Test#2 Flashcards
What did David Hume believe?
-The self can never be known because our self is made up solely of our constantly changing impressions
- We are never aware of our personal identity but only of our perceptions
-We can only know the self through experience
-Everything is constantly changing so how can the self remain the same?
Questions that Humes theory raises?
When we are asleep do we still have an identity?
What connects our perceptions to create the self?
What is the difference between the body and the self?
Plato theory of the forms
According to Plato behind our unreliable world there is a world of reliability. This is the world of forms and ideas. It is impossible to create something in its ideal form. Everything in this world is an imperfect copy of its ideal form.
If we can conceive the idea or form of a perfect version of something in our mind, then it must exist.
Cave example
Only philosophers can discern the forms
What did Watson believe?
He claimed that he could shape a persons character, temperament and sense of self
This could be done by controlling the types of experiences a person had
He believed that you could turn any child into a doctor, lawyer or thief
The self is not a function of the mind or body but comes from behavioural conditioning. Education,environment,family
John Locke and continued consciousness
Was convinced that continued consciousness was the main building block of identity
Continued consciousness includes:
Remembering your past
Extending your present consciousness to past events and know that they are your own, feel concern for those events and take responsibility for them
If you can do those things you are the same person as you were yesterday
If a break in continued consciousness is severe enough then you are no longer the same person
Thomas Reid
Disagreed with Locke and interpreted it as only being focused on memory
Said that memory cannot be the main building block of personal identity
Used the Gallant Officer objection
Said that you need some thread of memory to be the same person from the age 5-85
Memory
Your hippocampus is responsible for memory. It receives information about everything in your life. It responds to the environment and records it.
Memory helps to form a sense of self. We aren’t born with a sense of self. A sense of self is necessary for memory. Auto biographical memory is different than knowing facts
Lack of past =lack of future
Memory is used to imagine the future
Vital to think abstractly and plan
It improves over time and fully develops at 25
Gallant Officer objection
Reid said that there are memories that connect all three Joseph’s so they are the same person. Some level of forgetting must be acceptable. Locke would say that they are not the same person.
