Phil 2540

Question 1

What are the 5 Features of the Philosophical technique

Answer 1

1. (Language of the) Problem: philosophers write to address a problem. How is the problem (i) identified, and (ii) developed (i.e., what level of analysis is used for investigation)?
2. What philosophers do with a problem: (a) Give (in)direct answers, (b) Dissolve Problem, (c) Argue for the existence of the problem - solving the problem would be something else entirely
3. Argumentation: Set of reasons offered to support a view or belief by (a) agree with conclusion but not premise, (b) Disagree with conclusion but find the argument powerful or useful for something else, (c) extend an argument to other contexts never considered by the original author
4. Assumptions: Reasons offered in support of conclusions because audience would accept them
5. Evaluation: Examine various possibilities and come to conclusion about what we ought to believe

Question 2

Define the qualitative distinction of Identity

Answer 2

X and Y are qualitatively Identical IFF (if and only if) they have exactly the same qualities

Question 3

Define the quantitative distinction of identity

Answer 3

X and Y are quantitatively identical IFF whatever is true of X is true of Y and vice versa

Question 4

Define the formula for the Metaphysical Criterion

Answer 4

X is a metaphysical criterion of Y in case X provides an explication of what Y consists in, and explication of Y’s nature (The essence of a thing)

Question 5

Define the formula for the Epistemological criterion

Answer 5

X is an epistemological criterion of Y just in case X provides some way of identifying Y (how we come to know a thing)

Question 6

What is a Kind?

Answer 6

The property/properties shared by members that make them similar or the same (lamps, chairs, books)

Question 7

Define the formula for Necessity

Answer 7

X is a necessary condition of Y just in Case there could be no Y without X

Question 8

Define the formula for sufficiency

Answer 8

X is a condition of Y just in case X in and of itself guarantees Y

Question 9

Define the formula for necessity and sufficiency

Answer 9

X is a necessary and sufficient condition of Y just in case if there’s X there’s Y, and if there is Y there’s X or Y IFF X

Question 10

Define Descartes Dualism

Answer 10

Identity must be found in whatever remains identical to itself over time.
Material Body cannot be what identifies us because it is ever-changing (sufficient condition of Personal Identity)
The immaterial soul does not change throughout time, therefore the soul is the source of our identity. (necessary and sufficient condition of Personal Identity).

Question 11

What are some of Locke’s assumptions of Personal Identity?

Answer 11

Personal Identity is a matter of psychological continuity

Personal Identity is a matter of consciousness and memories (memory is CENTRAL to identity)

“If I remember doing something, then I am the same person that did that thing.”

Question 12

What does Locke claim about the soul?

Answer 12

Locke is agnostic about the soul (does not really care) as he claims that the soul is irrelevant to personal identity

Question 13

Outline the case of the Prince and the cobbler and how it relates to Locke’s main point of view

Answer 13

In the case of the prince and the cobbler, after switching bodies, the prince in the body of a cobbler would remain a cobbler in the human sense, but the body of the cobbler would really be the prince with regard to the sense of self

Question 14

What is Locke’s definition of Man and Person?

Answer 14

Our conception of a man is tied to bodily action—recall kind/membership in a kind distinction

Being a certain person means being a unique psychological being.

Question 15

What were the first potential issues mentioned in Class about Locke’s account of Personal Identity?

Answer 15

We don’t seem to have the flow of consciousness that Locke requires

We have moments of forgetfulness, unconsciousness, blurred memories

(Amnesia, DID)

Question 16

Define the soul criterion

Answer 16

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 IFF X’s soul is the same as Y’s soul

Question 17

What are they explanatory advantages of Descartes Dualism?

Answer 17

1. cartes can explain why mental states (DBI’s) are privileged—they are not attributes of a physical, material substance, so they have no physical properties. Only you have access to your own mind
2. Descartes can explain things like ‘phantom pains’—an experience often reported by recent amputees. The ‘pain’ is a property of the mind while the injury which originally gave rise to it is a separate event occurring in the body. Two separate events yielded by two separate substances.
3. Descartes can also explain why we can’t be corrected about our mental state claims—they are incorrigible—we just cannot be wrong about what we are consciously thinking and no one else has access to our mind so no one else can tell us that we aren’t confused if we feel that way!

