Keyboard Shortcuts?

×
  • →Next step
  • ←Previous step
  • ↓Skip this slide
  • ↑Previous slide
  • mShow slide thumbnails
  • nShow notes
  • hShow handout latex source
  • NShow talk notes latex source

Click here and press the right key for the next slide (or swipe left)

also ...

Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)

Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)

Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)

Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts

 

Psychological Continuity

[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time, under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?

Answer 1: psychological continuity

Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa.

Could be some deeper notion of psychological continuity. Think, for example, of the way emotions unfold.
\emph{The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity}: $X$ at $t1$ is the same person as $Y$ at $t2$ if and only if $X$ is uniquely psychologically continuous with Y, where psychological continuity consists in overlapping chains of strong psychological connectedness, itself consisting in significant numbers of direct psychological connections like memories, intentions, beliefs/goals/desires, and similarity of character (Parfit 1984, 207)
further issue ... transitive closure needed
further issue ... transitive closure needed ask your logic teachers
further issue ... transitive closure needed ask your logic teachers

[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time, under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?

Answer 1: psychological continuity

Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa.

Two lines of objection to Psychological Continuity: \begin{itemize} \item You were an embryo. \item You can be psychologically continuous with more than one individual [not covered in this lecture]. \end{itemize}

interruption

yyrama -- weekly tasks

also do peer reviews

take your work to the seminar

tabula -- assessed work

[Olson’s formulation] If a person exists at one time and something exists at another time, under what possible circumstances is it the case that the person is the thing?

Answer 1: psychological continuity

Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa.

What’s good about psychological continuity views? That they allow us to make sense of the possibility of people swapping bodies.

Three inconsistent claims

Sam was an embryo; unless she recovers, Sam will be in a PVS

Person essentialism is true

Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa.

Can you articulate why these two claims are not in fact inconsistent? (This is the core of the seminar task)
\emph{Person Essentialism} is the view that being a person is an essential property. (Contrast nonessential properties, like being the wearer of the most fly shoes.)
This is Hannah with Annabel. According to Hannah, Annabel is a person so we can’t eat her. To get around this, I encouraged her to think that Annabel might come back to us as a mango. (Unfotunately when we went shopping, the person in front of us took Annabel-mango before we could get there.)
In Hannah’s world, Butternut squash is Annabel now but it wasn’t always.

person essentialism?

Hannah’s view

The butternut squash wasn’t always Annabel or any other person, and it won’t be Annabel (nor any person) later when I cook it.

This butternut squash, which is now Annabel, is identical with a seed.

The seed was never Annabel, nor any person.

Steve’s view

Hannah is a person essentially: being a person is not an attribute she could gain or lose without ceasing to exist altogether.

This person, Hannah, was once an embryo.

The embryo was a person.

Have I shown that
person essentialism
is true? No!

I just want you to understand what it is.

So what are you
trying to show?

What I am about to argue ...

Eventually, that
psychological continuity views
of personal identity
presuppose personal essentialism.

Without person essentialism, the Psychological Criterion would not be a criterion of identity after all.
Inconsistent Triad: \begin{enumerate} \item Sam was an embryo; unless she recovers, Sam will be in a PVS. \item Person essentialism is true. \item Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa. \end{enumerate}

Three inconsistent claims

Sam was an embryo; unless she recovers, Sam will be in a PVS

Person essentialism is true

Necessarily, a person existing at one time is a person existing at another time if and only if the first mentioned person can, at the first time, remember an experience the second mentioned person has at the second time, or vice versa.

Two lines of objection to psychological continuity views

You were an embryo.

You can be psychologically continuous with more than one individual.

Not covered here, might cover later. (Interesting this is that Parfit goes all ‘Relation R’; it’s what we care about, but not identity, on us.)
This is the one we just covered.