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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/The Challenge of Skepticism

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"You can't handle the truth..."
From understanding what can be said about truth and about how we come to that truth, we can then begin to construct what those opposed the views on truth have to say: Enter, Skeptics.

No philosopher, or cognizant human being for that matter can escape the questions of skepticism. How do we know what we know is true? How can we justify what we claim to know? Can we really have knowledge of anything at all or are we simply being deceived by imperfect human attributes? These are all issues that everyone must be able to reckon with in order to hold his or her ground against the attacks on what we, as humans, claim to know. Whether we take sides with a skeptic school of thought or we offer a rebuttal, the questions of skepticism cannot simply be ignored as if they weren't there.

What is Skepticism?
The word "skeptic" comes from the Greek "skepsis" which means inquiry. Most skeptics believe that by continuously questioning our knowledge, the source thereof and what is held as "truth," we can greatly reduce the risk of being deceived and therefore left further from actual Truth than if we had not taken to a specific "truth." To adhere and completely agree with one of these "truths" is to assume a great deal about Truth and the criterion by which it is judged. To establish this criterion is to once again suppose and assume, without certainty; this eventually falls back to circular reasoning because to decide the criterion of Truth, there must be a criterion on establishing a criterion and Truth to that criterion ... a definition of a definition of a definition ... and so on. The questioning of knowledge have undoubtedly been present as long as man has laid claim to it. So-called "truths" about the world in which we live have been brought into question since they were asserted, which is why philosophy is very much alive today -- if everyone had already agreed on claimed "fundamental truths," there would no longer be a need for much of what makes up philosophy; we would already have the answers. This is a point that many skeptics lean on: if these "truths" were actually true, philosophers through the ages would not continue to disagree just by the very nature of what it means for something to be true.(((As asserted in the previous section--place link here))) Keeping in mind the presupposition that man has almost always questioned the knowledge he lays claim to, the first actual record of a formalized stance in skeptic thought came from the ancient Greeks.

Baklava with that?
A. Skeptical Foundations in Ancient Greece

We can infer that the basis of Greek skeptics came from the fact that Socrates was undeniably, if not sickeningly so, humble about his knowledge. It was Socrates who said all he could know was the knowledge of his own ignorance but to have skepticism hinge on one flighty remark from Socrates would be a bit of a stretch, so let's keep digging. Plato also had his opinion on Truth, claiming that the only true reality is that of the mind. Another important figure in philosophy making a bold statement about certainty and yet, the Skeptic movement still hasn't caught on in Athens, at least that we're aware of. Next came Gorgias (c.483 - c.376 B.C.E.), a Greek philosopher who we know very little about. Although Gorgias' work survives only in sparse fragments and citations, scholars have deduced that his claims about knowledge are as follows:

1. Nothing exists. 2. Even if things did exist, it could not be known. 3. Even if it could be known, it could not be communicated.

Despite the fact that Gorgias made record of these ideas before anyone else, it was really the Pyrrhonians whose school of thought is considered to be the primary building foundation on which all other skeptic thought has been forced to build.

B. Pyrrhonian Skepticism Started by Pyrrho of Elis (c. 367 - c.275 B.C.E.), the Skeptic movement started concurrently with that of the Stoics, Epicureans and the "negative dogmatists," the Academic Skeptics during the decades following the collapse of Alexander the Great's empire. While all four of the schools of thought aimed to bring tranquility and happiness in a time of struggles, it was the Pyrrhonian Skeptics who took a very different path than that of the others.

C. "Why are these guys so special?" Skeptic relations to the Stoics

The Pyrrhonian Skeptics are obviously a different breed, but why did they think the way they did? To put this in perspective, the viewpoint of their most antithetical rival school, the Stoics must be at least partially understood. The Stoics believed that our knowledge comes from the acceptance of our perceptions as representatives of external facts. Certainty comes directly through cognitive impressions -- that which is generally accepted as commonplace knowledge. It is from these general claims that we can gain general conceptions to which we can reason about. Knowledge then becomes the culmination of all the rational conceptions we have made. These conceptions must then be inter-supportive and mutually dependent on one another, providing sound and stable knowledge. They believed that everything that wasn't knowledge was opinion. The criterion of Truth for the Stoics was essentially reasoned commonplace knowledge and relied heavily on both intuition and experiential evidence. Skepticism rejects that we can have certainty based on commonplace knowledge because it does not rule out deception by our senses or interactions as a factor. Just because hundreds of people believe the same thing, doesn't mean they're right -- take a look at Michael Bolton fans if you don't agree.

Pyrrho's philosophy reacted against the Stoics, who believed we can know nearly anything as long as the criterion by which we judge becomes commonly assented to because of the gaping flaw of mass deception, but the Pyrrhonians also reacted against the Academic Skeptics who said we can know absolutely nothing for certain --a contradiction within itself. So what kind of doctrine did they follow?

Pyrrhonian Skepticism states that in order to seek tranquility and a quietude of mind, we must disengage ourselves from things of which we cannot be sure. We must then suspend judgments on claims until they have been thoroughly scrutinized -- essentially any claim whatsoever except "that which is immediately evident," such that we exist or that we sit, stand and talk. While this method seems to make life stagnant, Pyrrhonians felt that suspending judgment would eliminate the mental anguish caused by any "knowledge" that could be doubted in the slightest. Where certainty is not, doubt is present and doubt is that which disquiets the mind. Applying this method to experiences, if a claim was brought into question, even if no visible flaw could be seen, a Pyrrhonian might simply say that the claim appears to be so, but alas, he cannot, with certainty, say either for or against the claim. i.e., If someone were to say that the sky was blue, a Pyrrhonian would probably say that it just appears to be blue, but he couldn't be sure.

Although we attribute this school of thought to Pyrrho, it was actually his student Timon and later follower Sextus Empiricus (c.175 - c.225 B.C.E.) who actually recorded these ideas; most notably in Sextus Empiricus' work, "The Outlines of Pyrrhonism."

Reading Assignment #1 Read the following excerpts from Sextus Empiricus' "Outlines of Pyrrhonism":

CHAPTER VI. -- OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SCEPTICISM The originating cause of Scepticism is, we say, the hope of attaining quietude. Men of talent, who were perturbed by the contradictions in things and in doubt as to which of the alternatives they ought to accept, were led on to inquire what is true in things and what false, hoping by the settlement of this question to attain quietude. The main basic principle of the Sceptic system is that of opposing to every proposition an equal proposition; for we believe that as a consequence of this we end by ceasing to dogmatize.

CHAPTER VII. -- DOES THE SCEPTIC DOGMATIZE? When we say that the Sceptic refrains from dogmatizing we do not use the term "dogma," as some do, in the broader sense of "approval of a thing" for the Sceptic gives assent to the feelings which are the necessary results of sense-impressions, and he would not, for example, say when feeling hot or cold "I believe that I am not hot or cold"); but we say that "he does not dogmatize" using "dogma" in the sense, which some give it, of "assent to one of the non-evident objects of scientific inquiry"; for the Pyrrhonean philosopher assents to nothing that is non-evident. Moreover, even in the act of enunciating the Sceptic formulae concerning things non-evident -- such as the formula "No more (one thing than another)," or the formula "I determine nothing," or any of the others which we shall presently mention he does not dogmatize. For whereas the dogmatizer posits the things about which he is said to be dogmatizing as really existent, the Sceptic does not posit these formulae in any absolute sense; for he conceives that, just as the formula "All things are false" asserts the falsity of itself as well as of everything else, as does the formula "Nothing is true," so also the formula "No more" asserts that itself, like all the rest, is "No more (this than that)," and thus cancels itself along with the rest. And of the other formulae we say the same. If then, while the dogmatizer posits the matter of his dogma as substantial truth, the Sceptic enunciates his formulae so that they are virtually cancelled by themselves, he should not be said to dogmatize in his enunciation of them. And, most important of all, in his enunciation of these formulae he states what appears to himself and announces his own impression in an undogmatic way, without making any positive assertion regarding the external realities.

Questions: 1. How does Sextus defend skepticism against those who would doubt its credibility? 2. How does following skeptic thought intend to help one attain "quietude"?

"We're moving in another direction, we'll be back in a few hundred years."
A. Skeptics Lay Low

After the ancient Greeks, skepticism stays as stable as skepticism can be for a couple hundred years until Saint Augustine (354 - 430 C.E.) throws another element into the equation of knowledge -- How does God fit in to all of this? With the addition of this new cog in the machine, the distinction between the types of skepticism becomes more important.

