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Personal Identity Mind/Soul Brain Body Memory Story Continuity Problem SHIP OF THESEUS • Hobbes: Matter: Material, Physical • Descartes: Mind Locke’s Prince & Cobbler Consciousness Memory Problems? 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 Identity What 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? Dennett Analogy: 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?