Question 18

What is the Gretchen Weirob Thought Experiment?

Answer 18

Gretchen Weirob, a philosophy professor is dying but even though she is an atheist she wonders about the thought of immortality. The challenge is to provide a criteria of personal identity that enables rational anticipation of the survival of the death of her body. (it must be possible)

Question 19

What are some issues with the soul criterion?

Answer 19

3rd person Confirmation (re-identification) is obscured. This means that there is no direct or reliable way to re-identift other souls. Solipsism - the self is all we can know to exist

Allows for a number of candidate hypotheses that don’t fit our intuitions. For instance; the soul can be multiply realizable, the same body can have multiple similar souls in it over time, the same soul can be detached from reliable indications of persons over time (their psychologies and bodies)

Question 20

Define the memory criterion version 1

Answer 20

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 iff Y remembers the same thoughts and experiences of X.

Question 21

What is the Transitivity argument?

Answer 21

Brave Officer recalls the memories of the Apple Stealer, thus Brave officer = Apple Stealer; Retired General recalls the memories of the Brave Officer, thus Retired General= Brave Officer. ERGO Retired General = Apple Stealer (by transitivity).

Question 22

After the transitivity argument (brave officer), what is the revised version of the memory criterion? (MC1A)

Answer 22

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 iff Y directly remembers the thoughts and experiences of X
OR Y directly remembers the thoughts and experiences of some Z, who directly remembers the thoughts and experiences of some Q (who remembers R, who remembers S, who remembers T, as needed)…who directly remembers the thoughts and experiences of X

Question 23

What criticisms come along with the memory criterion 1A?

Answer 23

First bullet:
Deluded: the memory of being someone I am not (Socrates)
Incorrect: recalling an event that did not happen, or happened in a way that does not accurately align with your memory of it (given a host of objective data)

Second bullet:
We must be able to account for well-formed memories. One way to do this is to distinguish genuine from deceptive ones. We may be inclined to say that Y’s memories are genuine IFF Y actually had the experiences she now remembers. However, this begets the problem of circularity:

Problem of circularity:
Memories by their nature when genuine, reveal your past to you. Thus, memories cannot constitute the identity relation, because in order for my memories of the past to be genuine, I already have to be identical to that past experiencer.

Question 24

After taking into account of the criticisms of the memory criterion 1A, what is the revised Memory criterion 2?

Answer 24

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 iff (a) Y seems to remember the thoughts and experiences of X
(either directly or via an overlapping chain of memories[MC1A]),
and (b) Y’s seeming to remember is caused in the right way through a reliable cause

Question 25

What is the NO COMPETITORS version of the Memory Criterion?

Answer 25

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 iff (a) Y seems to remember the thoughts and experiences of X (either directly or via an overlapping chain of memories[MC1A]), and (b) Y’s seeming to remember is caused in the right way through a reliable cause [MC2] and (c) no other beings satisfy conditions (a) and (b) [MC3].

Question 26

Define the Brain Based Memory Criterion

Answer 26

X at t1 is the same person as Y at t2 iff Y seems to remember X’s thoughts and experiences (either directly or via an overlapping chain of memories), and Y’s memories are caused in the right way, namely, via the brain

Question 27

Define symmetry as it relates to personal Identity

Answer 27

If X is symmetrical to Y , then Y is symmetrical to X

Question 28

Define Transitivity as it relates to Personal Identity

Answer 28

If x has the relation to y and y has relation to z, then x has the relation to z

Question 29

Define Reflexivity as it relates to personal Identity

Answer 29

If x is reflexive to anything, x is reflexive to itself (Brave officer example)

Question 30

What is the main assumption about Personal Identity criterion

Answer 30

No principle can be a criterion of identity if it permits a one-many relation. Identity is a 1-1 Relation

Question 31

In relation to identity relation, What was the main issue with the soul criterion?

Answer 31

The soul criterion lacks symmetry because we are not entirely sure how souls work, therefore there is a one-many relation between the person and the soul.

Question 32

In relation to the main assumption of identity relation, what was the main issue for the physiological criterion?

Answer 32

The body criterion could not handle the Hansel twins which essentially have two identities but in one body.

Question 33

What is the psychological criterion?

Answer 33

X at T1 is the same person as Y at T2 IFF Y is uniquely psychologically continuous with X

Question 34

What does the relation to self work to self consist of in the psychological criterion?

