Download or read book The Persistence of Persons written by Valerio Buonomo (Ed.) and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We ordinarily believe that the inhabitants of the world – including ourselves – persist over time. Such an idea, however, has puzzled philosophers for centuries. How can we change and still be the same? More specifically, is there any constitutive condition of our identity over time? And if so, does this condition involve mental aspects (such as memories, believes, experiences, etc.), physical aspects (such as the body, or the continuity of the organism), or something else? Or is rather personal identity primitive and unanalyzable, so that our persistence is nothing but a brute fact? This volume is a collection of new essays from leading figures in the field analyzing the persistence of persons and the criteria of personal identity over time. It presents an extensive discussion of the most relevant views on personal identity in contemporary metaphysics and provides new treatments of the constitutive conditions of personal persistence.
Download or read book Staying Alive written by Marya Schechtman and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judgments of personal identity stand at the heart of our daily transactions. Family life, friendships, institutions of justice, and systems of compensation all rely on our ability to reidentify people. It is not as obvious as it might at first appear just how to express this relation between facts about personal identity and practical interests in a philosophical account of personal identity. A natural thought is that whatever relation is proposed as the one which constitutes the sameness of a person must be important to us in just the way identity is. This simple understanding of the connection between personal identity and practical concerns has serious difficulties, however. One is that the relations that underlie our practical judgments do not seem suited to providing a metaphysical account of the basic, literal continuation of an entity. Another is that the practical interests we associate with identity are many and varied and it seems impossible that a single relation could simultaneously capture what is necessary and sufficient for all of them. Staying Alive offers a new way of thinking about the relation between personal identity and practical interests which allows us to overcome these difficulties and to offer a view in which the most basic and literal facts about personal identity are inherently connected to practical concerns. This account, the 'Person Life View', sees persons as unified loci of practical interaction, and defines the identity of a person in terms of the unity of a characteristic kind of life made up of dynamic interactions among biological, psychological, and social attributes and functions mediated through social and cultural infrastructure.
Download or read book Locke on Personal Identity written by Galen Strawson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Nature of Human Persons written by Jason T. Eberl and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there a shared nature common to all human beings? What essential qualities might define this nature? These questions are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain subjects of perennial interest and controversy. The Nature of Human Persons offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence. For a human being to exist, does it require an immaterial mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? Jason Eberl also considers the criterion of identity for a developing human being—that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Eberl's investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas’s account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. These theories inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence—at conception, during gestation, or after birth—and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. Ultimately, Eberl argues that the Thomistic account of human nature addresses the matters of human nature and survival in a much more holistic and desirable way than the other theories and offers a cohesive portrait of one’s continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond.
Download or read book Personal Identity written by Georg Gasser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses whether personal identity is analyzable, with innovative discussion of 'complex' and 'simple' theories.
Download or read book The Persistence and Importance of Persons written by Diane Jeske and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Death and Persistence written by Rebekah L. H. Rice and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-12 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that physical death may not mark the end of an individual's existence has long been a source of fascination. It is perhaps unsurprising that we are apt to wonder what it is that happens to us when we die. Is death the end of me and all the experiences that count as mine? Or might I exist, and indeed have experiences, beyond the time of my death? And yet, deep metaphysical puzzles arise at the very suggestion that persons might continue to exist following physical death. Indeed, whether, and how, one can exist post-mortem will depend in no small part on what sorts of things we are and on what it takes for things like us to persist across temporal durations and other changes. These topics and their application to the growing collection of materialist accounts of resurrection are the focus of this Element.
Download or read book Are We Bodies Or Souls written by Richard Swinburne and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are humans? What makes us who we are? Many think that we are just complicated machines, or animals that are different from machines only by being conscious. In Are We Bodies or Souls? Richard Swinburne comes to the defence of the soul and presents new philosophical arguments that are supported by modern neuroscience. When scientific advances enable neuroscientists to transplant a part of brain into a new body, he reasons, no matter how much we can find out about their brain activity or conscious experiences we will never know whether the resulting person is the same as before or somebody entirely new. Swinburne thus argues that we are immaterial souls sustained in existence by our brains. Sensations, thoughts, and intentions are conscious events in our souls that cause events in our brains. While scientists might discover some of the laws of nature that determine conscious events and brain events, each person's soul is an individual thing and this is what ultimately makes us who we are.
Download or read book Four dimensionalism written by Theodore Sider and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four-Dimensionalism defends the thesis that the material world is composed of temporal as well as spatial parts. This defense includes a novel account of persistence over time, new arguments in favour of the four-dimensional ontology, and responses to the challenges four-dimensionalism faces. Theodore Sider pays particular attention to the philosophy of time, including a strong series of arguments against presentism, the thesis that only the present is real. Arguments offered in favour offour-dimensionalism include novel arguments based on time travel, the debate beween spacetime substantivalists and relationalists, and vagueness. Also included is a comprehensive discussion of the paradoxes of coinciding material objects, and a novel resolution of those paradoxes based on temporal counterpart theory. In conclusion Sider replies to prominent objections to four-dimensionalism, including discussion of the problem of the rotating homogenous disk. Four Dimensionalism is an originaland highly readable study of the metaphysics of time and identity.
