PHI 101 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: A Priori And A Posteriori, Personal Identity, Temporal Parts
Document Summary
A dialogue on personal identity and immortality by john perry. Sam miller: a chaplain and long time friend. We can know who we are without examining which body we have. Version (1): souls see and smell but cannot themselves be seen or smelt. Version (2): we know who"s who because we know same body, same soul. Version (3): souls have psychological states and properties which are observable. Version (1): it would be impossible to know who"s who. Version (2): we can"t know that a priori otherwise it"s impossible for one to survive the death of one"s body. Moreover, we can"t know it empirically either because it"s a generalization based on instances and it"s impossible to know whether any instance is true. Version (3): we can only observe qualitative identity over time but that"s insufficient by itself to establish numerical identity.