Answer 34

Present-Past (Y remembers actions/experiences of X) Present-Future (X intends to perform an action that Y will execute) Persistence (X has an belief, desire,intention that is born through time) Resemblance (X and Y have very similar characteristics)

Question 35

What are the virtues of the psychological criterion?

Answer 35

Accounts for rational anticipation and self-concern Does well in science fiction case thought experiment (most) Explains ordinary cases of self-identification (how I typically identify myself is through my psychology, not simply episodic memories)

Question 36

What are the pitfalls of the psychological criterion?

Answer 36

1. Method of Cases: The intuition pumps discussed to defend psychological criterion are practically impossible (william's brain swap case) 2. Essence Problem: The 'what am I' issue, Membership in a kind, thoughts on fetus, PVS, Person/animal problems

Question 37

what is the Biological Criterion of Personal Identity?

Answer 37

The human organism is your essence. If X is a person at T1, and Y exists at any other time, the X=Y IFF Y's Biological organism is continuous with X's Biological organism

Question 38

What are some of the Virtues of the biological criterion?

Answer 38

1. Plausible account of essence (biological organism) - basic Kind: body is the essence of who I am because any psychological influences could have been changed in the timeline but my body would remain the same 2. Connection between metaphysical and epistemological criterion (3rd person re-identification) 3. Identity conditions of non-person humans (PVS, Fetuses) and non-human Animals

Question 39

What are some objections to the Biological Criterion?

Answer 39

Conjoined twins - if you are one body then you should only be one person Rational anticipation - if your body is your essence and that is your basic kind then you cannot rationally anticipate anything past your body's expiry date

Question 40

Explain Williams' Reduplication Case

Answer 40

A - No one has A's body B - B-body person [B's body, A's memory] C - C-body person [C's body, A's memories

Question 41

What dilemma Came along with the Reduplication case

Answer 41

Both B and C-body-persons have the relation that was supposed to be sufficient for personal identity. But then both should be A. However, because Identity is a 1-1 relation, this case undermines that

Question 42

Explain Williams' Reduplication Case with the single brain transplant

Answer 42

A -- No one has A's body [B will get A's Brain] B -- B-body person [B body, A's brain] C -- C-body-person [C's body, A's memories, but has C's brain] The body-based theoriest anc show the psychological theorists that their position is more desirable because the important relation, the one that admits there to be one person, two bodies, and two converging sets of psychology, has not been duplicated

Question 43

What is the basis of Perry's account of personal identity?

Answer 43

Does it follow from the fact that identity is logically one-one that any criterion for identity must be logically one-one Even if we require some conceptual or logical connection between the criterion and what it is a criterion for, the inference in question (above) may not hold

Question 44

What is the multiple occupancy argument?

Answer 44

T1 and T3 are end points of a series of person-stages of smith. Each slice has an experience of which the next could have a psychological relation Smith at Tn Branches into Jones and Brown Creates Jones-Smith and Brown-Smith, who become completely independent people rendering smith useless. Our two new fellows after surgery are persons in a more real sense than the memory of Smith.

Question 45

What does Negel Argue about Personal Identity?

Answer 45

He argues that there are potentially two people inside of us because we consist of 'two brains' which can act independently

Question 46

What is Hume's Definition of Identity?

Answer 46

a distinct idea of an object that remains uninterrupted through time

Question 47

What is Hume's Definition of Diversity?

Answer 47

a distinct idea of several objects existing in succession that appear connected by a close relation (via the mind) Perceiving an object through time

Question 48

What is Hume's Definition of Unity?

Answer 48

conveys the idea that an object is an assemblage of distinct, changing and variable parts (across space-time)

Question 49

What is Hume's Definition of Perception?

Answer 49

Any content of the mind of which are conscious (can be impression, ideas)

Question 50

What is Hume's Definition of Impressions?

Answer 50

Perceptions or sensations that flow directly from external causes. Colours, tatses, as well as bodily pains and pleasures

Question 51

What is Hume's Definition of Ideas?

Answer 51

Copies of impressions. A perception of the mind which involves thinking of something rather than (first hand) experience Distinguished from impressions by their weaker force and vivacity

Question 52

What is Hume's Copy Principle?

