Personal Identity: The Essence of Personhood Explored

The problem concerns the concept of persons at one time and over a period of time A search for the essence of personhood the basic necessary elements without which a person would not be

Personal identity: Who am I? Different approaches to the question: What is that stays the same through all the changes I go through? What links my present self with my past selves? How am I distinguishable from other selves? How do others identify me as me? Is it different from the way I identify myself as me?

Personal identity: What am I? Different approaches to the question: Do I have something (a soul maybe) that is not physical? If yes is it connected to my body? Is it possible that I don t have a body just something immaterial?

Complex account (e.g. Locke): the person is made up of a number of parts to which their identity can be reduced. The term person stands for something that is composite and made up of more fundamental things Simple account (Cartesian and dualist philosophy): it denies that the essence of person lies in something like properties.

Identity must be found in whatever remains identical to itself over time The material body is ever changing The immaterial soul remains the same throughout time The material body cannot be what identifies us Conclusion: The immaterial soul is the source of our identity

Consciousness is key to identity Identity must be found in how we identify ourself to ourself that is the consciousness of self I identify myself as the same self through memories of prior events Conclusion: memory is the source of self identity

Consciousness is key its consciousness of one s experiences brought forward to the present moment as a memory that gives us identity with our prior self Memories are made all the time and we don t always remember the same things therefore our identity is fluid, discontinuous and can die (complete amnesia) Consciousness is key it is the conscious substance the mind that gives us identity Our identity is conscious, never changes and never really dies Descartes Locke

If we are or have a self then it must be an object of perception The self cannot be perceived: For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe any thing but the perception Conclusion: we cannot claim to have or be a self the identity [ ] is a fictitious one.

Consciousness is key to identity and the body is not part of personal identity Kant disagrees with Descartes: the soul cannot be proven, therefore cannot be used to posit identity Kant disagrees with Locke and Hume for him the self is not something we have but something we do do

There are two senses of identity: Empirical ego: how others identify us (what we look like, how we sound, etc.) - this is the self that makes us an individual Transcendental ego: how we identify ourselves an activity of consciousness (constant updating and organization of individual experiences)

Wanda/ Wanda is hit by a steamroller her body is destroyed but her brain and memories are intact You have a massive stroke, leaving your body intact but your brain fatally destroyed Wanda s memories are implanted into your body Who is Schwanda? Wanda/Schwanda Schwanda Dememorizer zer Tomorrow at 4:57 pm you will be dememorized At 4:58 pm someone else s memories will be placed in your body At 5:00 pm your body suffers a terrible accident Who will be in the accident? Dememorizer/ /rememori zer rememori