I. Types of Skepticism Partial skepticism is a school of doubt that is simply restricted to specific fields of belief and thus knowledge. Contrarily, total skepticism has no such limits. Expanding on this is moderate and total skepticism which states that there is no absolute certainty in the underlying beliefs present in subjects such as mathematics or logic, whereas radical and total skepticism states that there aren't even such things as justifiable beliefs that can exist. It is with this distinction in mind that we can begin to analyze the slight nods to skepticism that those following the Greeks make.

Now Where Was I? Oh yes, God.
A. Saint Augustine and Skepticism

Most would consider Augustine to be, at best, a partial skeptic in the sense that be believed neither revelation nor revelation alone could give us certain knowledge. His doubts of what we can be certain of is limited to those claims on which reason and revelation, or divinely inspired knowledge, coincide. Augustine believed that we use reason as a God-given tool to understand that which God has revealed to us via divine means, only then, by using both reason and revelation can we have certain knowledge. He wasn't saying that revelation or reason are insufficient in and of themselves, but that certainty is derived from utilizing both. Although Augustine is never consider a skeptic in the traditional sense, with his ties being loosely based, it is possible to see the influence of the ancient Greeks on his philosophy. Of course, despite these albeit weak ties, Augustine does bring a new element into accepting knowledge as certain. He links knowledge to a direct relation to God and implies that it is the concept "grace" which allows us, by faith, to accept what we believe God to have imparted to us. Where the Pyrrhonians stopped in suspending judgment, Augustine goes to fill this gap by agreeing that while he cannot be certain of a great many things, he can be certain in God and therefore bridges this metaphysical gap between uncertainty and certainty -- if nothing else, he can be sure of God who, he believes, is the wellspring of all things certain. Let's review: we cannot have knowledge of everything based on reason and same came be said of that based on revelation. What we can have certain knowledge of is of the claims to which both are applied and understood through God, in whom all things can be certain.

''B. Another Christian Skeptic ... Well, Sort of.''

800 years after Augustine, another Christian by the name of Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 C.E.) came along to build on what Augustine had said. Aquinas agrees with many of the same principles that Augustine established but began to flesh out different types of knowledge into rational, revealed and a combination thereof. He does, however, suggest that the certainty we can come to through reason cannot be arrived at through strict revelation (even though both come from God). While not doubting the fact that we can have knowledge entirely, he does doubt where that knowledge comes from and the ways it can be reliable and certain. While both Augustine and Aquinas are, at the very best, partial skeptics, it is important to understand their viewpoints as they determine the direction of the next phase of skeptical philosophy -- the "modern age."

A Dream Within A Dream Within A Dream...
A. The Greatest Mind in Modern Skepticism

René Descartes (1596 - 1650 C.E.) was a jack-of-all-trades in the world of philosophy. The topics on which he wrote include law, mathematics, science, ethics, psychology, metaphysics, religion and epistemology among others. In his twenties, he began to travel Europe in search of knowledge that he felt could only be gained through introspection or through worldly interaction. He desired to experience everything.

His extensive travels allowed him to see many new and unique things, some of which cause him to doubt assumptions he had held since his childhood. These doubts eventually festered and multiplied until he felt that he ought to "demolish everything and start again, right from the foundations."

Reading Assignment #2 Read Descartes' Meditations I found at Reading Questions 1. What did Descartes assert in this argument? 2. Why did he feel he was justified in these claims? 3. Do you agree with Descartes? Why or why not?

what is this??

B. What Descartes Believed

From this point in his life onward, Descartes applied what can be called his "method of doubt" to anything he could potentially hold as valuable. If he could, in any way, doubt the certainty of any claim, he would reject it; weighing heavily on the idea that since his senses had deceived him in the past, they should never again be trusted. Even what we consider obvious notions, like the warmth of a fire, he said, could not be considered true because there was no way to prove that the experience was not a dream. As outlandish as this might appear to most of us, this dream argument proves to be extremely influential in modern philosophy-- especially with empiricists. In his work "Meditations," Descartes to skepticism in the direction of Augustine by bringing in the certainty of God.

"If there is an omnipotent God, he could presumably cause me to go wrong every time I count two and three; if, on the other hand, there is no God, then I owe my origins not to a powerful and intelligent creator, but to some random series of imperfect cause, and in this case there is even less reason to suppose that my basic intuition about mathematics are reliable." Descartes as paraphrased by Dr. John Cottingham

Following this argument, Descartes brings an odd player into the game - an imaginary demon that could quite possibly be deceiving him at every turn so that he might falter. Descartes reasoned that although this demon may be able to deceive him in all other aspects of life, the fact that he was thinking about this fact was enough reason to consider his own existence as self-evident -- hence the famous statement: "Cogito ergo sum," or, "I think, therefore I am."

In spite of this initial heavy, almost extreme skeptic stance, Descartes proceeded to reconstruct the rest of "reality" based on the confirmation of his own existence. From the idea that "he is," Descartes surmised that the idea of a supremely perfect being is too great an idea to have originated from anywhere but that supremely perfect being -- God.

Reading Assignment #3 Read Descartes' argument for God found here: Reading Questions 1. What are the logical steps Descartes uses to arrive at the existence of God? 2. Do you feel that this is an adequate argument? Why or why not?

After he believed he had logically proven the existence of God, Descartes gives an argument to the effect that the external world exists because God is a perfect being and would not intentionally deceive us because of His nature. He also acknowledges that since he can be sure of himself and he is aware enough to know that perceptions affect him without his willing them to, the external world must also exist, because if these perceptions were simply generated from himself, Descartes would be able to control them rather than be subjected to them.

Following the existence of the world, he comes up with a criterion for Truth that echoes back to Pyrrho. Descartes said that although we are imperfect beings, we have the ability to suspend judgment on that which is not "clear and distinct." In addition to this ability, rational intellect was a gift from God, a perfect being whose gift, although present in a broken, imperfect world, still has the ability to function with a degree of reliability (because we already know that God would not intentionally deceive us).

Despite the fact that Descartes' arguments rely on a Christian perspective, or at least in the existence of God, the logic and reasoning that got him to the point of "successfully" existing, as well as breaking himself (and the rest of the world for that matter,) down and rebuilding it with carefully constructed arguments, still holds bearing on skeptics and general epistemologists alike.

Wrap-Up Questions Thinking of what you've read, why is it that the skeptic question just can't be ignored? Why don't we just dismiss their arguments as shortsighted cop-outs? Use textual examples from the reading assignments or outside sources to back your response. Think critically and think of the big picture, not just whether or not you agree. Your response should be a minimum of two pages double-spaced in order to somewhat accurately respond. Compare your answer against the readings as well as arguments found on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

What Now?
Where Descartes Left Us and Further Readings

Philosophers that follow from and build on the works of Descartes include John Locke, who brought up questions like "How does man know," David Hume who was the prominent remover of God in the realm of skepticism, Baruch Spinoza who took the mind/body debate that Descartes worked on a few steps further, and George Berkeley who argued that nothing exists unless it is perceived, amongst others. While Descartes and Augustine left some large shoes to fill, the problem that skepticism will not just simply disappear is a hurdle that every philosopher in the history of the world will have to deal with.

Some further readings on these subjects are as follows:

John Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"

George Berkeley's "Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge"

Baruch Spinoza's "Ethics"

David Hume's "Essays and Treatises"

Works Referenced
Audi, Robert. "Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy" 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press 1995, 99

Augustine. "Confessions" Translated by Garry Wills, Penguin 2001

Frost, S.E. Jr. "Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers" Anchor 1989

Kolack, Daniel, Thomson, Garrett. "The Longman Standard of Philosophy" Pearson Education 2006

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "http://plato.stanford.edu/"

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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/The Mind-Body Problem

