Abstract
Both the various ways of applying the concept of person and various epistemological-methodological approaches can be found in the context of the issue which has been discussed in an intense philosophical debate ever since Locke added a chapter about the identity of persons in the second edition of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: the question concerning the identity of persons over time. Locke’s proposal provoked critical reactions associated with the names Leibniz, Butler and Reid. In the second half of the twentieth century, decisively initiated by the works of Wiggins and Williams, a widespread discussion of this issue developed within analytical philosophy. Initially, the dispute was carried out between supporters of a psychological criterion developed following Locke’s memory criterion and supporters of a body criterion which was quickly further developed into a brain criterion. But soon philosophers such as Chisholm and Swinburne were participating in the debate, taking the whole discussion to be misguided because it was based on the premise that there could be an informative empirical criterion for personal identity through time. Thus a discussion thread was resuscitated that formulated anew the protests of Leibniz, Butler and Reid against Locke’s proposal. In the course of this the various thought experiments to be found in the literature are used to show that every informative empirical criterion for personal identity through time is bound to lead to unacceptable consequences. Hence, two fundamentally different notions meet head-on; and even within both camps the theories exhibit in part serious differences. However, the different proposals can be broken down into simple and complex theories. The characteristic feature of the simple theories is the following set of assumptions:
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Within the context of the consideration of the simple view, the parlance of the identity of a person over time should leave open the possibility that this concerns a special phenomenon which does not permit analysis according to the general pattern of the persistence of concrete, space-time existing entities.
- 2.
- 3.
The skeptical possibility that there is no continuity below observability is put aside in this study (cf. Nozick 1981, p. 35 on this).
- 4.
- 5.
For this reason, within the complex camp between ‘reductionist’ approaches, which analyze the intuitive understanding of personal identity over time philosophically, and ‘revisionary’ approaches can be differentiated (cf. Nida-Rümelin 2006). The latter assume that a suitable theory of personal identity over time must, as opposed to the intuitive everyday image, be revisionary if it is to be philosophically satisfying.
- 6.
- 7.
The philosophical usefulness of thought experiments shall be conceded here for argument’s sake.
- 8.
I am here ignoring the other case of the fusion of two persons discussed in the literature, as it does not raise any additional problems for the arguments developed in the following.
- 9.
This criticism presumes ‘Only-X-And-Y-Principle’ which implies that the answer to the question as to whether X is identical to Y may only depend on such factors that apply exclusively to X and Y. The strategy of excluding cases of duplication by definition is called the ‘Ad hoc answer’ by Nida-Rümelin (2006). Within the frame of the consideration of the biological approach it will, however, be shown that this answer is supported or motivated by other theoretical assumptions and is therefore not ad hoc.
- 10.
This feature of first-person attitudes is also accepted by many representatives of complex theories (cf. e.g. Shoemaker 1963, 1996 or Perry 1979, 1983) and will not be questioned in the following. Such an analysis has, among others, the advantage that it can do justice to the special epistemic conditions in self-consciousness without having to champion the implausible thesis that ‘I’ is not a referential expression (viz. Anscombe 1975).
- 11.
- 12.
The following considerations ensue from the analysis by Kaplan (1989).
- 13.
- 14.
This is consistent with the person in question neither believing p nor really being in pain, even if it admittedly always involves a certain amount of effort to construct plausible examples for that kind of situation.
- 15.
Evans (1991, p. 213 ff., cf. especially note 19) also reaches this conclusion. Hamilton’s criticism (1995, p. 343 f.) of these considerations misses its target because, firstly, it interprets ‘remember’ as a successful verb, and secondly, on this basis concludes that there is therefore a logical guarantee for identity over time. Evans does not have to argue that in the case of a correct usage of ‘remember’ identity over time is present (as Hamilton assumes). The moot point is what comprises this identity.
- 16.
Two alternatives are conceivable: For one thing, one can comprehend mental events as abstract entities that are not space-time datable individual things. For another, one can try to conceive them as universals that are numerically identically instantiated in various space-time places. In his dispute with Davidson’s event conception, Chisholm seems to have in mind this (cf. Davidson 1982 and Chisholm 1970b, 1971b, 1985). Maybe a systematic motif of Chisholm can be accounted for in the above presented context, since he supports the simple view.
- 17.
The problem of the principle of the primacy of actual self-attribution will not be further expounded in the following. A consideration of this principle leads to the issue of whether the synchronic unity of self can be analyzed purely internally from the first-person perspective, or only with recourse to external factors.
- 18.
