PHL 550 Final: Reid's Conception of the Self

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHL 550
• Professor: David Checkland

Document Summary

Reid"s writings suggest an alternative view about the nature of persons, or - as he calls us- selves. The self is, on his view, indivisible, and as such it can never undergo change. Reid accepts that there is some sense in which, very loosely speaking, we can and do undergo significant physical and psychological changes. But those changes must occur without any changes to our selves. If the same person really does exist both before and the change, then it follows that the changes were, strictly speaking, not changes to the person at all. If i shed a hair or lose a limb, but i still exist , then the hair or limb i lost were not any essential part of me. Similarly, if my thoughts and feelings change while i continue to exist, then that only goes to show that those thoughts and feelings were no part of what constitutes me.