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Introduction to the Mind-Body Problem
The relationship between the mind and the body and what makes the self have been debated for millennia and are as complex as ever. The seemingly obvious nature of who one is becomes very unsure under close inspection, and we tend to ignore the problems of personal identity and the mind-body relationship even though the answers obviously involve profound consequences. Many great philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes have written explicitly about this subject, and others like the pre-socratics have written about philosophies that could easily apply to them. To introduce the mind-body and personal identity problems, the general questions will be posed and some highlights from the various sides of the debate will be scrutinized. So how would you answer someone if they asked who exactly you were? To answer this, it might be useful to ask yourself what you aren’t. Is a person still the same if he loses a toe or an arm? Is a heart transplant patient the same person before the surgery as after? What if someone loses half his brain? These things occur and yet we treat people after such events as though they were the same as before. If we are more than the continuation of the same body, which is the extreme view usually rejected after asking the previous questions, then what more are we? What does it mean to have a mind? If we just say it is being conscious we would have to admit that many animals also have minds. So is it to be conscious of one’s own consciousness? What about when we are in deep sleep and unconscious, do we still have a mind? Does it arise from the sheer complexity that only the human brain and possibly some other higher animals’ brains achieve, or is it something non-physical that transcends brain tissue? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg, and the answers are endless. Though this certainly isn’t the first discussion ever written about the nature of the self, the dialogue in Alcibiades I asks and attempts to answer some fundamental questions and is a good starting place. From the Gutenburg Project, you can find the book Alcibiades. It is known as a spurious writing because it cannot be known for sure whether Plato wrote it (unlike the famous Socratic dialogues like the Euthyphro, Meno, and Crito which surely were written by Plato). It is attributed to him, however, for its similar style and substance and so should serve as a good introduction to the ideas concerning the mind and body from some of the very beginnings of philosophy. In it, Socrates argues that the body does not make a person but that it is only a tool used by the person. This means that the mind, which he equates with the soul, is not a physical entity. You can find some questions to consider after reading this dialogue. With the idea that the soul is separate from the body, as clearly argued above, we could move on to reading the Phaedo, a dialogue almost certainly written by Plato concerning the last conversation Socrates had with his friends and followers before his death. In it, Socrates argues that the soul is separate from the body in three different ways. He did this to show his friends that though he was about to die, he was actually better off as a soul without a body able to understand truths without hindrance, without the confusion that sense perception brings about. Here you can find the Phaedo. Try picking out the different arguments for the existence of souls separate from the body and write them out in simplified form. Can you find anything wrong with them? Some questions and considerations can be found after you read the Phaedo. For a different perspective, you can read Aristotle’s work, On the Soul. On this site, you can find the text under the heading “texts.” Read book II. Whereas, Plato argued that the body was not really part of a person but just a tool used by the soul (which would then have to be separate from the body), Aristotle argues that the two are inseparable. He thought the body, the physical stuff, was potentially a person, but it was only when that material took the shape of a human, the actuality of a human, that a person existed. The soul is the actuality of the body, and so the two are inextricable. To put it more clearly, he said, “we should not ask whether the soul and body are one, any more than whether the wax and the impression are one.” After you read it, you can go over these questions. What if there isn’t anything but the material world, no special forms arising from the actuality of a body and certainly not some form of a person completely apart from the body? Though this sounds especially modern and something a chemist or physicist would believe, this view was held by philosophers before either Plato or Aristotle. They were called the Atomists, including Luecippus and Democritus who are best known for forming and advocating these theories. They held that the universe was made solely of void and being. Being is made of very small, indivisible particles that have no macroscopic qualities like color; it is only in the aggregation of these particles that those qualities emerge. So what does this mean for the body and soul? It leaves very little room for the existence of an eternal soul, which Plato and Aristotle thought existed. The writings of the first atomists are lost, and so all that we have are other authors quoting or paraphrasing them. If you want to learn more about them, a good site is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has an article on the atomists. One of the reasons the atomists were mentioned above is because of their influence on a later philosopher, Lucretius. In his book, On the Nature of Things, he details his ideas on life and how it should be lived. He thought that since we were nothing before we were born and didn’t fear that, we shouldn’t fear death where we no longer exist just the same. This stems from the idea that we are merely the conglomeration of particles and will stop existing after those particles break apart. You can read part of his work, Book III, and find questions to consider afterwards. These philosophical works form the basis of the problem of the mind and body and personal identity. It was from these beginnings that the major schools of thought were formed and later philosophers would react. Plato championed what is called dualism, his idea that the soul and body are separate, while Lucretius and the atomists began the idea of what is called monism, their idea that the soul and body are one. Augustine sided with Plato and dualism which became church doctrine to this day. After the scientific revolution, more and more people began to believe the mind and body were just matter just as Lucretius had believed. These debates still continue and philosophers are always adding their insights into the mix, but with the foundation of knowing these works inside and out, you should be well prepared to tackle the others. Author Micah Nelp, at least so far

Cartesian Dualism

The French philosopher Descartes believed that the mind and body are two different substances. The body in this case the physical part and the mind part with innate ideas like sound, taste, smell, and touch. The mind is stimulated leading to sense perception. In this way the mind grabs the ideas that are not physical.

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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Theories of Mind

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Theories of Mind
What is the relationship between the mind and the body? Of what type of substance is the mind? Of what type is the body? These are the type of questions that philosophers of the mind ask.

The two main schools of thought that deal with the mind-body problem and theories of mind are Monism and Dualism. Monism holds that there is only one type of substance, while Dualism holds that the mind and body are of different substances.

Monism
Monism is the view that all of reality is comprised of one type of 'substance'. The roots of the monist perspective can be traced back to Parmenides (515-445 BC). For Parmenides there was only one “thing”, existence, and thus all plurality was false. The three main branches of monism are materialism, idealism, and neutral monism/dual-aspect monism. George Berkeley believes that any object falls into one of two categories, either spiritual or idea. He believes that for anything to be spiritual then it has to be active, conscious, and in motion, whereas ideas are inert and passive. He also believes that ideas or sense objects don't exist on their own and that they have to be perceived and supported to be real. Also it is hard or impossible to define a hedge meaning. For example trying to explain how comfortable a chair is, or pointing to a general area of a floor and telling somebody to stand there. As well taking complex speech and trying to take the simple meaning of a statement.

Likeness Principle
George Berkeley believes that two things can not be compared. That basically ideas are in the mind, so physically objects become ideas so there is no way to compare two ideas. As well abstract ideas like colors or taste can not be compared since each person see or taste different ways. As well George Berkeley believes that objects, or abstract ideas are only ideas in the mind. As well only two perceived ideas could be compared but that two or more ideas can't be hypthosed to be compared.

Anti-abstractionism
George Berkely believes that Anti-abstractionism works in conjuction with the Likeness Principle. That we can not strip the particular qualities from the idea to form new instrinic general ideas. Also that we can not create objective abstract ideas.

Materialism
Materialism has its beginning in the early atomic viewpoints of Leucippus (5th century BC) and Democratis (460 BC), and it has been championed more recently by the likes of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 AD) and Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655). Materialism holds that the only thing that truly “exists” is matter and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. All mental phenomena can be reduced to physical interactions. With the modern success of scientific theories such as quantum theory materialism is probably the most popular monist theory. George Berkeley believes that only ideas exist. That everything we know only exists as ideas, even god only exists as an idea. That the world doesn't exist as atoms, but as things like poetry, spirits, dreams, etc. As well he believes that secondary qualities like, taste, smell, etc. are perceived along with the sensation. For example if a grape is sour, the sour taste is perceived at the same time as eating the grape. Basically George Berkeley believes that there are no physical objects. That our senses gives us the information to perceive the idea. For example our senses gives us the information to perceive when someone comes in the room, what a piece of food tastes like, etc.

Language
Some philosophers have argued that language is intimately connected with mind, and that mind can be discovered through careful study of language. Gottfried Leibniz was among these philosophers. He thought that carefully study of language was the best way to understand the mind. Leibniz thought language represented the mind, but that existing languages clouded human reason simply because they did not represent human thoughts as clearly and unambiguously as they could. He worked on a plan for a universal language that would more perfectly reflect thoughts. This language was to include symbols that represent mental constructs, and logical rules for working with the symbols. Leibniz's language would perfectly perfectly reflect the human mind! This was possible, he argued, because all thoughts that go through the human mind could be broken down into simple concepts that could not be broken down further. These indivisible ideas would be represented by the symbols of his universal language. A carefully formulated set of rules for combining these symbols would produce a language that would perfectly reflect human reasoning, without the ambiguities that exist in other languages. Leibniz envisioned people using the universal language to easily resolve disagreements. Both parties would establish the fundamental ideas behind their arguments, express them in symbols, then do some calculations to see if they used valid rules for manipulating the symbols. No one would be able to disagree after discovering who used valid rules for manipulating the simple concepts they worked with to reach their conclusions. Leibniz agreed with Thomas Hobbes’ belief that all human thoughts are computational. He was not a materialist like Hobbes, but he believed the human mind works much like a machine, using logical rules to work with simple concepts.

Dual-aspect Theory and Neutral Monism
Neutral monism is the view that all of reality is of one kind, neither mental nor physical. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677 AD) held the dual-aspect theory which says that the mental and physical are distinct modes of a single substance, God. Neutral monism is, in a way, an agreement with both materialist monism and idealist monism. George Berkeley believes that the brain as an object and the brain as a concept are not separate. That basically the brain isn't an organ like an arm or leg. Or that the mind holds the object of cognitive.

