What is personal identity according to Derek Parfit?
ABSTRACT: In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues for a Reductionist View of personal identity. According to a Reductionist, persons are nothing over and above the existence of certain mental and/or physical states and their various relations.
What is the Conventionalist view of personal identity?
According to conventionalist views of personal identity, our persistence conditions are in some sense up to us. 1 And, according to private conventionalist views, the conditions of each person’s persistence are up to that very person.
What is meant by personal identity?
Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time.
What was Parfit’s initial conclusion to the non identity problem?
In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its …
What are the theories of personal identity?
Personal identity theory is the philosophical confrontation with the ultimate questions of our own existence, such as who are we, and is there a life after death? This sort of analysis of personal identity provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of the person over time.
Is parfit a reductionist?
non-reductionism. Parfit draws a distinction between two different kinds of views about a certain thing. According to a non-reductionist view of something, the existence of that kind of thing is a ‘further fact’, which goes beyond the existence of other facts, not about the existence of that kind of thing.
What is personal identity according to philosophers?
Personal identity deals with philosophical questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our being people (or, as lawyers and philosophers like to say, persons). This contrasts with questions about ourselves that arise by virtue of our being living things, conscious beings, material objects, or the like.
What makes personal identity?
Your personal identity is a composite of all your personality traits, beliefs, values, physical attributes, abilities, aspirations, and other identifiers that make you who you are. It is larger and more encompassing than your self-identity. Your self-identity is just your perspective of your personal identity.
What does Parfit say about psychological continuity?
Psychological continuity requires overlapping chains of direct psychological relations. It is a transitive relation. Parfit’s weaker claim: what matters in survival can come in degrees. Parfit’s stronger claim: continuity may matter somewhat; but, connectedness is perhaps a more important element in survival.
What is the point of Parfit’s Replicator thought experiment?
Using thought experiments such as these, Parfit argues that any criteria we attempt to use to determine sameness of person will be lacking, because there is no further fact. What matters, to Parfit, is simply “Relation R”, psychological connectedness, including memory, personality, and so on.
What are personal identity examples?
Personal identities Personal identity is about how you see yourself as “different” from those around you. Hobbies, education, interests, personality traits, and so on. Favorite foods, the roles you hold—“I’m the oldest in my family.” These are the things that make you unique from other people.
What is meant by the term personal identity?
The term “personal identity” means different things to different people. Psychologists use it to refer to a person’s self-image—to one’s beliefs about the sort of person one is and how one differs from others.