Brain Transplants and Personal Identity: A Dialogue.
Written in response to Parfit (1973). I argue that identity cannot simply be treated as a matter of psychology, since this allows for the same person to have contradictory interests. Furthermore, a retreat to mere connectedness fails to solve this.
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Locke’s theory of personal identity. John Locke argues that it is not the brain itself which is the key to identity, but what the brain holds: our consciousness (Locke, p. 71). Consciousness is a difficult term to define though. Thomas Reid points out that we cannot be conscious of the past, as you can only ever be conscious of the present.
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If my account of personal identity is correct, personal identity cannot be constituted by the continuity of one’s mental properties in this world. As Reid says, while the continuity of memory can be “the most irresistible evidence of my being the identical person that did such a thing, at such a time,” the identity of a person evidenced by memory continuity is not “a perfect identity.
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So, Personal identity is not identity of substance (a person could swap her material body, or, Locke feels, her immaterial soul, without loss of identity) No, it is identity (continuity or connectedness) of consciousness. Of course, being the same Human Being and being the same Person usually go together. But not always, as in your brain-swap.
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A brain transplant or whole-body transplant is a procedure in which the brain of one organism is transplanted into the body of another organism. It is a procedure distinct from head transplantation, which involves transferring the entire head to a new body, as opposed to the brain only. Theoretically, a person with advanced organ failure could be given a new and functional body while keeping.
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Psychological Reductionism About Persons: A Critical Development. By Julian Baggini. Get PDF (627 KB) Abstract. There is a need to distinguish two questions in the philosophy of persons. One of these is the factual question of identity. This is the question of the conditions of personal identity over time. The other is the first person question of survival. This can be expressed as, “Under.
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The Problem of Personal Identity John Locke, Our Psychological Properties Define the Self David Hume, We Have No Substantial Self with Which We Are Identical Derek Parfit and Godfrey Vesey, Brain Transplants and Personal Identity: A Dialogue C. Personal Identity and Survival: Will I Survive My Death? Plato, Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (from the Phaedo) Bertrand Russell, The.