Overview
DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #1: Does personal identity persist over time? If so, what persists? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address these questions and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Self-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post.
DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #2: What does personal identity consist of? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Self-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post.
- DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #3: What does it mean for personal identity to not exist? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Sel-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Text at least once each in your Original Post.
Reply to Post #1
“We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England, where all the abstruser sciences are studied with a peculiar ardour and application. And here it is evident, the same method of reasoning must be continued which has so successfully explained the identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies. It cannot, therefore, have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects.” (Hume) In this text Hume is saying that humans are much closer to animals than most realize. This makes me think that Hume would consider the whole idea of a personal identity nonsense, that humans are nothing more than our desires and instincts. I feel the same way in a sense, if it is true that our minds are a separate, nonphysical, part of ourselves, than it would make sense to say that humans have advanced in terms of the way we think so fast that our bodies have not had time to catch up. In the end, I too believe we are closer to animals than we realize; personal identity, to me, has been one of the greatest advancements for us, as individuals who come together rather than staying in a pack for survival.
“personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.”(Locke) In this text, I see that Locke is making the point of our personal identity being; however far back we can think to an action or thought. To me, this supports the idea of the mind being separate from the body. The fact that humans can look back at past mistakes, or successes, and build upon them for throughout our lifetime, shows me that, while still akin to animals, we have advanced so much intellectually that we think of ourselves as more than animals. I believe we are smart animals, where a lion thinks of only what it needs in the immediate moment; we humans think of what we need months or even years from now. Personal identity can be thanked for this.
References
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). Text is in the Public Domain.
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1690) Text is in the Public Domain.