Author : Harold W. Noonan
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 23,56 MB
Release : 2004-06
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1134482132
A comprehensive introduction to the nature of the self and its relation to the body, this title places the problem of personal identity in the context of more general puzzles about identity, and discusses the major related theories.
Author : John Perry
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 15,95 MB
Release : 2002-06-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1603847847
This volume collects a number of Perry’s classic works on personal identity as well as four new pieces, The Two Faces of Identity,Persons and Information,Self-Notions and The Self, and The Sense of Identity. Perry’s Introduction puts his own work and that of others on the issues of identity and personal identity in the context of philosophical studies of mind and language over the past thirty years.
Author : David Shoemaker
Publisher : Broadview Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 19,75 MB
Release : 2008-10-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1551118823
The relationship between personal identity and ethics remains on of the most intriguing yet vexing issues in philosophy. It is commonplace to hold that moral responsibility for past actions requires that the responsible agent is in some respect identical to the agent who performed the action. Is this true? On the other hand, can ethics constrain our account of personal identity? Do the practical requirements of moral theory commit us to the view that persons do remain identical over time? For example, does the moral status of abortion or stem cell research depend on whether personal identity is based on psychological or biological properties? Or is it the case that personal identity is not, in fact, relevant to ethics? Personal Identity and Ethics provides the first comprehensive examination of these issues. Topics include personal identity and prudential rationality; personal identity’s significance for moral responsibility and ethical theory; and the practical consequences of accounts of personal identity for issues such as abortion, stem cell research, cloning, advance directives, population ethics, multiple personality disorder, and the definition of death.
Author : Georg Gasser
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 29,81 MB
Release : 2012-11-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1107014441
This book addresses whether personal identity is analyzable, with innovative discussion of 'complex' and 'simple' theories.
Author : Amy Kind
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 45,69 MB
Release : 2015-10-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1509500243
As persons, we are importantly different from all other creatures in the universe. But in what, exactly, does this difference consist? What kinds of entities are we, and what makes each of us the same person today that we were yesterday? Could we survive having all of our memories erased and replaced with false ones? What about if our bodies were destroyed and our brains were transplanted into android bodies, or if instead our minds were simply uploaded to computers? In this engaging and accessible introduction to these important philosophical questions, Amy Kind brings together three different areas of research: the nature of personhood, theories of personal identity over time, and the constitution of self-identity. Surveying the key contemporary theories in the philosophical literature, Kind analyzes and assesses their strengths and weaknesses. As she shows, our intuitions on these issues often pull us in different directions, making it difficult to develop an adequate general theory. Throughout her discussion, Kind seamlessly interweaves a vast array of up-to-date examples drawn from both real life and popular fiction, all of which greatly help to elucidate this central topic in metaphysics. A perfect text for readers coming to these issues for the first time, Persons and Personal Identity engages with some of the deepest and most important questions about human nature and our place in the world, making it a vital resource for students and researchers alike.
Author : Geoffrey Madell
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 12,18 MB
Release : 2014-11-20
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1317584139
In this volume, Geoffrey Madell develops a revised account of the self, making a compelling case for why the "simple" or "anti-criterial" view of personal identity warrants a robust defense. Madell critiques recent discussions of the self for focusing on features which are common to all selves, and which therefore fail to capture the uniqueness of each self. In establishing his own view of personal identity, Madell proposes (a) that there is always a gap between ‘A is f and g’ and ‘I am f and g’; (b), that a complete description of the world offered without recourse to indexicals will fail to account for the contingent truth that I am one of the persons described; and (c), that an account of conscious perspectives on the world must take into account what it means for an apparently arbitrary one of these perspectives to be mine. Engaging with contemporary positions on the first person, embodiment, psychological continuity, and other ongoing arguments, Madell contends that there can be no such thing as a criterion of personal identity through time, that no bodily or psychological continuity approach to the issue can succeed, and that personal identity through time must be absolute, not a matter of degree. Madell’s view that the nature of the self is substantively different from that of objects in the world will generate significant discussion and debate among philosophers of mind.
Author : Patrick Stokes
Publisher :
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 18,33 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0198732732
Across his relatively short and eccentric authorial career, Soren Kierkegaard develops a unique, and provocative, account of what it is to become, to be, and to lose a self, backed up by a rich phenomenology of self-experience. Yet Kierkegaard has been almost totally absent from the burgeoning analytic philosophical literature on self-constitution and personal identity. How, then, does Kierkegaard's work appear when viewed in light of current debates about self and identity--and what does Kierkegaard have to teach philosophers grappling with these problems today? The Naked Self explores Kierkegaard's understanding of selfhood by situating his work in relation to central problems in contemporary philosophy of personal identity: the role of memory in selfhood, the relationship between the notional and actual subjects of memory and anticipation, the phenomenology of diachronic self-experience, affective alienation from our past and future, psychological continuity, practical and narrative approaches to identity, and the intelligibility of posthumous survival. By bringing his thought into dialogue with major living and recent philosophers of identity (such as Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson, Bernard Williams, J. David Velleman, Marya Schechtman, Mark Johnston, and others), Stokes reveals Kierkegaard as a philosopher with a significant--if challenging--contribution to make to philosophy of self and identity.
Author : Derek Layder
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 23,58 MB
Release : 2004-02-24
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1848606036
How can you understand yourself? Where do your views, attitudes and values come from and why do they change? This accessible and illuminating book provides a reliable guide to these questions. The book: · Demonstrates that personal identity is formed around basic needs for security and self-esteem and the personal desires that flow from them · Shows the role of the emotions in personal life · Explores the limits of approaches that deny the existence of ′individuals′ and ′personal experience′ · Demonstrates how we build on everyday problems and dilemmas of life to shape our moods, attitudes and feelings. Shrewd and compelling, the book will be of interest to anyone studying Social Psychology and Sociology.
Author : Galen Strawson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 35,6 MB
Release : 2014-07-21
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0691161003
John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves—yet it is widely thought to be wrong. In this book, Galen Strawson argues that in fact it is Locke’s critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. Strawson argues that the root error is to take Locke’s use of the word "person" as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like "human being." In actuality, Locke uses "person" primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word "conscious." When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity.
Author : Derek Parfit
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 880 pages
File Size : 48,85 MB
Release : 1986-01-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0191622443
This book challenges, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity. The author claims that we have a false view of our own nature; that it is often rational to act against our own best interests; that most of us have moral views that are directly self-defeating; and that, when we consider future generations the conclusions will often be disturbing. He concludes that moral non-religious moral philosophy is a young subject, with a promising but unpredictable future.
