking rather than creating systems (Goldie 32). As such, this writing embodied an essential tool in analyzing the role that philosophy had in the 17th century while reframing and redir...
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).
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
One of Locke’s statements that he discusses is that of an individual’s own person. Example, when an individual takes away something from nature through his/her hard work, it will not be considered as “common property” of all mankind no more, because it would belong ONLY to himself. For instance, If an individual picks up (fruits) under a tree, the so called fruit will automatically belong to him at the moment they were gathered, rather than at the
In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke proposes an idealized state of nature in which men are self-sufficient and content. The implications of his idealized population lead him to derive the existence of government from its own theoretical roots: Locke proposes government as a naturally occurring consequence of his state of nature. This derivation is founded on the injustice of man in his natural state: it is the imperfections found in the state of nature that necessitate government. This paper aims to show why the inequality caused by the existence of a market economy is an intentional and necessary path from Locke’s state of nature to the existence of the commonwealth. It will first argue that unequal possession is an inevitable consequence of property as defined by Locke. It will then show why this inequality is a necessary transition out of the state of nature for mankind. It will finally argue that each man’s consent to currency, and the injustice it brings, is the foundation for the overall consent to the commonwealth. The existence of inequality is naturally introduced and maintained throughout Locke’s argument. Hobbes successfully defends that economic inequality is both a natural and crucial part of political society; both the inequality of human ability and the resulting economic inequality precede the existence of an ideal state.
Locke and Hume both agree that memory is key to define personal identity. Locke believes that memory and consciousness define personal identity. While Hume’s thinks it is the source of personal identity, he does not fully agree with Locke and thinks that memory reveals personal identity, it does not create it. They both agree that there is a change; Locke understands that a person changes and what relates everything to who we are is
This paper will argue that the philosopher John Locke would have agreed that the human being Karla Faye Tucker should have been executed. I will start by examining the fundamental difference between a human being and a person as forwarded by Locke. In addition, this paper will address what identity over time or what it means to be the same person over a period of time is. I will then show that through Locke's personal opinions, he would have believed that the human being Karla Faye Tucker was the same person who committed the crime 14 years ago and is thus culpable for punishment. A strong objection to my argument however is of Hume's opinion or lack of opinion (account or lack of account) on personal identity. Hume argues that the concept of personal identity is a falsification and that our personal identity is nothing more than a collection of memories which we bundle together as memories. I will counter-argue however that "
If the book remained untouched in perpetuity, then the identity of the book would remain unchanged. But if pages were torn out of the book, Locke’s view would be that it is not the same book anymore – there ceases to be a perfect continued existence of material body (Emerson, 1997:1) Locke viewed the identity of living entities in a different light. Above, change in mass constituted a change in identity. But, in living entities a change in mass does not affect the identity of the object.
The personal identity continues to be same since a person is the same rational thing, same self, and thus the personal identity never changes (Strawson, 2014). Locke also suggests that personal identity has to change when the own self-changes and therefore even a little change in the personal identity has to change the self. He also provides an argument that a person cannot question what makes something today to remain the same thing it was a day ago or yesterday because one must specify the kind of thing it was. This is because something might be a piece of plastic but be a sharp utensil and thus suggest that the continuity of consciousness is required for something to remain the same yesterday and today. John Locke also suggests that two different things of a similar type cannot be at the same time at the same place. Therefore, the criteria of the personal identity theory of Locke depends on memory or consciousness remaining the same (Strawson, 2014). This is because provided a person has memory continuity and can remember being the same individual, feeling, thinking, and doing specific things, the individual can remain to be the same person irrespective of bodily
Identity, an ambiguous idea, plays an important part in today’s world. To me identity can be defined as who a person is or what differentiates one person from another. Identity would be a person’s name, age, height, ethnicity, personality, and more. A quote by Anne Sexton states “It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was”(Anne Sexton). This quote helps me define identity because I believe it is saying that identity is what people are remembered by. When some people think of identity, words such as, uniqueness, distinctiveness, or individuality may come to mind. However, I disagree with this because when I think of identity I think of mimicry, self-consciousness, or opinions.
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:
Locke believed that the identity of a person has the sameness of the consciousness: “What makes a man be himself to himself is sameness of consciousness, so personal identity depends entirely on that—whether the consciousness is tied to one substance throughout or rather is continued in a series of different su...
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 ...
As mentioned earlier, Locke rejected the view that we need to be in the same form as earlier to be the same person. For instance, in a hypothetical sense if a human and a dog were to switch forms, and the human in dog form had the consciousness of the human, which would consist of past memories, then this would result in the same person. Although this example is hypothetical, the impact of memories on identity is paramount, since memory would be considered the psychological criterion- which is basically a psychologically linking relationship between a person at one time with a person in another time, in order to be considered one entity or comprising of the same identity (Jacobson: 55). The psychological criterion is a necessary condition for the theory, because without the memories, people would have multiple identities scattered over an individual’s life