In view of the question of personal identity over time that is of interest here, this concession, is – as we shall see shortly – possible, but it is not necessary. For one thing, it should be remembered that ontological conclusions, in the sense that a person is a res cogitans set apart from her body, cannot inevitably be drawn from the admission of epistemic particularities. On the other hand, the admission of the epistemic particularities in self-consciousness is not tied to the admission that the Cartesian perspective is suitable for the analysis of these phenomena. Furthermore, in respect of personality disorders, there is good reason to doubt the exclusivity of the first-person perspective in determining the synchronic unity of a person (and with it the principle of the primacy of actual self-attribution); cf. Gunnarsson (2010), Clarke (2013) and the papers in Hughes et al. (2006) for a detailed discussion.
- 19.
Although Chisholm (1986, p. 73 ff.) also takes up this strategy, he leaves open whether the indivisible substrate of personal identity should be conceived as monad or material sub particle. Clearly, he is primarily concerned with the indivisibility of this substrate, which should make the strict identity possible, rather than with a substance-dualistic answer to the problem.
- 20.
In Rohs (1996, Chap. 10 and 1997, p. 236 ff.), two further transcendental-philosophical arguments are to be found. First, the strict identity should be a necessary proviso for our practice of ascribing and evaluating actions. It is, however, debatable whether such a reconstruction really is suitable for our ethical practice. And second, the strict identity of a ‘standing and staying self’ should be a necessary proviso for experiences (in the Kantian sense) and communication (Rohs 1988a). The claim of self-conscious achievements drawn on diachronic and intersubjective invariance does not just stem from a very strong conception of experience and communication, which one does not have to share. For the question of the identity of a person that interests us here, its consequences are much too strong, since the recourse to a transcendental I raises the question of how the empirical many and the transcendental I relate to each other (cf. Cassam, 1997). Analog to Chisholm’s conception of mental events as universals/abstract entities, we find here, root of the attractiveness to take self-consciousness as a universal. Such an answer is patently insufficient for an analysis of personal identity; cf. Nagel’s conception of the objective self (1986, Chap. 4) and the considerations in this regard in Zuboff (1978, 1990) or Sprigge (1988).
- 21.
Foster (1979) emphasizes that this analysis applies to human persons and is just as compatible with the assumption of a non-bodily existing self as with the continuing existence of a human person as a purely spiritual entity after death. However, the biological approach suggested in the next section also accepts the logical possibility of this.
- 22.
Our everyday conception of the identity of persons over time thus has a ‘default-and-challenge’ structure; in contentious cases we are obliged to have recourse to the facts based on our first-person experience. It is these causal enabling conditions which constitute human persistence and can be compassed through the biological approach.
- 23.
This perspective rather than the participant one proves suitable to define the existence of the identity of a person over time as a purely descriptively compassable one, independent of norms, assessments and linguistic conventions. In contrast, in the participant perspective not only does the first-person perspective play an important role, but it is also signalized by the constitutive function of evaluative elements such as expectation of meaning, presupposition of rationality and norms (see Chap. 5).
- 24.
The comments following are not a justification of these theses. As regards causality, what applies to philosophical theses in general, applies in particular here: none of them is undisputable. The outline sketched in following does not, in my opinion, stake a claim on anything that does not enjoy wide acceptance and is moreover neutral towards some debatable issues (e.g. event ontology, reduction or particular forms of causation such as mental or agent causation).
- 25.
- 26.
I leave open here whether these criteria are delivered via the meaning of F or via its (hidden) reference to persistence relations. Furthermore, constitutive sortals are taken to deliver criteria to count tokens of X, i.e. to distinguish exemplars of a species.
- 27.
The following portrayal owes a lot to the study by Rapp (1995). But in contrast to Rapp’s considerations, which are oriented on linguistic pragmatism, I take a realist conception as a basis, at least as far as human beings are concerned.
- 28.
This characterization corresponds to the conception based on the following and does not entirely align with either the conception of Wiggins or that of Rapp.
- 29.
The externalist analysis of concepts for natural kinds does not imply the stronger thesis that the reference alone establishes the meaning.
- 30.
Since the following is concerned only with the persistence of the human individual, this suffices. A general theory of biological species is not necessary for my purposes.
- 31.
In isolated cases any occurring aberrations or deviations can concur with these laws due to the ceteris paribus clauses.
- 32.
This recourse to biology is not meant as a contention that the everyday use of this sortal concept and everyday statements on the persistence of members of this species function basically in a different way. For one thing, the regularities included in this way can in part also be grasped socially, and for another thing, there is resort to the factum of linguistic division of labor (Putnam 1979). But there are also areas (e.g. in embryology) which are for the most part inaccessible to the social approach.
- 33.
This formulation presumes that causal laws are facts. If, instead, causal laws are understood as propositions, then the thesis reads that two true causal laws cannot contradict one another.
- 34.
In contrast to Rapp’s suggested connection to the pragmatics of our identity statements my suggestion enters into a higher metaphysical hypothec. In my view this is justified above all by the fact that it allows to explain the non-conventionality of the persistence of members of certain biological species. But it has to be noted here that therewith the analysis of persistence suggested in the following is restricted to higher species and is bound to actual biological laws.
