PHILOS 7 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Warren Beatty
Lecture 3/5 -- Personal Identity (What makes me the person that I am?)
-What makes Junior the same tree as Senior, as opposed to some other tree?
-What makes me the same person as some young boy from long ago?
-What makes object A at time t numerically identical to object B at time t+x?
-same object, different time. Not a second object. But what makes it the same object?
-When is a person at one time the same person as a person at another time?
-ex: Michael Rescorla in 1979 and 2018
Identity Conditions
● An object’s identity conditions are what makes it the same object across different
moments of time
● For instance, a tree’s identity conditions involve considerations of spatio-temporal and
causal continuity
○ Physical objects are constant, they don’t disappear; continuous path through
space and time; there isn’t random changes unless something caused them
○ What are the spatio-temporal and causal continuity? (difficult question)
● For the rest of the course, we will explore identity conditions of people. In other words,
we will explore what makes it the case that person A at time t is numerically identical to
object B at time t+x
The Problem of Personal Identity
● Under what conditions are person A and person B numerically identical?
● What makes it the case that person A at time t is numerically identical to person B at
time t+x?
○ Gretchen: what makes it that a person, thousands of years later, is me? It is not
my body, as it was destroyed when I died. Why should we say it’s the same
person (one and the same person) instead of a clone
Proposal 1 (The Soul)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture 3/5 -- personal identity (what makes me the person that i am?) An object"s identity conditions are what makes it the same object across different moments of time. For instance, a tree"s identity conditions involve considerations of spatio-temporal and causal continuity. Physical objects are constant, they don"t disappear; continuous path through space and time; there isn"t random changes unless something caused them. What are the spatio-temporal and causal continuity? (difficult question) For the rest of the course, we will explore identity conditions of people. In other words, we will explore what makes it the case that person a at time t is numerically identical to object b at time t+x. It is not my body, as it was destroyed when i died. Why should we say it"s the same person (one and the same person) instead of a clone. Person a and person b are numerically identical if and only if a has the same soul as b.
