Philosophy Now Forum

What constitutes our personal identity over time has long been the subject of debate, but how much influence can we have over our own identity and self-perception?

The ‘memory criterion’ of identity is usually attributed to English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). This interpretation of Locke is the subject of debate, but nevertheless it is the most popular interpretation, and the one that will be adopted here. Locke distinguishes a ‘person’ from a ‘man’. The ‘man’ means the organism, an animal like any other, whose identity over time consists in its continuity of biological life. This means that although parts can be gained and lost (we grow and shed skin cells, for example) there must be continuity within this change for us to be talking about the same man.

Shaping The Self
Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.

Concerning the identity of the person themselves – the thinking being – perhaps surprisingly for his time and culture, Locke claims that personal identity is not tied up with the soul. This is because he thinks that the same soul could in fact play host to different consciousnesses. It is your consciousness which makes you the same person over time; specifically it is the continuity of your memories.

The soul. On the other hand, what is the point of connecting the dots between “I” and a “soul” if there does not appear to be a way [philosophically or otherwise] in which to pin down what a soul/the soul/my soul is?

It’s just another configuration of God, for all practical purposes. As for the conscious self going back to the cradle and forward to the grave, my own arguments still seem entirely reasonable to me. Some things we become conscious of are there for all rational people to become conscious of in turn. While other conscious assessments never seem able to get much further than personal opinions. And Locke’s personal identity here would seem no less problematic than yours or mine.

The continuation of personal identity through memory is crucial for justice. For instance, in order to properly see the consequences of our actions and maintain our full responsibility for them, we must be able to contemplate our future selves as connected to the person about to carry out an action now, and we also must remember an action for it to qualify as really being ‘me’ who did it.

Yes, technically. But if different “souls” can’t agree on what either does or does not constitute, say, social and political justice, how do they manage to configure their individual memories into one frame of mind in which those disagreement dissipate and then fortuitously are subsumed in the best of all possible worlds?

Again the part that most “serious philosophers” authoring articles like this, almost never seem interested in exploring.

Shaping The Self
Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.

The implication of Locke’s memory criterion for identity seems to be that my identity changes over time as my memories fade, or perhaps reappear after a period of absence.

Obviously: how we think about ourselves changes over time as new experiences and new relationships create new memories. For example, we might do things today that might have been thought inconceivable or thought to be atrocious ten years ago. The biological self changes in accordance with the human body that all of us come into the world with. But the moral and political self is considerably more problematic. Memories as chemical and neurological interactions in my brain are the same as in your brain. But the memories themselves are wholly dependent on lives that might be very, very different. You remember what you do and as a result of that you choose one behavior…while my own memories prompt me to choose a conflicting behavior.

Then what? What can we come to agree about regarding this memory induced dissension? Whose memories are the most rational?

Though that’s not the direction the author goes:

One famous objection to Locke’s view along these lines was from Thomas Reid (1710-1796). I’ll give an adapted version. Suppose that as a ten year old I am given a bike for Christmas. When I am thirty, I am given an iPhone for Christmas, and I can remember being given the bike. When I am eighty, I can recall being given the iPhone, but have no recollection of being given the bike. The argument is that according to Locke’s memory criterion, the eighty year old ‘me’ is the same person as the thirty year old ‘me’ but is no longer the same person as the ten year old who received that bike. The thirty year old is the same person as the ten year old as they can remember the bike. However this cannot be true according to the rules of logic. The eighty year old (A) is identical to the thirty year old (B) and the thirty year old (B) is the same as the ten year old (C), but the eighty year old (A) is not identical to the ten year old (C). But the laws of logic state that if A=B and B=C then A=C. So Locke must be wrong.

Wrong about what?

Sure, as we get older, memories fade. Some get obliterated altogether. But the facts here don’t change. You either received a bike for Christmas when you were ten or you did not. That you have forgotten this doesn’t change the fact of it. Someone might have taken photographs of you on the bike on that Christmas morning. This may or may not jog your memory.

But: The rules of logic? How does that – as a “technical” issue? – really pertain to the facts here? I’m missing an important point obviously.

Instead, what I always focus on are the memories that, over time, prompt us to embrace one set of moral and political values rather than another.

For instance suppose a ten year old is indoctrinated by her parents to embrace a liberal/left wing understanding of the world around her. She remembers that clearly. Then at thirty her experiences and her thinking have convinced her to embrace a conservative/right wing understanding. Though she still remembers her liberal childhood views. Then at eighty she is still very much a conservative but she has completely forgotten being indoctrinated by her parent to think as a liberal thinks.

Again, the facts here are what they are. Someone can have an extremely faulty memory in regard to them while another remembers everything exactly as it unfolded from childhood on.

But the memories themselves linked to the creation of a Self linked to either liberal or a conservative worldview doesn’t enable us to establish whether or not one frame of mind rather than another is the more reasonable.

Or, rather, so it seems to me. Particular memories are just another manifestation of dasein in my view.