- 35.
The thesis that the persistence conditions for human embryos must be coined on the basis of the concept of the human being is also defended by Ayers (1993, Chap. 22–25), Olson (1997), Snowdon (1990, 1991) and Wiggins (1976, 1980, Chap. 6). It is important to note that the above thesis does not imply, first, that only human beings can be persons, and second, contrary to Wiggins, that it is intended as an analysis of the identity of persons over time.
- 36.
- 37.
I have explained the reasons why the other variants of the complex view do not represent a satisfactory alternative to the biological approach in Quante (2001a).
- 38.
For the portrayal of the general strategy it can remain open here whether ‘human being’ denotes a natural kind, or whether the laws that can be formulated within the framework of the basis of biology are relevant for other animals (e.g. apes), too. There is no need for a definition of the persistence of the human being as opposed to all other forms of life. Whether ‘human being’ defines a natural kind, or how the natural kind that includes the human being is to be precisely defined, is a question to be decided empirically.
- 39.
The prima facie counterintuitive consequence that the biological approach involves is that a corpse is a different entity from the human being it once was (cf. Chap. 4; Rosenberg arrives at the same conclusion, 1983, p. 27 f.).
- 40.
The exclusive connection to the observer perspective does not allow analyzing the organized body as ‘my body’, i.e. the body a person attributes to herself. This would admit the first-person perspective back into the analysis, so that Hamilton’s criticism could bite (1995, p. 346).
- 41.
Cf. Quante (2000a); the declination of a naturalistic conception of propositional attitudes thus is not committed to taking (and sticking to) the Cartesian perspective. On the contrary, the simple views can be accused of masking the evaluative and ‘hermeneutic’ aspect of personhood and personality just as much as the naturalistic complex theories do, by adapting the first-person perspective to the observer perspective. In the face of this, it is suggested here that personhood and personality be assigned to the participant perspective that contains the first-person states as an integral part. Connected with this is the thesis that self-consciousness also always contains evaluative and volitional aspects (Tugendhat 1979). Chisholm (1970a, p. 36 f.) agrees in one sense, in that he makes a case for a ‘loose’ rather than a strict application of the concept of identity for personhood and personality. With this, expressed in the terms of my approach, he sums up the difference between an analysis oriented on the observer perspective and one on the participant perspective. But what comprises personal identity when personhood and personality are excluded, remains hazy.
- 42.
The extrinsic conditions criticized by the simple view (such as the exclusion of doubling) are not an ad hoc solution, but result from the relevant biological laws containing ceteris-paribus conditions. Neither the manipulation nor the presence of constraints that hinder the normal development of a human organism are directly embraced by this approach.
Bibliography
Anscombe, G.E.M. 1975. The first person. In Mind and language, ed. S. Guttenplan, 45–65. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ayers, M. 1993. Locke. London: Routledge.
Bermúdez, José L. 2012. Memory judgements and immunity to error through misidentification. Grazer Philosophische Studien 48: 123–141.
Butler, J. 1836. The whole works. London: Thomas Tegg.
Cassam, Q. 1997. Self and world. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Castañeda, H.-N. 1982. Sprache und Erfahrung. Frankfurt a.M: P. Lang.
Chisholm, R.M. 1969. The loose and popular and the strict and philosophical senses of identity. In Perception and personal identity, ed. N.S. Care and R.H. Grimm, 82–106. Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University.
———. 1970a. Identity through time. In Language, belief, and metaphysics, ed. H.E. Kiefer and M.K. Munitz, 163–182. Albany: State University of New York Press.
———. 1970b. Events and propositions. Nous 4: 15–32.
———. 1971a. Problems of identity. In Identity and individuation, ed. M.K. Munitz, 3–30. New York: New York University Press.
———. 1971b. States of affairs again. Nous 5: 179–189.
———. 1985. The structure of states of affairs. In Essays on Davidson’s actions and events, ed. B. Vermazen and M.B. Hintikka, 107–114. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 1986. Self-profile. In Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. R.J. Bogdan, 3–77. Dordrecht: Reidel.
———. 1994. On the observability of the self. In Language, metaphysics, and death, ed. J. Donnelly, 2nd ed., 195–210. New York: Fordham University Press.
Clark, Stephen R.L. 2013. Personal identity and identity disorders. In The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, ed. K.W.M. Fulford et al., 911–928. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davidson, D. 1982. Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dennett, D.C. 1981. Brainstorms, 267–285. Brighton: Harvester Press.
Evans, G. 1991. The varieties of reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Forbes, G. 1985. The metaphysics of modality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Foster, J. 1979. In Self-defence. In Perception and identity, ed. G.F. MacDonald, 161–185. London: Macmillan.
