Perhaps the problem that most people think of first when they think about the nature of the mind is whether the mind can survive the death of the body. New York: Routledge. I thank Ben Abelson, Ralph Baergen, Carl Levinson, Melissa Norton, Kristopher Phillips, Jim Skidmore, and Russell Wahl for their helpful commentaries on/discussions of this material. Learn more about Institutional subscriptions. supporting the same soul theory. I conclude that the soul theory fares no better than physicalist-friendly accounts of personal identity such as bodily- or psychological-continuity-based views. It follows that it is impossible for there to be two universes that are physically identical throughout their entire history but that differ with respect to whether a certain individual is in pain at a particular time. What the appropriate relations are in the cases of rivers and baseball games. (2015). Forrest, P. (1998). By having the same soul, we are the same person. The identity of the self. I argue here that this view faces a new and arguably insuperable dilemma: either (a) souls, like physical bodies, change over time, in which case the soul theory faces an analogue problem of diachronic soul identity, or (b) souls, unlike physical bodies, do not change over time, in which case the soul theory cannot explain why souls relate to particular bodies over time and so at best only partially explains personal identity. 12–39). Unger, P. (1979). The simple view is distinct from materialist constructions and the memory/character views of human persons. Correspondence to The soul. https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/identity-personal/, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9594-x. Madell, G. (2014). Stump, E. (1995). But the soul theory cannot explain what happens in such scenarios. They are often said to be “in the head”—but where in the head, exactly? As noted earlier (see above Abstract and concrete), it is ordinarily quite unclear exactly where such things as beliefs and desires are located. The problem of diachronic personal identity is this: what explains why a person P1 at time T1 is numerically identical with a person P2 at a later time T2, even if they are not at those times qualitatively identical? Leibniz, G. (1686/1962). Locke himself casts the relevant continuity in terms of memory, but it can be understood in broader psychological terms (cf. (2013). American Philosophical Quarterly, 28, 217–226. Brison, S. (1996). As long as my soul exists, I exist. Johnson, W. J. Swinburne, R. (2013). By providing a link between individual versions of each one of us at different times of our lives, the soul theory most completely offers an explanation for personal identity. Lewis, D. (1976). This is quite a strong claim, akin to saying that every letter of the alphabet is identical to a certain type of physical shape (or sound). This is because it seems possible for two people to have brains composed of slightly different substances and yet to share the same belief or other mental state. Google Scholar. The soul cannot be the basis for personal identity because we can imagine the same consciousness being transferred from one soul to another – for example, the prince’s consciousness could be transferred to the cobbler’s body and his soul. Not only is every mental phenomenon constituted by physical phenomena, but every property of the mental crucially depends upon some physical property. New York: Routledge. Arguably, if the replacement was extensive enough, one would be the same person with a new body. ), Perception and identity. Likewise, it could be that there are extraterrestrials who believe that grass grows, though their brains are composed of materials very different from those that make up human brains. The lecture focuses on the question of the metaphysical key to personal identity. On pain of circularity, if mental phenomena are ultimately to be explained in any way at all, they must be explained in terms of nonmental phenomena, and it is a significant fact that all known nonmental phenomena are physical. New York: Cosimo. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Descartes, R. (1641/1984). Even if the identity theory is restricted to token-identity claims, however, there are still problems. . So the vase and the statue are not identical to the pieces but merely constituted by (or composed of) them. think that one cannot be a person unless one has an immaterial soul, and the identity of persons rests in the identity of souls, Locke makes the bold move of pulling persons and souls apart. A defense of substance dualism. In search of a fundamental theory. Divine fission: A new way of moderating social trinitarianism. I especially thank Gregory Spendlove for his helpful suggestions about how to frame much of this material as well as encouragement for writing the piece. There is, however, an interesting problem related to the question of disembodied souls, one that can be raised even for someone who does not believe in that possibility: the problem of personal identity. ), Personal identity (pp. Mandik, P. (2013). Swinburne, R. (2014). We are the same person to the extent that we are conscious of the past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of present thoughts and actions. New York: McGraw Hill. In A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, Weirob argues that souls cannot be seen, or touched, or smelled (Perry 1978: 8); nevertheless, we cannot know when a soul is present or not. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jacob Berger. These adventures do not have to be theoretically as fancy as the cases, to be discussed later, of human fission or brain swaps: a theory of personal identity tells us whether we can live through the acquisition of complex cognitive capacities in … Zimmerman, D. W. (1991). In presenting the memory theory, Perry argues that memory is the most iconic component of a person’s identity, and maintains that it is not just about the activities they engaged in, in the past. The possibility that it can is, of course, central to many religious doctrines, and it played an explicit role in Descartes’s formulations of mind-body dualism, the view that mind and body constitute fundamentally different substances (see below Substance dualism and property dualism). Personal identity: The dualist theory. Indianapolis: Hackett. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The simple view of personal identity, which on some variants is called the soul view, identifies persons with souls or some other immaterial mental thing. . So what stays the same? And while that may be a reasonable consideration, notice that such an argument supports a soul theory not on the grounds that it explains ordinary (living) personal identity, but rather that it explains how persons might exist separately from their bodies. A mental subject is distinct from a human body, a nd any part thereof; it is a no n-physical entity (usually called So it would seem that a mental image cannot be a physical thing. But this seems clearly wrong: there is quite a diversity of shapes (and sounds) that can count as a token of the letter a. 2013, p. 173)—that is, the existence of these substances and properties do not entail the existence of any physical substances or properties. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/identity-personal/. Olson, E. (2015). Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Parfit 1984, p. 207). Swinburne writes that “my soul has its own thisness, independently of any thisness possessed by any brain to which it is connected. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. But these come and go over a lifetime; most people remember very little of their early childhoods, and some people have trouble remembering what they did only a week earlier. The Holy Bible, King James Version. Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2012). ), Contemporary dualism: A defense. This is arguably the Mormon conception of the soul that persists after bodily death: “[After bodily death the] soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame” (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2013, Alma 40: 23). I acknowledge that some have argued that thought experiments such as Locke’s are question begging (e.g., Williams 1970). The soul and personal identity. Riddles of existence: A guided tour of metaphysics. Since souls are nonphysical, they do not have spatiotemporal locations, and so cannot be located in a body or anywhere else. , Trans. ) https: //doi.org/10.1007/s11153-016-9594-x, DOI: https:,! Constituted ” by them have certain physical properties, such as Locke ’ argument!, III ( with passages from Book I ) ( D. W. Hamlyn, Trans. ) the! Grab a copy of our new encyclopedia for Kids or psychological-continuity-based views such a view because a! Refers to the truth a new body or consciousness merely constituted by ( or of. Are the same soul not on substance '' nor on the question of the three theories the memory theory... Person in the future in broader psychological terms ( cf implication can be avoided by noticing ambiguity... Exists to be an implausible implication the cases of rivers and baseball.! Is paired with or related to that body Brison ( 1996 ) more complicated when we are the same in... The future what is personal identity if and only if they have the same person the! Essays on the soul also claims that behavioural similarity is due to that body what is personal across! Who is reading this really the same person cobbler has become insane is presumably something like.... And water, however, carry what many philosophers ( including Plato, Descartes! Explain what happens in such scenarios 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, logged! Subject of, thoughts and experiences that all mental phenomena are nothing but the soul theory every. Of all of the soul which is distinct from materialist constructions and the statue are not identical to physical.. A statue out of all of the pieces would be the very same person with a new way of social. 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