A different problem with the memory criterion is that of false memories. It might seem that the very term is a contradiction: either we remember truly, or we don’t remember at all. But it is certainly possible to have a first person experience of remembering being present at an event when one was not present, and this could be indistinguishable from a ‘real’ memory.

If I woke up with vivid apparent memories of being Lady Gaga and performing at Wembley, wouldn’t this make me Lady Gaga the person (if not the physical woman) according to Locke’s criterion of identity?

Again, we can reply to this with a qualification. Perhaps the state of consciousness we are experiencing as a memory needs to have an appropriate causal relationship with the event being experienced for it to be called a genuine memory. So unless my ‘memory’ of singing at Wembley is caused by my actually singing at the concert, then it’s not a memory at all, and can’t be included in Locke’s theory.

Self-Knowledge

Moving on to our knowledge of ourselves, there are several possibilities. One is that we work out our beliefs, desires and sensations by observing ourselves. Another is that our beliefs, desires and sensations are automatically presented to us, so that we know we have them without our needing to deliberately observe or work anything out. So if you believe that Sacramento is the capital of California, or if you desire chocolate, or if you have a headache, you just know that you have that belief, or that desire, or that headache, without having to make any observations of yourself.

A third possibility is that if you sincerely express a belief or desire, that means you have a belief or desire. If I ask you about the shape of the Earth, and you sincerely say “I believe that the Earth is round,” then you have that belief. All of these possibilities, and more, are considered in this book, although the idea that we look at ourselves and then work out what we believe, desire or feel, gets short shrift. The range of options reflects the need to accommodate several points. We seem to have rock-solid knowledge of our own states of mind: you may not know the right answer to some factual question, or what you ought to want, but you must know what you think is the right answer, or what you do want. And it would be very odd to ask someone how she knew that she was in pain; so that kind of knowledge seems to be immediate and incontrovertible. On the other hand, we can sincerely say we think one thing, but act as if we think something else. Someone can sincerely say they believe that a volcano will never erupt again, but always avoid going within twenty miles of it.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 8:04 pm

Self-Knowledge

Moving on to our knowledge of ourselves, there are several possibilities. One is that we work out our beliefs, desires and sensations by observing ourselves. Another is that our beliefs, desires and sensations are automatically presented to us, so that we know we have them without our needing to deliberately observe or work anything out. So if you believe that Sacramento is the capital of California, or if you desire chocolate, or if you have a headache, you just know that you have that belief, or that desire, or that headache, without having to make any observations of yourself.

Needless to say the exploration into self-knowledge here gets bogged down in the “technical” minutia of how as biological entities we come to connect the dots between “I” and the world around us. The self here is presumed to exist in a world where we have "beliefs, desires and sensations " relating to either/or relationships such as state capitols, reactions to chocolate or having or not having a headache.

In other words, excluding hardcore solipsism or sim worlds of demonic dream world or levels of Matrix realities.

The part where I may or may not have the capacity to grasp and communicate knowledge about the Self in a technically correct manner myself but a world in which this is within the grasp of those sophisticated enough to grapple with such things as logic and epistemology more rigorously.

Think for example any number of posts here from those like Faust or Only_Humean.

A third possibility is that if you sincerely express a belief or desire, that means you have a belief or desire. If I ask you about the shape of the Earth, and you sincerely say “I believe that the Earth is round,” then you have that belief. All of these possibilities, and more, are considered in this book, although the idea that we look at ourselves and then work out what we believe, desire or feel, gets short shrift. The range of options reflects the need to accommodate several points. We seem to have rock-solid knowledge of our own states of mind: you may not know the right answer to some factual question, or what you ought to want, but you must know what you think is the right answer, or what you do want. And it would be very odd to ask someone how she knew that she was in pain; so that kind of knowledge seems to be immediate and incontrovertible. On the other hand, we can sincerely say we think one thing, but act as if we think something else. Someone can sincerely say they believe that a volcano will never erupt again, but always avoid going within twenty miles of it.

Here there is what you think is the right answer and the extent to which there is a right answer able to be demonstrated as in fact the right answer for all rational men and women.

Of course as with the volcano there may be a right answer – it either will or will not never erupt again – but even the “experts” are unable to determine that beyond all doubt.

As for what we want or desire, here things become problematic in the is/ought world. We may want something that others insist rational men and women ought not want. Or we may want the same things but come to squabble over the means chosen to get them.

Personal identity is a philosophical issue which spans a whole range of disciplines within philosophy, from the philosophy of mind, to metaphysics and epistemology, to ethics and political theory.

There is no one problem of personal identity – they are rather a kind of philosophical problem that starts to emerge whenever we ask questions about what one ‘is’ most fundamentally.

Problems of personal identity were first posed in something like the form they take today, but underlying issues of personal identity have been a feature of the Western philosophical tradition since its inception.