Frankfurt, H.G. 1988. The importance of what we care about. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Geach, P.T. 1980. Reference and generality. 3rd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Gunnarsson, Logi. 2010. Philosophy of personal identity and multiple personality. New York: Routledge.
Hamilton, A. 1995. A new look at personal identity. Philosophical Quarterly 45: 332–349.
Hughes, Julian C., et al., eds. 2006. Dementia. Oxford: Oxford Unveristy Press.
Kaplan, D. 1989. Demonstratives. In Themes from Kaplan, ed. J. Almog et al., 481–563. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J. 1993. Supervenience and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kripke, S.A. 1981. Name und Notwendigkeit. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
Leibniz, G.W. 1958. Metaphysische Abhandlung. Hamburg: F. Meiner.
———. 1986. On the plurality of worlds. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Loux, M.J. 1998. Metaphysics. London: Routledge.
Lund, D.H. 1994. Perception, mind and personal identity. Lanham: University Press of America.
Madell, G. 1981. The identity of the self. Edinburgh: The University Press.
Nagel, T. 1986. The view from nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nida-Rümelin, M. 1997. Chisholm on personal identity and the attribution of experiences. In The philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. L.E. Hahn, 565–586. Chicago: Open Court.
———. 2006. Der Blick von innen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Noonan, H. 1991. Personal identity. London: Routledge.
Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical explanations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, E.T. 1997. The human animal. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 1979. The problem of the essential indexical. Nous 13: 3–21.
———. 1983. Castañeda on He and I. In Agent, language, and the structure of the world, ed. J.E. Tomberlin, 15–42. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publication.
Putnam, H. 1979. The meaning of ‘meaning’. In Mind, language and reality (= Philosophical papers, vol. 2), ed. H. Putnam, 215–271. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1997a. Ist die diachrone Identität der Person infallibel? In Feld-Zeit-Kritik, Hrsg. M. Willaschek, 124–133. Münster: LIT.
———. 1999a. Personale Identität als Problem der analytischen Metaphysik. In Personale Identität, Hrsg. M. Quante, 9–29. Paderborn: Schöningh.
———. 2000a. Manifest versus scientific worldview: Uniting the perspectives. Epistemologia (Italien) 23: 211–242.
———. 2001a. Menschliche Persistenz. In Person, Hrsg. D. Sturma, 223–257. Paderborn: Mentis.
———. 2017a. Zeitlichkeit, personale Lebensform und Ethik. In Zeit—eine normative Ressource? ed. F. Dietrich et al., Xx–xx. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
———. 2017b. The logic of essence as internal reflection. In The Oxford handbook of Hegel, ed. D. Moyar, xx–xx. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rapp, C. 1995. Identität, Persistenz und Substantialität. Freiburg: Karl Alber.
Reid, T. 1983. Inquiry and essay. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Rheinwald, R. 1994. Causation and intensionality: a problem for naturalism. European Journal of Philosophy 2: 41–64.
Rohs, P. 1988a. Die transzendentale Deduktion als Lösung von Invarianzproblemen. In Kants transzendentale Deduktion und die Möglichkeit von Transzendentalphilosophie, Hrsg. Forum für Philosophie Bad Homburg, 135–192. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
———. 1996. Feld-Zeit-Ich. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
———. 1997. Entgegnungen. In Feld-Zeit-Kritik, Hrsg. M. Willaschek, 222–262. Münster: LIT.
———. 1998. Abhandlungen zur feldtheoretischen Transzendentalphilosophie. Münster: LIT Verlag.
Rosenberg, J.F. 1983. Thinking clearly about death. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Shoemaker, S. 1963. Self-knowledge and self-identity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
———. 1996. The first-person perspective and other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Snowdon, P.F. 1990. Persons, animals, and ourselves. In The person and the human mind, ed. C. Gill, 83–107. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 1991. Personal identity and brain transplants. In Human beings, ed. D. Cockburn, 109–126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sprigge, T.L.S. 1988. Personal and impersonal identity. Mind 97: 29–49.
Strawson, Peter F. 1959. Individuals. London: Routledge.
Swinburne, R. 1986. The evolution of the soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tugendhat, E. 1979. Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.
Unger, P. 1979a. I do not exist. In Perception and identity, ed. G.F. MacDonald, 235–251. London: Macmillan.
———. 1979b. Why there are no people. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4: 177–222.
———. 1976. Locke, Butler and the stream of consciousness: And men as a natural kind. In The identities of persons, ed. A.O. Rorty, 139–173. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1980. Sameness and substance. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Zuboff, A. 1978. Moment universals and personal identity. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 78: 141–155.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Quante, M. (2017). Human Persistence. In: Personal Identity as a Principle of Biomedical Ethics. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 126. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56869-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56869-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56867-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56869-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)