Personal Identity

by John R. Perry (Editor)

This volume brings together the vital contributions of distinguished past and contemporary philosophers to the important topic of personal identity. The essays range from John Locke's classic seventeenth-century attempt to analyze personal identity in terms of memory, to twentieth-century defenses and criticisms of the Lockean view by Anthony Quinton, H.P. Grice, Sydney Shoemaker, David Hume, Joseph Butler, Thomas Reid, and Bernard Williams.
New to the second edition are Shoemaker's seminal essay "Persons and Their Pasts," selections from the important and previously unpublished Clark-Collins correspondence, and a new paper by Perry discussing Williams.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Metaphysics

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John R. Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, and self-knowledge.

Reviews

[laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

despite my enthusiasm for the topic, i found this book almost unbearably dry and difficult. this is, in part, just a matter of its being metaphysics, which is always difficult and often dry. but i can't help but feel that it must be possible, given how compelling the topic is, to accurately survey the literature and still turn out a more compelling book. even if it just is the case that the seminal papers on personal identity are abstruse, the introduction might have made up for it by motivating the problems in an more engaging way, or in more accessible language. as it is, the most credible collection on this vital and fascinating topic feels neither vital nor fascinating.

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very nearly broke my brain. Bisected the hemispheres, transplanted it into a stranger’s body, divided that person in two, then fused the progeny back together again, repeating the process ten times over, leaving v little semblance, if any, of what I used to call “myself” intact.

Basically the analytic philosophy behind freaky friday (& poor things… and solaris… and every black mirror episode ever probably).

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a really good into to Personal Identity. It includes helpful selections from modern philosophers like John Locke and Thomas Reid, as well as contemporary writers, like Sydney Shoemaker and John Perry.

[Audryssa Yuanwie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read Parfit’s essay “Personal Identity”. Parfit’s point is that in a fission scenario, each resulting person stands in the relation to me that normally counts as survival. Each has my memories, intentions, and psychological continuity. In that sense, it is as if “I” survive twice. But identity is a one-one relation, so I cannot literally be identical to both of them. This shows that identity cannot be what matters in survival, because we can preserve everything that matters. What matters in survival is not identity, but Relation R - memory, psychological continuity, my mental life - even when strict identity is lost.

Identity is a one-one relation because identity is transitive: if I am identical to B, and B is identical to C, then all three of us are the same person. We collapse into one entity, not three. What is impossible is the fission structure where A is psychologically continuous with two different people, B and C, who are not identical to each other. Identity cannot branch without violating transitivity. So Parfit concludes that identity cannot be the relation that matters, because psychological continuity can branch even though identity cannot.

A future person is connected to you when they have q-memories of your past experiences, q-intentions that extend your plans, and other mental states that are causally linked in the right way to your current states. Eg me-the-child is not psychologically connected to me-the-adult, but they are psychologically continuous through a long chain of overlapping mental states. Parfit uses this distinction to show that connectedness alone cannot be what matters, because connectedness weakens over time while survival clearly continues.

I agree w Parfit’s view lol (much more so than the bodily argument - though there are certainly some cases where the bodily view is compelling - race, gender, etc.)

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very nearly broke my brain. Bisected the hemispheres, transplanted it into a stranger’s body, divided that person in two, then fused the progeny back together again, repeating the process ten times over, leaving v little semblance, if any, of what I used to call “myself” intact.

Basically the analytic philosophy behind freaky friday (& poor things… and solaris… and every black mirror episode ever probably).

[Enya · Rating 1 out of 5]

it's a yikes from me

only a man could make an anthology about the topic of personal identity that doesn't have a single essay by a woman in it and never even mentions the relationship between personal identity and other people (-> social identity)

[Jorge Rodighiero · Rating 2 out of 5]

disappointing to say the least.

[Ali Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

for phil class: action

[Jake Walter · Rating 2 out of 5]

.5. i despise the analysts turning of philosophy to algebra. or perhaps it's just metaphysics disagreeing with me

[Miranda Pape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting theories on personal identity.

[Maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

not my thing.