Idealism
Idealism is the view that everything is mental in nature, that is, that everything which exists is mental. One famous idealist was George Berkeley (1685–1753 AD), who claimed that “to be is to be perceived”, thought that both mental and physical phenomena are just perceptions in the mind of God.

George Berkeley belives that objects don't exist until someone perceives the object. As well he believes that objects are just ideas. Basically his logic is (1) we perceive objects like flowers, rivers or whatever, (2) we only perceive ideas, there for objects are just ideas. For example the philosophy book isn't really there until someone looks at or thinks about the book. As well Berkely believes that things that we don't know about or can't conceive doesn't really exist, or that the only things that exists are things that we can perceive or conceive.

Dualism
Dualism is the view that there are two distinct kinds of existence, the mental and the physical. The first truly dualistic theory originated in Plato’s theory of forms.

Cartesian Dualism
Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) believed that the mind is distinct from the body. In this view the essense of the physical is extension in space. Minds are unextended substances and thus are distinct from any physical substances. The essence of a mental substance is to think. George Berkeley believed that there is no real world. That the world exists in our mind and perceptions. That what we expierence is our sensations. As well Berkeley believes that humans don't have free will, that God puts all our sensations in our mind,

Parallelism
Both Malebranche (1638-1715 AD) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716 AD) both espoused views of parallelism, the view that the physical and mental realms run parallel to each other but that there is no causation between the two. Malebranche's version of parallelism is called occasionalism. This is the view that at each moment God creates the world anew in such a way that it seems as if causation exists. Leibniz's view is called preestablished harmony and it claims that mental and physical phenomena seem to be causaly related because they co-occur in the posible world God actualized (this one) much like two synchronized watches. Because of obvious difficulties parallelism has been mostly abandoned. George Berkeley (1685-1753 AD) believed that our mind percieves the characteristics of an object. For example we perceive the distance to an object, or the objects and magnitude. Basically everything that we perceive is based on our judgement and not on our senses. As well we can not perceive another person's idea by itself. But that we can perveive the idea by the physical responses the idea produces. For example if the other person's idea causes their eyes to diolate or their face to turn red.

Other Dualistic Theories
There are many other dualistic theories but they are far too complex for the limitations of this course. If you wish to learn about them, visit [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/.] George Berkeley believes as well that humans don't have free will. He believes in Determinism, that everyone's choices are controlled by God telephatically George Berkeley's Cognitive Theory. George Berkeley believes that sensory perceptions brings up certain ideas and perceptions depending on which sensory organ is used. Also each sense is separate and distinct from each other and are innate. As well our experience is postulated through our experience. As well the only access to reality that we have is through our ideas. George Berkeley and Direct Realism. George Berkeley believes that things do not actually exist. For a desk or a chair to exist a person has to be perceiving the object. Also any information that comes through our senses are just ideas. So any object are just ideas within us. George Berkeley argument against skepticism is relatively simple. Berkeley believes that there is no out there or that there is no real world. That we can can't go outside ourselves to perceive the real world, so all we have is our ideas. Basically that all primary and secondary qualities are ideas that we perceive. Basically trying to get outside ourselves to perceive objects would lead to skepticism. George Berkeley believes that with language is a conventional language. That our mind uses arbitrary signs which makes us perceive actual or tactical experiences or reality. And people through habit conjoin ideas or through the arbitrary signs form language through the will of a Universal Mind. George Berkeley doesn't believe in physical causation. Since all there are no physical objects then there are no objects to cause the idea in our head. That perceptions are based upon the observer, or how the observer perceives primary and secondary qualities of an object. He believes in mental causation though, that our ideas is the basis for causation. George Berkeley uses Occam's Razor as well. Occam's razor basically says that "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." The words are those of the medieval English philosopher and Franciscan monk William of Ockham (ca. 1285-1349). Berkeley uses it to justify to eliminate material substances, or that people only need their ideas and mind to explain everything.

Assignments
If you haven't read 'Phaedo' by Plato in the previous section then do so now, it can be found here Phaedo Read Descartes' 'Meditations on First Philosophy' Meditation 2, which can be found here http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation2.html Read Parmenides: Fragments which can be found here http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenides.pdf Read 'A Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge' by George Berkeley, which can be found here http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4723 Now, think about what it is about the human condition that makes it so difficult to completely characterize our experiences. This is no easy task...

Works Referenced
Audi, Robert. "Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy" 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press 1995, 99 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ Kolak, David and Thomson Garret. The Longman Standard History of Philosophy. Pearson Education Inc: New York, 2006.

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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Personal Identity

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Johanna McCahan http://introwiki.wikispaces.com/Personal+Identity '''IMPORTANT: Before you begin--- Please take a moment to write down in a journal or notebook what your perception of personal identity is. How do you see yourself? Keep this in the back of your mind as you go through this page. Think about the things that frustrate you, excite you, confuse you etc. as you go through the information on the page. If you need to, write it down so you don't forget. You will return to it when you have finished this aspect of the course.'''

"A human person is most fundamentally a person...just as a bronze statue is most fundamentally a statue, not a piece of bronze. Two separate human persons that exist at the same time are individuated by their bodies. A human person's body at a time distinguishes her from all other separate persons at that time...A human person and the body that constitutes her are a unity, in the same way that a bronze statue and the piece of bronze that constitutes it are a unity...Have a first person relation to my body (i.e. I have the property of being left-handed and of having brown eyes derivative; the non-derivative bearer of these properties is my body. When I attribute to myself such properties, I am thinking of myself-as-my-body. on the other hand, I have the property of being employed or of having asked a question non-derivatively; my body is the derivative bearer of these properties. When I attribute to my body properties that I have non-derivatively, I am thinking of my-body-as-myself." http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/bakersymp.htm

 "The unexamined life is not worth living."—Socrates  So…GET GOING WITH A: '''GROUND BREAKING DISCOVERY!!! YOU & WHAT MAKES YOU WHO YOU ARE!''' INTRIGUED? For further inquiry and speculation…read on.

>>Generally when a person poses the question, "what am I?" They are seeking to decipher what specific attributes or qualities set them apart from others. These are the elements that describe how you see or define yourself; how you understand your individuality. So…who are you? What do you believe and what “clicks” with you? (Pssst!! That’s the great part of this particular study of philosophy…it will add to your “journey.” My guess is that your studying philosophy as a means to answer a question. That question probably relates to you in some way. Here is where you get to experiment with putting words to that. It’s wild, it can be circular, confusing and frustrating, BUT regardless of what you decide when you have finished you will have discovered some new element to yourself (perhaps an element that links to an aspect of your personal identity??) all based on how you react and come to understand the material that is sketched out below. REMEMBER: none of this is set in stone and widely open to interpretation. This is largely due to the fact that all this information is just a glimpse into the identities of those that came before you and tried to articulate what it is that makes a person who they are… Therefore: ENJOY and happy hunting…

One of the components of the mind-body problem is the part that encompasses one's understanding of personal identity. This is particularly important because it deals with the personal aspect of a person. Addressing this problem seeks to ask and answer the kinds of questions that motivate people down different paths to uncover things like what they are, who they are, when they began, and what will happen when they die. It seems important to establish a concept of what all defines the concept of personal identity and the different aspects that the question of personal identity addresses. Personal identity is such a fluid concept that to give a precise definition of what it is would only serve to limit the discussion of personal identity. Therefore the first part of this study will seek to establish the concept of personal identity and what it is understood to mean in the context of today (or at least more recent understandings of it) and will then move into how earlier philosophical study went about looking at and questioning what comprised personal identity. Here are some important ideas to look for/keep in mind while going through this process of uncovering what personal identity may be and how it affects you, can relate to you, and how it makes you react…

Understanding the Concept of Personal Identity in relation to ...
Personal Identity discussed in relation to time Personal Identity discussed in relation to consciousness Personal Identity discussed in relation to language Early Discussions of Personal Identity Surprisingly there is a distinction made between personal identity and identity.

So…What is a person? In brief to get us started: >>"Many philosophers define 'person' as something that has certain mental features." Locke was a key figure, one of the forerunner’s in this discussion on personal identity. To him, "a person is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself the same thinking thing, in different times and places” (1975). On to identity then… Identity is usually discussed qualitatively and quantitatively and though in some discussions it contains many of the same ideas and discussions relating to personal identity; identity itself is a much more general and technical way of positioning something/someone/an idea. Personal Identity on the other hand is usually discussed and understood in terms of "personhood" or what it is to be a person. It seems to be less generic and technical than the discussions usually relating to identity by itself.

