Personal Identity in the 21 st Century

1. Personal Identity in the 21st Century Dana Goswick University of Melbourne

2. Introduction • Who I am • Dana Goswick • What I Teach • One lecture on Personal Identity in year 1 • Eight lectures on the Nature of the Self in year 2 • What We’ll Do Today • An overview of several contemporary views of personal identity.

3. Some Questions • Personal • Who am I? What makes me me? How do I define myself? • Person-kind • What is it to be a person? What makes something a person (as opposed to a table or a possum)? • Nature of Persons • What is the (metaphysical) nature of people? Are we material beings? Are we composites of form and matter? Are we immaterial souls? • Personal Persistence • How do people exist over time? Why is me-now the same person as baby-me? Is personal persistence important? If so, why?

4. History of Personal Identity • You’ve read history of philosophy texts by Locke and Hume. • How do their views relate to contemporary work on personal persistence (or, more broadly) on the nature of the self? • The two historic views in PI come from Locke. • PI = Physical Continuity • PI = Psychological Continuity

5. Historic ViewPI = Physical Continuity • PI = physical continuity • So long as you’ve got enough of the same matter or the matter you have now is causally tied to the matter you used to have, you persist. • Objection: counter-intuitive • Reflect on Locke’s prince & cobbler case.

6. Historic ViewPI = Psychological Continuity • PI = Psychological Continuity • So long as you’ve got enough of the same psychology or the psychology you have now is causally tied to the psychology you used to have, you persist. • Objection • Duplicating your psychology doesn’t duplicate you. • Psychology is typically under-defined.

7. Contemporary Views of Personal Identity • The historic views are overly simplistic. • Spruced Up Historic Views • Parfit’s (close-enough) closest-continuer • (psychological continuity) – identity • Baker’s embodied first-person perspective • (psychological continuity + identity ) – just one thing • Radical New Views • Conventionalism

8. PI = Close Enough Closest Continuer • PI = Close Enough Closest Continuer • So long as there’s someone at t whose psychology is appropriately causally tied to the psychology you had at t-1, you persist. • Objection: counter-intuitive • Isn’t numerical identity, so doesn’t feel enough like me.

9. PI = First-Person Perspective • PI = First-Person Perspective • So long as p at t has the same first-person perspective as p* at t*, p=p*. • There is a body + a person. The body constitutes the person. • Objection • Requires endorsing coinciding objects theory.

10. PI is Conventional • Personal identity is conventional. • There is no objective answer to what personal identity is. We make it up. It may vary from person to person (depending on what that person values) or from circumstance to circumstance. • Objection: counter-intuitive • This answer is too anti-Realist for most philosophers.

11. Summing Up Personal Identity • Physical • PI = physical continuity • Psychological • PI = psychological continuity • PI = close enough closest continuer • PI = first-person perspective • Other • PI is conventional.

12. QUESTIONS