Personal Identity

Which issues does personal identity refer to in philosophy? Persistence (diachronic identity) Personhood Who am I? (individuality) Evidence how do I know I am the same? What am I? How could I have been? What matters in identity?

Personal Identity over time: Persistence

What is it about the way your past self relates to you as you are now that makes her you? For that matter, what makes it the case that anyone at all who existed back then is you? Q: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions under which x at t is identical to x at t?

Different types of identity

Qualitative:
Two things are exactly similar (the same)

Numerical:
They are one thing (identical)
- Reflexivity (x=x) - Symmetry (if x=y, then y=x) - Transitivity (if x=y and y=z, then x=z)

Persistence
a) a physical connection is necessary and/or sufficient to maintain indentity spatiotemporal bodily/brain continutiy b) it is the continuity of some aspect of our psychology that provides the nec and sufficient conditions to personal identity

Persistence
b) Locke: the continuity of conscious memory BUT: objectionable as I may not remember some event in my life does that mean that I did not take part in/do it? b) Parfit: indirect memories overlapping chain of direct memories
X remembers what Y did, Y remembers what Z did, but X needs not remember what Z did

psychological connectedness: the holding of particular direct psychological connections psychological continuity: the holding of overlapping chains of strong connectedness.

Reductionism:
identity over time just consists in the holding of certain facts that can be described in an impersonal way BUT: how could we talk about a persons identity without mentioning the person or claiming that he exists? - by mentioning the person only in describing the content of the mental states - same person over time is no more than to have the correct psychological connections

Wollheim: all mental states have underlying mental dispositions they depend on (MD: persistent mental phenomena in a persons life, such as emotions, beliefs, knowledge, skills, habits, virtue and vice, etc.) - must be housed somewhere. where else could this be than in a person? what does it mean to be a person? how do we get and keep our sense of identity through life? 3 elements: the thing (person), the process (leading a life) and the product (life)are intimately connected and understood in terms of each other The core of this process (living) is found in 3 characteristic interactions: between a persons past and present & between his present and future between mental states and mental dispositions, and between preconscious, conscious and unconscious systems of his mind

Wollheims taxonomy of mental phenomena:

mental states (occurrent phenomena such as thoughts, dreams etc.), mental dispositions (e.g. long-standing states, emotions, beliefs, knowledge etc.) mental activities, by the means of which mental states and dispositions are brought about, such as thinking a thought, attention, repression etc. characteristics of mental phenomena: Intentionality = thought content Subjectivity = how it is for the subject Psychic force and function = causal efficacy Consciousness = broad/narrow

The relation between mental states and dispositions:

mental states can manifest dispositions: a disposition manifests itself only in mental states that further its role. (Manifestation is understood as a causal relation here in that a disposition causes the mental state that manifests it) a mental state can manifest a disposition either because of its intentionality or its phenomenology. a disposition can modify a person by constraining his mental states and through this, by regulating his behaviour or generating new or reinforcing existing dispositions essential to what it is to lead the life of a person

Psychological continuity:
mental/psychological connectedness is a dyadic relation holding between two events (continuity = chains of connectedness) in addition Wollheim thinks that the earlier event causes the later event and the later event is caused by the earlier event in such a way that the later event passes on the causal influence of the earlier event to the whole person mental connectedness is a 3-way relation as it connects mental event to mental event and the psychology of the person, allowing the causal influence to occur twice 2nd is of key importance in PI

Centred event-memory
creates and not just indicates the identity of the same life 1. event-memory is always memory of some event that the person experienced and lived through. 2. a person in remembering an event, whether centrally or acentrally, always remembers it as the person that experienced it and 3. in centrally remembering an event, a person always remembers it from his point of view affective tone of centred event-memory is an element in mental connectedness, the creator of the sense of ones own identity experiential memory brings subject under the influence of one particular past event as well as the general influence of the past

 Mental connectedness is indicative of personal identity because it is creative of it It creates personal identity in that it brings the person somewhat under the influence of the past: The present is tied to the past, a new past is thus constructed under whose influence the future may then be brought, and so the diachronic expansion of the person, his life, gets its unity. (The Thread of Life)

Individuality what makes me the distinct person I am?

What do we mean by personality? Is it that quality or assemblage of qualities which makes a person what he is, as distinct from others? personality discourse to describe,predict,judge and explain behaviour/action/thoughts etc. Can we define what a personality trait is and if so, how? Goldie: traits are dispositions (vs. occurent states) to have certain kinds of thoughts and feelings and act in characteristic ways

Dispositions
Understood as if-then statements. To ways of acting (e.g. being polite, charming) habits (tendencies to repeat a certain kind of action/movement) temperaments (more embedded and enduring than moods, e.g. being gloomy, phlegmatic) emotions (e.g. being envious, acting out of a certain emotion more often than not) enduring preferences and values (capacities and enduring preferences) character traits different from personality traits in that these are deeper, etymology of personality suggests surface traits + reason responsive relatively enduring disposition to act and think in certain ways

Character
Kupperman: Xs character is Xs normal pattern of thought and action (i.e. predictably in appropriate circumstances), especially in relation to matters affecting the happiness of others and of X, most especially in relation to moral choice. unifies a persons life So what is the relation between my character and the person, or self that I am? The self is created and constructed throughout a life (CS) construction may not normally be conscious What are the preconditions under which self-construction can occur? tendencies towards the collected thought of the human psyche the preconditions to the construction of the self. Something the properties of which make it possible to construct a self, a psychological field(mental or physical)

BUT does this psychological field amount to a self yet? maybe the psychological field present in the newborn is the proto self and the self begins to appear (unconsciously) in the course of childhood constructed self is the character. The difference between self and character is that in self it would include the characteristic ways to behave and think in matters that are not normally considered important (taste, preference) we can view a persons life in terms of CS and to view the normal human being as constructing a self, to the nature of which her character is an approximation within a psychological field How does this construction happen?