PHL240H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Twin
Document Summary
Inspired by classic discussions of personhood and personal identity in some original locke critics, reid and butler, and classical dualist tradition in philosophy. Simple view of personal identity: pi over time is not analyzable in terms of psychological continuity or physical continuity of body and brain. Souls are seat of mental lives and furnish persons identity conditions. Answer to identification question: persons are unions of material body and immaterial soul. Argument: argument from broad theoretical considerations, combination of ideas allows us to say that identity is what matters, identity is intrinsic, identity is not a matter of degree, and more speculatively, duplication isn"t a possibility for persons. Epistemological objection: hume and parfit: when default to perceptions when describing ourselves. Without those, the self doesn"t exist except as a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which are in constant succession and flux. Difficult to reconcile the soul with twinning events.