... time
“For every period of time when you exist, short or long, there is a temporal part of you that exists only then. And for any temporal parts of any objects whatsoever, there is a larger object made up of just those parts.”

Persistence Question
You over time: Generally when we try to explain or comprehend personal identity in relation to time it is referred to as the persistence question The relevant questions include: Is it possible to remain always the same person? What changes? What does stay the same? In what way do you relate to yourself now that makes you, you?

This suggests that some element that makes a person must remain steady and consistent throughout time in order for a person to retain the identity that makes them a person in relation to everything else. There are a variety of ways to talk about this: Numerical identity: what is  necessary  and  sufficient  for a past or future being to be you (i.e. if something is numerically identical—it is one and the same: one thing rather than two . A past/future person doesn't have to be exactly the same as you are now (in terms of action, thought, opinion etc) to be numerically identical with you, however at the same time, someone who is exactly similar to you may not be numerically identical to you. "As long as I continue to exist at all I necessarily remain numerically the same." Based on this idea of numerical identity nothing can become something different than what it already is. One thing cannot become two separate things it is just the “logic of identity.”(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
 * The definition of persist is: to continue steadfastly, remain. To place, to stand still.

Qualitative identity: they are exactly similar (i.e. identical twins—cannot tell them apart, but they are not numerically identical because there are two of them.) Qualitatively a person may change over time- size, shape, appearance. This way of looking at identity is not “guaranteed” in the same way that numerical identity is. Numerically you are always one regardless of what changes internally. ~necessary conditions: x= (is identical to) y only if x y.(i.e. if x has the same body as y)—something specific ~sufficient conditions: X=Y if X Y – more open-ended (We will refer back to the idea of necessary and sufficient conditions when we discuss the psychological approach as well so keep these definitions in mind).

... Memory Criterion
-- Memory is one proposition offered as evidence for the ideas consistent with persistence and personal identity over time. Let’s take a look at how this works…-- >Memory Criterion: A past/future person is distinguishable as you based on their ability to remember an experience you are having now. According to this line of thought if a person, ‘A’ cannot remember the experience currently being held and has no recollection of past experiences that related specifically to them then they would no longer be distinguishable as person ‘A’. For example, if you were to lapse into a vegetative state, the resulting vegetable wouldn't be you because it wouldn't contain the ability to remember the experience currently being had. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) >>>The Memory Criterion is a way of making a distinction between a person and thing: Philosophers tend to assume that every person is a person essentially. Thus, the ability to describe past or future experiences describes the kind of person you are not the thing that you were. As in the vegetable example as a thing you would be distinguishable as a vegetable however there is no relationship between that and the kind of person you were before the vegetative state. The argument seems to be that the person prior to the vegetative state is no longer present. "Whatever is a person at one time must be a person at every other time when he/she exists." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) So long as we understand what a person is in relation to a thing and where the person fits. Does this then suggest that if you could transfer the “person” from the body of a human into the body of an animal, but retaining their “personhood” the person could remember past experiences in the body of the human as well as their current experience as a dog that the “person” is still existing simply in a different state?? This seems to be a plausible argument. It also seems to be an argument that could lead to the immortality of the soul. If the soul and the person are synonymous with one another, two different ways of identifying the same thing, and the soul gets “lifted” from the body then as long as it retains its “personhood” through the experiences it has had, then it will continue to exist even outside the body in whatever form it happens to take.

In Reflections on Philosophy Gary Full addresses many of the ideas that we have been discussing thus far. He connects many of the ideas of identity over time with psychological continuity as well. He also provides some examples to help explain the idea of necessary and sufficient conditions in relation to a person’s identity. The example with President Washington is particularly helpful in this endeavor: --Washington the boy and Washington the president were one and the same although dissimilar in many respects (If x is identical to y= 1 person; if not= 2 people). In other words even as one’s personality changes they still may be the same person just dissimilar in many respects from a previous state (as we seen in our example of the development of Washington as a boy to Washington as a man). We remain in the same body, but our experiences over time change us from what we are, think, feel, believe at one point in time and what we are at a later point in time. This is part of one’s personal identity’s ability to remain the same and yet be in a constant state of flux as well. This again, is also why it is so difficult to concretely nail down a definition or one single understanding of personal identity; hence the reason that one of the most common ways of understanding it is as a process. In an essay on identity by Julian Wolfrey’s a cultural and literary theorist called “I/Dentity” she explains this concept in some detail emphasizing the importance of recognizing how we talk about ourselves, what the “I” we seek to establish refers to and how it is impacted, altered and in the process of constant change based on an individuals relationship to events and experiences. She quotes Richard Dyer in order to help establish some of these claims. '' --"Every time I enunciate 'I', even in my thought, an identity is assumed, and this identity is itself not simple, but a figure for a complex gathering of personal and impersonal histories, texts, discourses, beliefs, cultural assumptions, and ideological interpellations...it is not an artifact but a process." "When 'I' is spoken, a focal or suturing point within a discursive, psychic, historical, national, gendered and ideological network constituting an identity is implied in even this apparently simplest of words: how one thinks and feels is at once lived as intensely personal, yet made up of matters that in themselves are not unique to one...crucial to such affirmation is the construction of a sense of oneness with a social grouping." -- Richard Dyer (1997)''

In the reverse Wolfrey also takes note of the Irvin Cemil Schick’s suggestion that though our identity is in constant flux there is also a sense of sameness and stability that is retained. This again refers back to the idea of personal identity in relation to time and the persistence question.  --"Though identity is a permanent process of construction and reconstruction, this fluid or mutable nature does not mean that it never enjoys any stability."--  Irvin Cemil Schick (1999) Based on some of these things something to keep in mind is the possible connection here between these elements and our ability to develop, use, and understand morals- punishment, commitment, fairness. These will continue to develop over time in relation to the experiences that we have where these things are involved. This is one of the most prominent discussions that appears when someone begins the search to understand personal identity. Despite all the material that this discussion has to offer, as with any theory, there are some problems with it as well… 2 Problems:

1.) Identity is transitive; memory continuity is not . In other word identity is only definable in relation to other things. It is very difficult to discuss identity in relation to itself without relating it to what it is based on what it can and can’t be related to. Memory is not definable based on the same criteria. Memory is only definable based on a persons ability to recollect and that is somewhat self-reflexive. Therefore the difficulty that using memory continuity presents is based on the fact that in some respects you end up comparing apples to oranges rather than apples to apples which is generally preferred. 2.) You can only remember your own experiences- this one is fairly self-explanatory. The fact that an individual can only remember the way in which they experienced something opens up the can of worms that deal with human fallibility and the uncertainty of memory. As we change our perspective of our memories may change and thus things become altered. This is how myths are developed so does this mean that if we rely on memory as a means of distinguishing our identity that we are relying on a myth to believe we exist? Some would say yes. One example of the problem of the Memory Criterion in action is the logical assumption that--- You didn't exist (weren't the same person sleeping in bed) when you were sleeping because you can't remember anything. Now, that seems rather ridiculous but according to the confines of logical reasoning this is what we potentially end up with when we strictly adhere to the theory of the memory criterion for evidence of existence.

Psychological approach
This approach deals with the need for necessary or sufficient (or both) conditions to exist in order for one to persist over time. --versions of the psychological approach include the bridge between the psychological approach and the somatic where you need both mental and physical continuity in order to survive. Most western people drawn to this approach—They want to believe that identity goes with the brain--this theory assumes that the brain and mind aren't distinct. According to this there is a future being that inherits mental features (personality, belief, memory) from you and a past being whose mental features you've inherited. Gary Full goes into some detail about this in Reflections on Philosophy: “The person I was yesterday and the person I am today are psychologically connected…I have retained most of the beliefs, memories and skills that I had yesterday.”-- He describes this as a high degree of connectedness, whereas, the connectedness that a person experiences with say a younger version of themselves may not be as great because they are further removed from those beliefs, memories and experiences by virtue have having new ones in relation to the events they have been through most recently.

Tiger Woods example: This theory implies: “that the person who ends up in Tiger Woods body is identical to me, because he is psychologically continuous-because he is psychologically connected to a high degree with me.” -- Therefore, psychological connectedness is plausible as a necessary condition of personal identity.

Somatic approach
deals with being a part of a future being. Has nothing to do with psychological facts, it is grounded in bodily identity. Another term that has been used to discuss similar principles is the… Body Theory: The idea is that a person is the same even if they add/lose parts. There are essentially no necessary or sufficient conditions BOTH these views relate to the assumption that our identity comes from something other than itself. It takes something else outside of our identity that enables us to persist. The third view denies this assumption.