Answer 52

All knowledge must derive from observation/experience All contents of the mind are called perceptions, these are divided into impressions and ideas All our ideas are products of impressions - All thoughts can be traced back to constituent impressions (derived from our experience

Question 53

What is Hume's Definition of Resemblance?

Answer 53

Notion of 'copy' or 'image' of some perception

Question 54

What is Hume's Definition of Causation

Answer 54

a process where one thing has a statistically significant repeated impact on something else. Ground in our habits of thinking, rather than in perception of causal forces in the external world itself Cause and effect is not a force but something that the mind does - something may occur where this cause/effect may not come to be true

Question 55

What is Hume's Main conclusion?

Answer 55

We cannot claim to know that we have a self "identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a ficticious one

Question 56

What does Hume say about our natural inclination to believe about the self?

Answer 56

Experiential basis: Immediate inner experience - We are at every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self We naturally confuse the principle of association with identity - Ex: we ascribe identity to the mature oak tree and the sapling. It has contiguity, the trees cause is in the sapling and there is successive stages of contiguity, therefore we naturally mistake this for identity Imagination Produces the Fiction of identity by conflating principles of association for the principle of identity Memory: Returns past perceptions back into current chain of thought and therefore allows the imagination more easily to assume that fleeting thoughts belong to one subject identical unto itself

Question 57

What is Hume's Bundle Theory and what are his assumptions that come along with it?

Answer 57

We are a collection of loosely-related individual instances of selves - We are composed of our series of experiences Hume rejects an underlying essence of identity: there is only a series of loosely-related conjunctions of experiences

Question 58

What is the Epistemic view of the Bundle Theory?

Answer 58

nsofar as the self is accessible through inner experience, it consists of nothing but the perceptions, and therefore that any knowledge claims about the nature of the mind and its identity that go beyond the 'bundle of perceptions' view cannot be justified.

Question 59

What is the Metaphysical view of the Bundle Theory?

Answer 59

there an be no self (essence) that exists beyond the bundle. "When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist"

Question 60

What is Thiel's take on the Bundle Theory?

Answer 60

Therefore Thiel believes that Hume's theory is not a theory of the true essence of self, but rather of the idea of self According to Thiel, Hume does not deny the existence of a self beoyond the perceptions; rather, he claims that the self insofar as it is accessible through inner experience consists of nothing but succeeding perceptions and thus lacks numerical identity, or does not persist over time, but only in that respect.

Question 61

What are some objections against Thiel and Hume's Sceptical Realism about the self?

Answer 61

Hume's claims do not seem to be merely epistemological but ontological - Hume has established that the self cannot be a substance in any traditional sense (material or immaterial) right before the well-known passages on identity and the self.

Question 62

What is the Narrative Identity Criterion?

Answer 62

What makes an action, experience, or psychological characteristic properly attribute to some person (and thus a proper part of their identity) is its correct incorporation into the self-told story of his/her life

Question 63

Experiences are not experiences OF a person until and unless?

Answer 63

They have been incorporated into that person's life via some narrative structure - it has been appropriated by the person

Question 64

How does Narrative Identity Presuppose Numerical Identity?

Answer 64

Narrative Identity is about what unifies the various actions and experience of ONE and the same subject of experience into the life of a genuine person. Though numerical identity is good for rational anticipation, it is not sufficient - it is not enough that some individual will be me for it to make sense for me to anticipate his experiences, for the simple reason that he may be in a vegetative state.

Question 65

What are some issues with the Narrative Identity Criterion?

Answer 65

The endpoints problem: The construal of narrative identity actually allows various non-experimental or non-psychological events, even pre- and post-personhood, could be included in one's narrative. Practical concerns problem: We know that narrative identity can account for anticipation and self-concern, but what about other practical concerns? (there are other concerns for which narrative identity does not give a good account at all)

Question 66

What is Ricoeur's take on Narrative Identity?

Answer 66

That All of these 'life stories', are rendered more intelligible when they are applied to narrative models - plots - borrowed from history and fiction (drama or novels)

Question 67

What confirms Ricoeurs Intuition about Narrative Identity?

Answer 67

The epistemological status of autobiography, giving way to the plausible affirmations of: Knowledge of the self is an interpretation The interpretation of the self finds narrative among other signs and symbols The mediation borrows from history as much as fiction making the life story a fictive story or historical fiction

Question 68

What two concepts of identity does Ricoeur's framework rest upon?