Plato, writing near the dawn of philosophical enquiry, and Descartes writing at the dawn of modern philosophy, both had a theory of what we were most fundamentally – namely, that we are souls. This illustrates that it is very difficult to undertake any extensive philosophical enquiry without coming up against some problems of personal identity.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2024 9:44 pm Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
By Luke Dunne, The Collector

Personal identity is a philosophical issue which spans a whole range of disciplines within philosophy, from the philosophy of mind, to metaphysics and epistemology, to ethics and political theory.

Now all we need is a particular context in which to explore all of these many, many, many components of human interaction.

Actually, what we need is the capacity to grasp a definitive understanding of the existence of existence itself. Go ahead, take a wild ass guess regarding how and why the human species fits into that. Time to invent another God?

There is no one problem of personal identity – they are rather a kind of philosophical problem that starts to emerge whenever we ask questions about what one ‘is’ most fundamentally.

Again, however, for many, there is no "problem of personal identity". Why? Because they simply take their own given identity for granted. In other words, they don't pull back and ponder, "what if I was born in a different time and place? what if I was raised by different parents in a different situation to believe different things? what if I was able to fathom the existential consequences of the Benjamin Button Syndrome as others do?"

And of course: click.

Problems of personal identity were first posed in something like the form they take today, but underlying issues of personal identity have been a feature of the Western philosophical tradition since its inception.

Okay, but at its inception there was still going to be that crucial distinction between the biological self, the demographic self, the flesh and blood empirical self, etc., in the either/or world and the far, far, far more contentious self in regard to right and wrong or good and bad or rational and irrational behaviors.

Plato, writing near the dawn of philosophical enquiry, and Descartes writing at the dawn of modern philosophy, both had a theory of what we were most fundamentally – namely, that we are souls. This illustrates that it is very difficult to undertake any extensive philosophical enquiry without coming up against some problems of personal identity.

Yes, that's certainly one direction in which to go...souls. Which for most are attributed to God and to religion. You take a leap of faith and all the stuff philosophers grapple with in regard to identity is simply subsumed in that. Only in this day and age that often becomes increasingly more problematic because there are just so many, many paths out there to take.

Personal Identity: A Variety of Questions, a Variety of Answers

Some of the usual answers to the question of personal identity – ‘I am a human being’ or ‘I am a person’ or even ‘I am a self’ – are sufficiently vague as to be worthy of further philosophical analysis.

Some of the problems of personal identity involve trying to define terms like ‘human’ or ‘person’ or ‘self’. Others ask what the conditions are for the persistence of a human or a person or a self over time; in other words, what it takes for a person or a self to persist.

Still, others ask what the ethical implications of these categories actually are, or whether what matters in an ethical sense has anything to do with what we are most fundamentally at all.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2024 9:44 pm Who am I? The Philosophy of Personal Identity
By Luke Dunne, The Collector

Personal identity is a philosophical issue which spans a whole range of disciplines within philosophy, from the philosophy of mind, to metaphysics and epistemology, to ethics and political theory.

Now all we need is a particular context in which to explore all of these many, many, many components of human interaction.

Actually, what we need is the capacity to grasp a definitive understanding of the existence of existence itself. Go ahead, take a wild ass guess regarding how and why the human species fits into that. Time to invent another God?

There is no one problem of personal identity – they are rather a kind of philosophical problem that starts to emerge whenever we ask questions about what one ‘is’ most fundamentally.

Again, however, for many, there is no "problem of personal identity". Why? Because they simply take their own given identity for granted. In other words, they don't pull back and ponder, "what if I was born in a different time and place? what if I was raised by different parents in a different situation to believe different things? what if I was able to fathom the existential consequences of the Benjamin Button Syndrome as others do?"

And of course: click.

Problems of personal identity were first posed in something like the form they take today, but underlying issues of personal identity have been a feature of the Western philosophical tradition since its inception.

Okay, but at its inception there was still going to be that crucial distinction between the biological self, the demographic self, the flesh and blood empirical self, etc., in the either/or world and the far, far, far more contentious self in regard to right and wrong or good and bad or rational and irrational behaviors.

Plato, writing near the dawn of philosophical enquiry, and Descartes writing at the dawn of modern philosophy, both had a theory of what we were most fundamentally – namely, that we are souls. This illustrates that it is very difficult to undertake any extensive philosophical enquiry without coming up against some problems of personal identity.

Yes, that's certainly one direction in which to go...souls. Which for most are attributed to God and to religion. You take a leap of faith and all the stuff philosophers grapple with in regard to identity is simply subsumed in that. Only in this day and age that often becomes increasingly more problematic because there are just so many, many paths out there to take.

maronitephilosopher wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2024 8:40 pm Can someone explain for a beginner the philosophy of Heidegger in practical examples

Does the self reside in the soul, in the body, or in some combination of both?

It’s a question philosophers have long debated. However, one philosopher, John Locke, argued that the self resides in memory.

In what follows I will give an overview of the arguments that led him to this conclusion, and consider some of the objections critics have raised against Locke’s account of the self, in particular his reducing the self to memory. I will conclude that Locke does not only reduce the self to memory, but to internal memory. In doing so, he puts himself on a slippery slope toward idealism, despite his general common-sense empiricism.