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Identity: A Summary. Or How to solve a philosophical problem without really trying. What is the problem, exactly?. Recall the initial encounter: what at first appeared to be obvious and mundane, turned out to be confusing and perplexing upon closer inspection.
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Identity: A Summary Or How to solve a philosophical problem without really trying
What is the problem, exactly? • Recall the initial encounter: what at first appeared to be obvious and mundane, turned out to be confusing and perplexing upon closer inspection. • There were apparently equally-good arguments for considering either of the ships ‘the same as’ or ‘identical to’ the original -- so we may have been inclined to say that it really doesn’t matter which ship is identical to the original or that we can’t say for sure which one is. But this prompts the question: what makes the application of so basic a concept as ‘identity’ so difficult? Why can’t we answer the question? • [Think of this as: formulating the problem]
Who or what is the culprit? • Recall the opposing arguments: certain concepts -- ‘is identical with,’ ‘the same as,’ ‘material,’ ‘object,’ -- and certain principles -- ‘a complex whole object is nothing but the sum of its parts,’ ‘replacement of a part of a whole doesn’t alter the identity of the whole’ -- underlie our thinking in both the puzzle and the non-puzzle cases. So any solution will be found here. • What do we mean by (or how do we use) these concepts? Are these defensible (or reliable or necessary) principles? Are we mistaken in any of our everyday thinking? • [Think of this as: identifying and clarifying basic beliefs]
What can we do about it? • Since we’re not ‘first on the scene’ (after all, the first version of the puzzle we encountered is a Greek tale c.400BC), we stand to benefit from the efforts of others to provide a solution to our problem -- this is why we think there is some real benefit to be gotten from looking at ‘classic’ or ‘canonical’ or ‘seminal’ texts on the same issue. • N.B.: since the problem is not a fact-problem, previous efforts can’t be dismissed as ‘lacking the factual knowledge we presently have’ • [Think of these as: proposing solutions]
What do the texts offer us? • From Locke: 1) ‘identity at a time’ and ‘identity over time’ are distinct concepts, re-identification is the core issue; 2) ‘kinds’ and ‘sorts’ complicate matters, it isn’t simply an issue of re-identifying this or that thing, but this or that sort of thing; 3) ‘living things’ and ‘conscious beings (persons)’ have unique identification issues; 4) our moral and legal concepts are implicated -- is it our thinking about persons that is faulty or our normative concepts?
Texts (cont’d.) • From Hume: 1) there are severe limits to what we can conclude on the basis of observational or introspective evidence -- ‘self,’ for instance, isn’t clearly implied by what we observe externally or introspect internally; 2) it may be that there isn’t any ‘sameness of person over time’ -- that the “I” is a grammatical artifact the way “it” is in “It is raining”; 3) our emotional selves are, on the other hand, observationally-confirmed.
Texts (cont’d.) • From Descartes: 1) our problem with ‘personal identity’ may be the result of a bias or prejudice in favour of sensory evidence -- we can get certainty (most significantly: certainty about identity) w/out it; 2) dualism (mind as well as matter) is at least a plausible solution to the initial puzzle. • [Think of all of these as: gathering information; recognizing assumptions; seeing the plausibility of proposed solutions]
What have we learned since then? • From Dennett: 1) success of physicalism/materialism as explanatory schema in science undermines the plausibility of a dualist or Cartesian solution; but 2) POV and location problems show confusion about ‘person’ and ‘self’ remain even when Cartesian solutions eliminated or rejected. • From Sacks: ‘person’ fractures in unexpected and surprising ways (implication is that our understanding of ‘person-hood’ is seriously incomplete)
But what about ‘forming a reasoned judgment’? • This is the one task that we cannot emulate here, since it is something each one of us does for his or her-self -- not that it is private or incorrigible, but that it involves giving or providing or discovering reasons for a view (a view that takes account of the previous steps), and that cannot be done by another • Remember: we have made progress if we are able to provide a reasoned judgment (even if we cannot [yet] provide a decisive judgment)