Simple view
No sort of continuity is necessary for a person to persist. There are no conditions required in order to explain a person’s persistence. The simple view seems to be concerned with the now and it uses that to explain the past. Mental and physical continuity are evidence for identity, but don't guarantee it, again, they are not required---"a person here, now is identical with a past/future being if and only if they are identical." What is important is determining the degree to which something is identical with something else.  "In the constitution of any identity, therefore, there is always an oscillation between determinants that are 'external' or which pre-exist the subject's identity: identity ...comes to be through enactment, through performance, that is through practices that construct it using a host of discursive instruments which might be called 'technologies of identity.'-- Irvin Cemil Schick (1999)  Ultimately, what it takes for an individual to persist through time is one thing. How we find out if you have is another. Some arguments will use fingerprints as an example to determine whether or not a person has persisted through time, however as we saw with examples and discussions of personhood as being something that is contained within an individual then what happens if, theoretically, a person was lifted from one body with a certain set of fingerprints and that same person was implanted into another body with a different set of fingerprints. There is a new distinction being made here where it is logical then to argue that the person has persisted through time, but they are not persisting in the same body. This throws into question the fingerprint argument. There is also an important mind/body distinction being drawn upon here which relates itself back to ethics and the question of responsibility in relation to the individual and an individual’s actions. What about someone with a split personality? Are there two, three, more people in one body? Puceeti 1973 argues for two different people within the skin of every "normal person" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). This continues to add to the complexity of the nature of personal identity. If Puceeti is right, how do we reconcile something like that?

... the Language element
''' "We are born into language, we are born into patriarchal language, into being identified by a patronym, by a paternal proper name...we are subject to names, even if we wish to ignore or disown them." "What is at stake in this logic of being subject to language is a conception of language as not simply instrumental: language is not simply something that we use. Language governs what we (can) say as much as we govern or use language. Language is not simply an instrument: we are, unavoidably, agents of language. The idea of the 'I' or 'me', in other words, is not unchanging and unchangeable." ''' Language and the way in which we communicate with one another plays a key role in the way we understand one another, the world we inhabit and ourselves in relation to it. Language has long been considered a marker of identity because it is our means of expression. Language is a means of ordering and making sense of things. Language is a structure by which things are established, defined and differentiated. So, how we use language to discuss our conception of personal identity is very applicable because if we are not functioning from the same definitions or structures we are going to come out with different perspectives. This defines us in relation to others, establishes our conception of self, and marks us as unique. People have been trying to establish a standard for language in order to lessen the miscommunications that take place but the nature of language is so much a process consistent with those currently using it that like philosophy or personal identity it is difficult to nail to a definitive concept. It is just important to recognize that how we describe our personal identity with language is in response to a unique element of us as an individual and may not be consistent with those around us. However, rather than throwing out someone else’s description of something, learning to understand the context of the language they are using and the meaning that is associated with that will only further help develop our overall conceptions. "Only persons can be moral agents or rational agents. Persons have many cognitive and practical abilities that beings lacking first-person perspectives lack. Only beings with first-person perspectives can know that they are going to die; only such beings can envisage alternative possibilities for their own futures, or seek self-understanding. Only beings with the first-person perspectives can have ideals or can try to change themselves to conform better to their ideals." And perspective has a great deal to do with language, based on the manner that we discuss things.

''' " 'Identity' is, however, problematic because the one thing which can be said for certain is that no one definition for identity as a conceptual term will suffice:...so often conceived as a thing to be unearthed..." --Denise Riley (2000)-- '''

Metaphysics
Metaphysics deals with the material vs. the immaterial. It looks at substances, attributes, events, matter or thoughts and experiences. It is under this approach that the mind/body and to some degree the mind/brain problem/distinction becomes particularly apparent. >>Some general metaphysical views: There are no unique right answers for what it takes to persist---identity is relative to a kind-- "Qua people, perhaps we exist by virtue of some sort of psychological continuity; qua animals we persist by virtue of brute physical continuity” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

some common metaphysical views
Here are some of the more common metaphysical views that have been discussed in relation to personal identity:

>Swinburne: 1984: He liked the idea of personal identity being consistent with compound things where the things combined included an “immaterial soul and a material body." >Hume: Like Swinburne, there was this idea of combination or compilation a a means of collecting/understanding one’s personal identity. Hume described it as, "A bundle/collection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." -1888 >Paradoxical view: We don't exist at all-- we're a metaphysical illusion > Essential vs. accidental/contingent parts__: These deal with the “what if's” (things had turned out different). i.e. what if you had ended up with a different body would you be a different person or would your person be essentially the same? Or, what if you had stayed single instead of getting married would you be a different person than you are today? Or what if you had lost your leg in a traffic accident when you were younger? How would you be different? One of the problems that I see with the Essential vs. Accidental/contingent parts is that if so much of identity is based on the perspective with the what is important here and now then is asking the “what if’s” really relevant to unearthing what makes you who you are today and helping you establish your identity? Granted, in order to sufficiently follow the idea of persistence it may be important to collect and combine the information of the past that added to your identity, but why collected data of what could have been in the past? How will theoretical past experience help to establish your identity other than to affirm what you are based on what you are not?

Soul Theory
Those that subscribe to the soul theory make an association between one’s personal identity and one’s soul. In other words, one’s soul is the well from which a persons identity draws from. The soul is what distinguishes one’s identity and makes them who they are. “Survival of the soul means survival of the person” (Fuller). This connects up with the idea of persistence in relation to identity that we have been discussing. The challenge in associating personal identity and the soul is that neither one has a really tangible element with which to make comparisons. They are both fairly “unstable” or at least unclear ideas-there are no easy boundaries to draw. (But, this should not come as a surprise to you otherwise you would not have read this far!) Way back in the day Pythagoras was one of the first to discuss the nature of personal identity in relation to the soul. He believed in the transmigration (the ability for a soul that was immortal to be reborn in an animal). This implied that the soul is what defines a persons identity. Thus, the two are one and the same. More recently, Gary Fuller makes it a point to try to clarify the idea of the soul. He breaks it down into two general features that make up the soul. 1. Souls must have psychological features- i.e. beliefs, desires, intentions etc.

2. Souls must be nonphysical. Something that is nonphysical is capable of existing separate from the brain and the body, making it distinct from both, an independent entity. a. Descartes: souls have no spatial features, there are no distinct boundaries that help us to distinguish them. This also means they have no spatial position making it incredibly difficult (ok in literal understanding it pretty much makes it impossible) to locate the soul. The reason this is so controversial is that all of this makes the soul incredibly difficult to comprehend. (Perhaps in the future a way to put it in comprehensible terms is to discuss the soul as being an important or animating aspect of the body, but an aspect of the body that is in fact dependent on the body in order to give it boundaries and spatial positioning.) Fuller also talks about a third feature of the soul that is not as commonly recognized. This idea states that: -Souls are simple. By simple he suggests that a soul cannot be divided into parts. One soul will not become two souls. This view becomes controversial because it is incredibly limiting. Often we find that so may of our ideas are split, divided or that there are multiple parts that make us who we are and define the way we think. If a soul is indivisible this takes away from the commonly accepted views that approaches like the psychological approach take and eliminate certain elements of the brain that we have taken for granted. This is a valid concern, but again perhaps there is another way of conceiving of the soul. If personal identity is the kind of thing where we can assume that “the whole (of our identity) is equal to the sum of its parts (all the things that are involved in making up our personal identity as it is in the current moment),” then why can’t we conceive of the soul as something that is more flexible and divisible as well. If it has no boundaries and no spatial positioning isn’t it also possible that it could branch as well? '' *Again, I must remind you not to simply accept what is being stated here. Whether we are talking what is being re-stated as previously gathered information or speculation of the current author; I encourage you to continue questioning and challenging each and every statement made in order to continuing uncovering defining features of your own personal identity rather than fully accepting any one else’s definition of personal identity since their definition is really just a response to what the are reacting to as their own identity in the first place. * For further ideas and explanations relating to the soul... ''on the soul,faith and reason,arguments for God's existence,determinism & free will

