Personal Identity
Personal identity concerns what makes someone the same person over time and what a person fundamentally is.
Definition
Personal identity is the relation a person bears to themselves over time; the central persistence question asks what is necessary and sufficient for a person existing at one time to be identical to a person existing at another.
Scope
This area covers the persistence question of personal identity over time, the main criteria of psychological and physical continuity, the metaphysics of the self including bundle and animalist views, and the thought experiments that drive the debate. It connects to questions of survival, moral responsibility, and self-concern.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What makes a person at one time the same as a person at a later time?
- Is identity grounded in psychological continuity, bodily continuity, or being the same animal?
- Is there a persisting self, or only a bundle of experiences?
- Does what matters in survival come apart from identity?
Key concepts
- persistence question
- psychological continuity
- memory criterion
- animalism
- what matters in survival
- bundle theory
Key theories
- Psychological continuity theory
- Personal identity consists in continuity of memory and other psychological connections, a view stemming from Locke's memory criterion.
- Animalism
- We are fundamentally human animals, and our persistence conditions are those of an organism rather than of any psychological relation.
History
Locke's (1694) memory criterion made consciousness rather than substance the basis of identity. Twentieth-century work refined and challenged this: Williams (1970) pressed bodily intuitions, Parfit (1984) argued that identity is not what matters and defended a reductionist view, and Olson (1997) revived a biological account.
Debates
- Psychological versus physical criteria
- Whether identity is fixed by psychological continuity or by continuity of the body or organism.
- Identity and what matters
- Whether personal identity itself is what matters in survival or whether psychological continuity can matter even absent identity.
Key figures
- John Locke
- Derek Parfit
- Bernard Williams
- Eric Olson
Related topics
Seminal works
- locke1694
- williams1970
- parfit1984
- olson1997
Frequently asked questions
- What is the persistence question?
- It is the question of what is necessary and sufficient for a person existing now to be one and the same as a person who existed earlier or will exist later.