Answer 68

Identity as sameness (idem) and Identity as self (ipse)

Question 69

What is Identity as sameness (idem)?

Answer 69

The idea of extreme resemblance where we see that X and Y wear the same dress, that is, dresses of such similarity that they can be substituted for the other. - Permanence over time

Question 70

What is Ricoeur's two part Thesis?

Answer 70

Most of the difficulties which afflict the contemporary discussion of personal identity result from the confusion between two interpretations of permanence over time The notion of narrative identity offers a solution to the aporias concerning personal identity

Question 71

What is Parfit's take on identity?

Answer 71

IDM: Identity is not what matters, rather it is the psychological continuity that matters (psychological criterion)

Question 72

Because Parfit is a Reductionist, what is the most plausible candidate to explain identity?

Answer 72

The psychological criterion because psychological continuity is a one-many relation (holds between me-now and more than one person at some future point)

Question 73

Why is the fission case the best option for parfait out of the three options?

Answer 73

Because I die in fission but it is not an ordinary death as it will be as if I survived. Both survivors will remember my thoughts and experiences, fulfill my intentions - they will have the same beliefs/desires/goals as me

Question 74

What notions are Parfit Committed to?

Answer 74

That our persistence consists in psychological continuity That person identity is indeterminate in some cases - sometimes there is no right/wrong answer to the question of whether somebody has ceased to exist in the course of a certain event That personal Identity relating must respect the remaining formal properties

Question 75

What is the formula for P-survival?

Answer 75

A thing, X, P-survives some change IFF there is at least one person alive after who is psychologically connected and continuous with X

Question 76

What are the separate elements of telling a historical event?

Answer 76

1: Story-teller creates a story from a chronicle of events 2: Narrativization technique which employs a plot

Question 77

What are the plot conventions or cultural myth?

Answer 77

Epic - Homer (legendary figure, Iliad and Odyssey, One of the oldest written texts in the world, mocked the gods for their human-like foibles Comedy - Aristophanes (455 B.C.E), Father of Comedy, Old and Middle Greek Comedy Tragedy - Sophocles (496 B.C.E), Oedipus Rex

Question 78

What is Mimesis 1?

Answer 78

Prefiguration: Life-world already has structure that is 'narrative-ready': structural (desires, goals, intentions, agency), symbolic (rules and norms dictated by cultural), temporal (events and people exist in time). These meanings are externalized in our life-world already, and therefore always open to interpretation (essentially the life world before we start narrativising)

Question 79

What is Mimesis 2?

Answer 79

Configuration: Narrative process: the 'pivot' point at which events are configured into a story (imposing order upon the content of the world to make a narrative) - Can be subjective and manipulated

Question 80

What is Mimesis 3?

Answer 80

Refiguration: Refers to the act of reading that changes our practical understanding of the situation according to the story - Prescription to the future action - (if you tell the tragic tale, you will live the tragic life) - Cognitive behavioural therapy - changing your life's story so that you are better equipped to deal with the stressors in your life

Question 81

What is Ricoeur's Process of interpretation?

Answer 81

(a) Knowledge of the self is interpretation (the study of interpretation is called hermeneutics) (b) The interpretation of the self, finds true narrative and ties together other signs and symbols (c) Emplotment borrows from a series of conventions - the life story is a fictive story (or a historical fiction) (d) Story-telling is not just a model of one's life, it is a motivation to act

Question 82

What is the definition of mythoi?

Answer 82

Plots (particular conventions that already exist and we actively choose from)

Question 83

What is the definition of Mimesis?

Answer 83

Imitation of Actions

Question 84

Idem is involved in what kind of questions regarding personal Identity?

Answer 84

"is person X at T1 the same as person Y at T2?" Re-identification strategies of the same person through time - Substance theories: Anti-material (soul criterion) and material (bodily criterion) - Relational Theories: Diachronically-order person stages (locke, hume, parfait) - Character: the set of distinctive marks which permit the re-identification of a human being as the same

Question 85

What is ipse?

Answer 85

The other have of the equation (personhood as self) - Keeping a promise voluntarily. Idem is impersonally in third person whereas Ipse is approached in the first person.