''' "Identity...depends upon repetition...and every signifying element must be identifiable as such in order for it to signify- every signifier or 'mark' must be recognizable, repeatable. It never can present itself simply once." ' --Samuel Weber (1996)'' "In order to be cognizable, an element must be recognizable as the same, which in turn presupposes a process of com-parison and repetition. It must be compared with earlier instances of itself in order to be recognizable as a self, as an identity. This process of repetitive comparison, out of which self-sameness emerges and which it therefore must pass through, introduces an element of heterogeneity, of otherness, into the constitution of the same."-- Samuel Weber (1996) Thus, the repetition of others perspectives and ideas on personal identity is key. Each time it reveals itself through a new person with a new perspective (with a different personal identity) but one that relates to the collective and it is through this repetition that new concepts/ideas are revealed and elements are established. Collectively through comparison and repetition each individual becomes better equipped to complete the puzzle that has presented itself and see the picture as a whole rather than simply one part. Learning and discovery can be fairly circular processes, but each time you cross the same point of the circle you are different because you’ve never been through that point with the experiences you accumulated in the process of getting there. >>I cannot conclude this portion of our search without mentioning John Locke and the perspectives that he brought to the study of personal identity.<<

David Hume
There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF- we feel its existence and its continuance in existence, and are certain beyond the evidence of demonstration, both of its identity and simplicity. According to Hume, the strongest sensation,the most violent passion say they, instead of distracting us from this view, only cause to be mored fixed upon it with even greater intensity, and want to make us consider their influence on one's self by considering their pain or pleasure. It is unlucky that all these positive charged assertions seem to be contrary to the real experience. It seems that the self or for that fact the person is not formed from any one impression, but by several impressions and our ideas that provide us some reference.

Hume starts his discussion on personal identity with the philosophical idea presented above, that he sees as obviously false. that idea is "we are every moment intimatley conscious of what we call our self, This assumption does not seem as clear to Hume as to some other philosophers. To have an idea of a self there needs to be an impression that corresponds to that idea and Hume asks in what way can we assert this identity since there is not an any impression that is constant and invariable enough to give rise to such an idea of a self. Instead, all of our impressions, pain pleasure, grief, joy, and so on, are momentary and succeed each other rather than exist at the same time. Therefore, they cannot constitute the grounding for a self. Our perceptions, Hume says "are different, distinguishable, and separate from each other, and may be considered separately,and also may exist separately, and have no need for anything to support their existence"(A Treatise of Human Nature) They do not need to be connected to a self to exist and since we cannot observe such a self but only these perceptions, and cannot think of ourselves as existing without these perceptions, Hume concludes  that "we are nothing but a bundle of, or a collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement"(Treatise,p.252) That we still go on and ascribe identity to persons, even if there is not any unchanging self that would justify this description is, according to Hume to be explained as merely a trick of the mind. We have an idea of the impressions as they are related to each other, but the impressions themselves exist separately and distinctly from each other and are not dependent on each other. There are several problems connected with this idea that perceptions are all there is. We might for example ask in what way can we tell the difference between others perceptions and our own, and how do we account for this, how does possibly pain that I may experience relates differently than pain someone else may be experiencing?.

Hume's account of personal identity is very possibly one of the most criticized ideas in the thought arena of philosophy, at times it has been described as just how wrong a philosophical discussion can seem to go on occasion. Although there are confusions that can be found in Hume, it seems that very possibly with careful observation that he may have been right, or at least on the right path. In this is the rejection of the idea that there is some inner, unchanging core within ourselves, and the people that are surrounding us. Hume seems to want to deny the idea that the identity of a person is in some way connected with the recognition one may have of a self, a soul, of some kind of substance that our identity may subside, or consists of. This idea for example, is very clear in thinking of Descartes. I think we can agree with Hume in saying that the self is not something to observe simply by looking inward, and when we speak of "I", we do not make reference to an inner substance. "I" in these terms does refer to something particularly within "us" for us to perceive or be conscious of. There seems to be a problem in Hume's basic claim that identity or sameness is seen in a thing not changing over a period of time. This idea does not reflect on how we usually think of something as the same thing, which is also apparent in Hume's discussion where he gives examples of practices that he thinks show the ways we are mistaken when we say that something is the same thing. Foe example, we think of a ship as the same ship even if the parts of it are changed, because all parts conspire to a common end(Treatise p.257). One of the problems with this discussion, is that Hume is confusing two different ideas of identity, numerical and specific identity, even if he himself at one point makes a distinction between them. he fails to see that we are not always talking about one thing when we are talking about identity and that there are different ways of talking about things as being the same. two new cars can for example be identical in the specific sense. They are two objects but have the same qualities, and can in that sense be said to be the same car. It does not for instance matter if I buy the one car instead of the other. Posessing the same qualities, as Hume seems to understand identity, is not however the only way of understanding something as the same. The car somebody has now, for example, is still the same car that they bought ten years ago even if its qualities have altered over this period of time, it now has rust on it, some parts may have been changed in it and so on. To point out these differences and say that they are proof that it is not the same car that they bought would in most circumstances be absurd. We would not for example sat that it is not their car since it is not the same as the car that they bought ten years ago. If we look at the qualities, in the specific sense, it is not the same car, but in the numerical sense it is. What Hume misses in the talk about personal identity and people being the same over a period of time is that we in these cases are talking about identity in the numerical sense rather that in the specific sense. Throughout our lives people go through smaller and bigger changes, which involves their physical appearance as well as their characteristics, so to try to maintain that that the qualities of the child and the full grown person will remain identical, would seem to be a little ridiculous. However, it is not ridiculous to say that it is the same person, in the same way that as the tree we have in our garden is the same tree as the small sapling that we planted there a few years ago. There is of course some situations where we say that people are not the same person or people that they were before. Someone might, for example, undergo some form of drastic change as aresult of some type of injury, illness, drug abuses, and so on, they may even change so much that the one's even closest to them would no longer reconize them, or the person that they once knew in them. All this is now lost, and the painful in a way is the fact that the person is still here to remind us of this loss. A problem for Hume is that when he tries to give an account of personal identity, he seems to focus on the identity of the mind. If the identity of the mind is what he is most concerned with, this might be a reason not to be too hard on his given account of personal identity, but since he does seem to want to say something about the identity of persons, this objection might also be overlooked. What this focus on the identity of the mind misses out on is the fact that we are bodily beings and that a large part of our understanding of the identity of persons exists in this. A person is not only a mind, but also someone with a body, a name, a history, a family and so forth. In stressing the fact that persons are bodily beings it is also important to see that a person is someone who leads a life, and that the continuity of this life, things such as growing up, growing older, all seems to have an influence on our idea of personal reality. This goes to show that the way we go about ascribing an identity to persons is not only something to do with recognizing unchangeable qualities in them, but is part of a life where we live as persons among other persons. Hume characterizes identity as remaining unchanged over a period of time and since he cannot observe anything constant and unchanging in a person, but only a diversity of perceptions, he concludes that" the identity we ascribe to the mind of man is fictitious". This does not however follow from there being no unchanged core, a self, substance or soul, to a person, and Hume's conception of identity seems to be seriously muddled. He recognizes that the ways we use to talk about identity and sameness seem to differ, but takes this to mean that we sometimes are mistaken in talking about something as the same thing instead of seeing that we are talking about it in different ways. Sameness does not only consist in having identical or persisting qualities over a period of time, what we come to see as the same depends on the circumstances and the factors we chose to see as relevant in the certain situation. In emphasizing the identity of the mind, Hume also misses the importance the fact that we are bodily beings with a history and a continuous life has when we ascribe an identity to a person. We do not come to know minds in our life, we come to know human beings and persons that we can relate to and that can matter to us in certain ways.

LOCKE
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/locke227.html John Locke was a crucial figure in the development of personal identity. He established some of the first definitions that dealt directly with this concept. Locke related the idea of consciousness to personal identity. For him it was something that was essential to being able to understand oneself. Consciousness was also something that could not be separated from thought. If you can think about yourself then you are in a state of consciousness; if you are in a state of consciousness then you can think about yourself. "What person stands for;- which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places…it being impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will anything, we know that we do so.” In this sense Locke could be described as being an advocate for the “now.” It is what we are conscious of, in relation to the perceptions we are experiencing now, which we are aware of, that distinguishes us as a person. And, in being distinguished as a person we have in that moment established some aspect of our personal identity. Locke also talked about what happens if for some reason we lose consciousness and in that lose “sight of our past selves.” When this happens and we are no longer able to identify with something that has previously been part of our identity we begin to question the nature of our identity and how stable/constant it is. The fear of chaos creeps in and with that doubt as to who we are. In this moment we are not so much concerned with whether or not we are inhabiting the same body, or space. We are not so concerned with the substance of our identity as we are with whether or not, in this momentary loss of consciousness, we are living the same life that we were previously. Has the continuity of that life been broken up? If so where do we go from here? Locke points out that whether or not something is the same substance has no bearing on personal identity. "For it is by the consciousness it has of its present thoughts and actions, that it is self to itself now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past or to come...the same consciousness uniting those distant actions into the same person, whatever substances contributed to their production.” Locke may have been drawing some on a previous idea laid out by Heraclitus when he stated, "Men forget where the way leads...And they are at odds with that with which they most constantly associate. And what they meet with every day seems strange to them...We should not act and speak like men asleep."

