Psychological and Physical Continuity
The leading criteria of personal identity ground persistence either in continuity of mind or in continuity of body.
Definition
Psychological continuity theories hold that a person persists in virtue of overlapping chains of memory, intention, and personality, while physical continuity theories hold that persistence consists in the continuity of the body or organism.
Scope
This topic covers the psychological continuity theory and its memory-based ancestor, the physical or bodily criterion and animalist alternative, the role of causal continuity and non-branching conditions, and the circularity and duplication objections that each criterion faces.
Core questions
- Is continuity of memory and personality sufficient for identity over time?
- Must psychological continuity be appropriately caused to count?
- Does the persistence of the body or organism settle who survives?
- How should each criterion handle cases of fission or duplication?
Key concepts
- psychological continuity
- psychological connectedness
- memory criterion
- bodily criterion
- non-branching clause
- animalism
Key theories
- Psychological continuity criterion
- A later person is identical to an earlier one if they are linked by overlapping chains of psychological connections, suitably caused and non-branching.
- Physical and biological continuity criteria
- Identity consists in the continuity of the body or, on animalism, of the living organism, independently of psychological relations.
History
Locke's memory criterion was refined into modern psychological continuity theories by Shoemaker and others, who added causal and non-branching conditions to handle objections. Parfit (1984) recast the view in terms of degrees of connectedness, while Olson (1997) urged a biological criterion that abandons psychology altogether.
Debates
- Circularity of the memory criterion
- Whether grounding identity in memory presupposes identity, since genuine memory seems to require being the person who had the experience.
- Psychology versus biology
- Whether the persistence of a person is settled by psychological relations or by the continuity of the human animal.
Key figures
- John Locke
- Sydney Shoemaker
- Derek Parfit
- Eric Olson
Related topics
Seminal works
- locke1694
- shoemaker1984
- parfit1984
- olson1997
Frequently asked questions
- What is the memory criterion?
- It is Locke's idea that a person is the same over time insofar as they can remember, or are connected by chains of memory to, their earlier experiences.