PHL100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: If And Only If, Revised Version, Transitive Relation
Document Summary
It would be nice to have a theory of personal identity that has as many of the body theory"s and soul theory"s respective virtues without their respective vices. Some think the psychological theory fits the bill: X is the same person as y iff x and y are psychologically connected in the right kind of way. Compare my wallet to the nation of canada. Both of these things exist and both of them persist through time. At a minimum, there has to be a particular thing a substance, as we"ll say that exists and persists through time and is numerically identical with my wallet. Well, you could say that but it would be weird. Canada, then, isn"t a substance, it"s an ongoing stream of canadian-type legal/political/ sociological/etc. relations. What the psychological theory says is that persons are like canada, not, as both the body and soul theories have it, like my wallet.
