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?