Personal Identity
Mind/Soul
Brain
Body
Memory
Story
Continuity Problem
SHIP OF THESEUS
• Hobbes: Matter: Material, Physical
• Descartes: Mind
Locke’s Prince & Cobbler
ConsciousnessMemoryProblems?
Identity
Continuity Question
What makes some p one and the same p at different times? -- numerical identity
Identification or Reidentification?
Why does it matter?
Characterization Question• What are the conditions under which
various psychological characteristics, experiences, and actions are properly attributable to p
Narrative IdentityWhat makes an action, experience, or psychological characteristic properly attributable to some person (and thus a proper part of his or her true identity) is its correct incorporation into the story of his or her life
Identity Crisis
Who am I really? Not a question about whether I am one and the same self but who is my true self?
Psychological Unity
• Narrative Identity is a kind of psychological unity• Unity: x, y and z must be gathered together into the life of one
narrative ego by virtue of a story Leonard tells as he weaves them together
• Experiences/events have meaning as a result of being part of a larger story within the context of one life
Anticipation
What makes certain expected experiences mine?
Special Concern for Oneself
What makes future states I’m specially concerned about mine?
Responsibility & Compensation
What makes those actions for which I’m responsible, or those wrongs for which I’m to be compensated, mine?
DennettAnalogy: Center of Gravity & Self
• Theoretical Fiction: abstractum• Center of gravity is useful for explaining the behavior of
physical objects under certain conditions• Self is useful in explaining behavior of humans under
certain conditions• Fiction: ~ False: ~one of the real things in the universe (like
atoms)
Hume’s Multi-Pixeled Self
•
Hermeneutics
• We interpret and reinterpret/write and rewrite as we go along.
• If the self were some fixed entity (something other than an abstractum) how could we make sense of this?
We are Novelists
• We try to make the material of our lives cohere into a single story: our autobiography
• Main character of this autobiography is one’s self• To continue to ask what the self is beyond this is to
make a category mistake
Problem
• Is Narrative necessary for psychological unity?• And if necessary, 1st person or 3rd person?• And if 1st person or 3rd person, does he, she, (or
they) always get it right? How will we account for the wrong narratives?
Problem
• Doesn’t narrative identity presuppose or depend upon numerical identity?
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