Download or read book Reasons and Persons written by Derek Parfit and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1986-01-23 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Time Biases written by Meghan Sullivan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should you care less about your distant future? What about events in your life that have already happened? How should the passage of time affect your planning and assessment of your life? Most of us think it is irrational to ignore the future but completely harmless to dismiss the past. But this book argues that rationality requires temporal neutrality: if you are rational you don't engage in any kind of temporal discounting. The book draws on puzzles about real-life planning to build the case for temporal neutrality. How much should you save for retirement? Does it make sense to cryogenically freeze your brain after death? How much should you ask to be compensated for a past injury? Will climate change make your life meaningless? Meghan Sullivan considers what it is for you to be a person extended over time, how time affects our ability to care about ourselves, and all of the ways that our emotions might bias our rational planning. Drawing substantially from work in social psychology, economics and the history of philosophy, the book offers a systematic new theory of rational planning.
Download or read book On What Matters written by Derek Parfit and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Derek Parfit presents the third volume of On What Matters, his landmark work of moral philosophy. Parfit develops further his influential treatment of reasons, normativity, the meaning of moral discourse, and the status of morality. He engages with his critics, and shows the way to resolution of their differences. This volume is partly about what it is for things to matter, in the sense that we all have reasons to care about these things. Much of the book discusses three of the main kinds of meta-ethical theory: Normative Naturalism, Quasi-Realist Expressivism, and Non-Metaphysical Non-Naturalism, which Derek Parfit now calls Non-Realist Cognitivism. This third theory claims that, if we use the word 'reality' in an ontologically weighty sense, irreducibly normative truths have no mysterious or incredible ontological implications. If instead we use 'reality' in a wide sense, according to which all truths are truths about reality, this theory claims that some non-empirically discoverable truths-such as logical, mathematical, modal, and some normative truths-raise no difficult ontological questions. Parfit discusses these theories partly by commenting on the views of some of the contributors to Peter Singer's collection Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity. Though Peter Railton is a Naturalist, he has widened his view by accepting some further claims, and he has suggested that this wider version of Naturalism could be combined with Non-Realist Cognitivism. Parfit argues that Railton is right, since these theories no longer deeply disagree. Though Allan Gibbard is a Quasi-Realist Expressivist, he has suggested that the best version of his view could be combined with Non-Realist Cognitivism. Parfit argues that Gibbard is right, since Gibbard and he now accept the other's main meta-ethical claim. It is rare for three such different philosophical theories to be able to be widened in ways that resolve their deepest disagreements. This happy convergence supports the view that these meta-ethical theories are true. Parfit also discusses the views of several other philosophers, and some other meta-ethical and normative questions.
Download or read book The Seven Sins of Memory written by Daniel L. Schacter and published by HMH. This book was released on 2002-05-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book: A psychologist’s “gripping and thought-provoking” look at how and why our brains sometimes fail us (Steven Pinker, author of How the Mind Works). In this intriguing study, Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter explores the memory miscues that occur in everyday life, placing them into seven categories: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Illustrating these concepts with vivid examples—case studies, literary excerpts, experimental evidence, and accounts of highly visible news events such as the O. J. Simpson verdict, Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony, and the search for the Oklahoma City bomber—he also delves into striking new scientific research, giving us a glimpse of the fascinating neurology of memory and offering “insight into common malfunctions of the mind” (USA Today). “Though memory failure can amount to little more than a mild annoyance, the consequences of misattribution in eyewitness testimony can be devastating, as can the consequences of suggestibility among pre-school children and among adults with ‘false memory syndrome’ . . . Drawing upon recent neuroimaging research that allows a glimpse of the brain as it learns and remembers, Schacter guides his readers on a fascinating journey of the human mind.” —Library Journal “Clear, entertaining and provocative . . . Encourages a new appreciation of the complexity and fragility of memory.” —The Seattle Times “Should be required reading for police, lawyers, psychologists, and anyone else who wants to understand how memory can go terribly wrong.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A fascinating journey through paths of memory, its open avenues and blind alleys . . . Lucid, engaging, and enjoyable.” —Jerome Groopman, MD “Compelling in its science and its probing examination of everyday life, The Seven Sins of Memory is also a delightful book, lively and clear.” —Chicago Tribune Winner of the William James Book Award
Download or read book Selves written by Galen Strawson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-30 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there such a thing as the self? If so, what is it? We all have experience of having or being a self, a hidden inner mental presence. Galen Strawson argues that if we look closely at what experience of a self is like, we may be able to work out what a self must be, if it exists. He concludes that selves do exist, but they are not what we think.
Download or read book Identity written by Florian Coulmas and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces identity, one of the most iconic concepts of our time, which is used ubiquitously but rarely explained. It discusses the various uses of 'identity' separately for different fields of study - philosophy, psychology, sociology, gender studies, and linguistics. This book also compares Western concepts and theories of identity with similar concepts in other parts of the world. It explains how contemporary trends in marketization and globalization have made identity increasingly important to us in the last 50 years. This book also outlines the historical background to the concept of identity.
Download or read book Snowbird Cherokees written by Sharlotte Neely and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first ethnographic study of Snowbird, North Carolina, a remote mountain community of Cherokees who are regarded as simultaneously the most traditional and the most adaptive members of the entire tribe. Through historical research, contemporary fieldwork, and situational analysis, Sharlotte Neely explains the Snowbird paradox and portrays the inhabitants' daily lives and culture. At the core of her study are detailed examinations of two expressions of Snowbird's cultural self-awareness--its ongoing struggle for fair political representation on the tribal council and its yearly Trail of Tears Singing, a gathering point for all North Carolina and Oklahoma Cherokees concerned with cultural conservation.
Download or read book Personal Identity written by Nancy Shoemaker and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1991-01-08 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to say that this person at this time is 'the same' as that person at an earlier time? If the brain is damaged or the memory lost, how far does a person's identity continue? In this book two eminent philosophers develop very different approaches to the problem.
