PHIL 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: John Locke
Document Summary
Person: a thinking, intelligent being that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places. Human: member of the species homo sapiens, the human animal, man . Human animal who is not a person: corpses, fetus. Persons but not human: god, monkeys/dogs, siri/robots, aliens. A"s consciousness is continuous with the consciousness of b. In particular, a can remember the thoughts/actions of b and can remember them as his/her own thoughts. Prince"s soul + consciousness enters the cobbler"s body = same person with the prince, not the same man. Not remembering the actions from the past = not the same person. Locke"s example: losing complete memories of some parts of life. Objections to locke"s account: (1) forgetting: sometimes we don"t remember anything we did on some prior occasion. (we are not that same person) A young boy grows up to become an officer and then a general.