Based on this idea that substance (i.e. the body) has no direct bearing on a persons identity Locke states: "Thus, the limbs of his body are to every one a part of Himself; he sympathizes and is concerned for them. Cut off a hand, and thereby separate it from that consciousness he had of its heat, cold, and other affections, and it is then no longer a part of that which is himself, any more than the remotest part of matter. Thus, we see the substance whereof personal self consisted at one time may be varied at another, without the change of personal identity; there being no question about the same person, though the limbs which but now were a part of it, be cut off.” Though a person may lose consciousness of the feeling in a hand or other limb they have only lost consciousness of an attachment of themselves rather than having lost consciousness of the actual self. In contrast when he talks about the “separation of the little finger” he acknowledges that if the self and the consciousness associated with that are residing in the little finger and the little finger gets removed from the body…that’s a different story altogether. In that instance the self has been altered. "Self depends on consciousness, not on substance. Self is that conscious thinking thing,--whatever substance made up of--which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends...upon separation of this little finger, should this consciousness go along with the little finger, and leave the rest of the body, it is evident the little finger would be the person, the same person; and self then would have nothing to do with the rest of the body."

Early Discussions of Personal Identity
So...How did we get here anyway??? The question of personal identity is not something that people just started questioning recently. It has been around probably as long as people have been able to use language to verbalize the questions related to personal identity. They may have just used different words to discuss the same sorts of themes in the past. Thales was the first philosopher. In order to distinguish the way in which everything was made he developed the concept of the arche. An arche is the stuff out of which everything is made. It is the source. For Thales his arche was water. He was looking for the "core" the "essential" element that made things what they were and in the end he decided that water was the most reasonable "essential element." He stated that "There must be some nature-either one or more than one-from which the other things come into being, it being preserved."

It began with Thales, but this is a pattern that has carried through the history of philosophy. Ever since the beginning of philosophy those that practiced philosophy have been asking questions, searching for answers, trying to unlock the secrets and unknowns prevalent in the world in which they existed. In hard times people have always sought for something they could rely on. If you can't rely on your identity and your sense of self then what are you suppose to fall back on? Whether it was water, air, the idea that the elements were split into a pair or even chaos that was the foundation and source of creation, each of these philosophers had something, one core idea from which the rest of their philosophy took its foundations. There seemed to be a sense that everything had to have an origin; there had to be some sort of fundamental thing. By the time we reach Plato, he very clearly advocates for one core thing to which everything came and towards which everything should strive. For him, it was the Good. Plato established the hierarchy that determined a moral order. How does personal identity relate to this? Well...the idea here is that we identify ourselves in relation to this moral order, in relation to the Good. Comparing and contrasting ourselves to the Good is how we establish/define who we are as an individual. The Good is a Form, something that is boundless and hard to spatially locate, ironic...does that sound like personal identity? The Forms for Plato were the closest things to reality. The Forms established everything else. Everything participated in the Forms, things contained the Forms and that was the way that they were able to exist. The same seems to be true of personal identity. If personal identity is what makes us who we are then anything we do and act on is an act of participating in the truest form of ourself. At least perhaps this is the argument we could make if we are going to try to use Plato's line of reasoning. Aristotle talked about "essences." For Aristotle essences are what made a person what they were and those were contained within the person or the object. It was a things essence that determined its outcome. However, rather than saying that the development of a person or object was as a result of that person striving to achieve the truest Form of something Aristotle felt that the way in which a persons essence was able to interact with/experience the objective world it was existing in determined how that entity came to be distinguished. There were many others in-between that all seemed to be searching for something (well obviously...why else would they be practicing philosophy?!) By the time we reach the Christian Philosophers (Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas) a great portion of a person's personal identity was associated with the relationship of the soul. We all need a way in which to define and distinguish ourselves from others, from objects, from the experiences we have in the world. We want to ground ourselves in something definitive as a way of establishing a sense of strength, security and order in a world that is full of chaos. It is a need that seems to be inescapable. However, establishing something definitive may not be possible. Well, at least it does not seem possible to establish one thing and determine: that's it! There's nothing more to know or discover. Personal identity is something that like language and philosophy will continue to change and evolve based on the people and the events that interact with it. It is not a stable thing, but it is constant in its instability and it provides us with a wealth of opportunities to continue learning. Each page that you will go through/have gone through in the process of taking this Introduction to Philosophy course is an example of a little piece of one classes attempt to identify their own personal identities in relation to a topic that they were given. They have tried to establish some of the facts (or at least the ideas that have gained some stability and have been most often repeated) but they have also included themselves in their page, interacting with the text and whether it was conscious or not identifying with it (regardless of how much or how little they agreed with the topic). And now, you are in the process of doing the same. Good Luck with your endeavor. It is gauranteed to be bumpy, it is guaranteed to be frustrating, exhausting and overwhelming, but you have no choice but to get something out of it if you are even the least bit open to it. It's everywhere and I encourage you to enjoy finding bits and pieces of it in all the things you do.

Let's Review!!
For the journal: 1.) Remember the very first thing you did on this page? Go back to your definition/description of personal identity and how you see yourself. Write down the ways in which that has changed, stayed the same etc. Also be sure to note the things that confused you, frustrated you and excited you about what you read. Anything to add? 2.) Personal identity is an incredibly expansive topic. To start list out the things that struck you as being most important or relevant. Write these down on a separate piece of paper or in a journal. 3.) Watch the one or both of the following movie trailers. Without even seeing the movie can you identify areas where the idea of personal identity may be being addressed? How do you see people attempting to identify themselves? What role to you think control is going to play? How can you identify with just this little clip from a movie trailer? [V for Vendetta] [What the Bleep do We Know?]

For Discussion: This is purely a recommendation. I HIGHLY recommend that you take the things that you discovered in 1,2,3 from above and use them to invite a discussion with someone you are close to. The best way to get anything out of any of the stuff that you have read is to share it with someone and bounce those ideas as well as ones that you have come up with off of them and vice versa. It is also the best way to help you further establish your own concept of personal identity in relation to you. A little more academic: --Write a brief essay on one of the quotes that were highlighted and italicized throughout the text. These quotes did not come directly from philosophers. They came from other literature. Try to include in your essay: a further interpretation of the quote (as much as this is possible), how this is relevant to personal identity (or if you don't think it is, why isn't it), and how personal identity/philosophy relates to other disciplines. (you would be surprised how connected so many of these ideas are...branch out a little and see if you can make those connections). Finally: Try to answer the following questions. 1. What is it to be a person? 2.What is a necessary condition? Give an example. 3. What is a sufficient condition? Give an example. 4.How do necessary and sufficient conditions distinguish between a person and a non-person? 5.What would it take for a chimp, Martian, computer to become a person? 6. What are two things that Locke identified that are crucial to the understanding of personal identity? 7.In 1-2 sentences describe the role of persistence (i.e. how does personal identity relate to time). 8.In 1-2 sentences explain the psychological approach, memory criterion, somatic approach, simple view, metaphysical elements, role of language and the soul and their relationship to helping establish a criteria for personal identity. 9.Can identity ever be addressed separately from the influences of gender, class, or sexuality, or independent of space, place or time? >>Keep in Mind>> All of these questions are answerable largely based on trying to establish identity for yourself. For the few that require more direct answers simply referring back to the text should enable you to determine whether or not you have gotten the right answer. Again, this is more for you just so you have a better foundation and can summarize these aspects well enough to use them to distinguish for yourself and others in conversation.

Good luck with your further endeavors and...Congratulations! << If you haven't already check out other pages from this course closely related to the concept of personal identity(well it all is but specifically...) mind/body, theories of the mind

References and Helpful Links

 * http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/
 * http://mbdefault.org/8_identity/default.asp
 * http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/supplement.html
 * http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/
 * McHenry, Leemon and Yagisawa, Takashi. Reflections on Philosophy: Introductory Essays. Pearson Education Inc.: New York, 2003.
 * Kolak, David and Thomson Garret. The Longman Standard History of Philosophy. Pearson Education Inc: New York, 2006.

Essays:
 * Wolfreys, Julian. I/Dentity.
 * Bennet, Andrew. Me

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