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Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 4
Lesson 2: Early modern- Early Modern: Locke on Personal Identity, Part 1
- Early Modern: Locke on Personal Identity, Part 2
- Early Modern: Locke on Personal Identity, Part 3
- Early Modern: Descartes' Cogito Argument
- Early Modern: Émilie du Châtelet, Part 1
- Early Modern: Émilie du Châtelet, Part 2
- Early Modern: Margaret Cavendish, Part 1
- Early Modern: Margaret Cavendish, Part 2
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Early Modern: Locke on Personal Identity, Part 1
Part 1 of 3. What makes you the same person as the little kid growing up a number of years ago? Is the identity of a person tied to the persistence of a body or a soul or something else entirely? Can we even give any explanation at all of the persistence of a person? Michael Della Rocca (Yale University) explores some of the puzzles and problems of personal identity that arise from the revolutionary work of the philosopher John Locke.
Speaker: Dr. Michael Della Rocca, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
.Want to join the conversation?
Correct me if I am wrong: Is personal identity is a specific case of the ship of Theseus? https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/wi-phi/metaphys-epistemology/v/ship-of-theseus(16 votes)
The ship of thesus is a problem that comes up with trying to figure out what the identity conditions of an artifact might be. The lectures on personal identity are Locke's views on what makes something a person over time. Both of them are a part of a larger question, "What is it for a thing to persist through time?" However you might think the answer to that question depends on the kind of thing we are talking about. At least, this is what Locke thought and therefore his theory of personal identity is different from his theory of plant identity, etc.(7 votes)
It seems to me that no object or person is exactly the same from one second to the next. What I think makes us believe that a person or an object has the same identity as the person or object we saw the previous week is that there is nothing closer in similarity to that person or object existing and so by default we assume it to be of the same identity. I am new to philosophy, but find the discussions very interesting. Can anybody tell me if any discoveries in other fields such as astronomy, mathematics or technology have had any impacts on questions in philosophy or conversely have breakthroughs in philosophy impacted unanswered questions in mathematics or physics.(4 votes)
According to you, there's no sameness. Everything changes with time. But that would mean, as only one corollary, I'm not responsible for what I did yesterday. This is not the way everyone thinks...people assume sameness over time. Are you saying this is an illusion?
I agree in the physical sense-its easy to see that the matter that make us is in constant flux with the environment.
But what of the mind? Are you saying the views we hold and the memories we have are actually us? When they change so do we? But how do you explain the self who is considered to possess these thoughts and memories? Is the notion of a self an illusion?(4 votes)
is the phrase "in virtue of which," for example8:21, an essential part of framing the problem/question or is it a vestigial convention of some sort?(4 votes)- That's a good question. It is definitely not an essential part of framing the problem (that is, you can state the claim in other ways). For example, "what grounds identity", "what makes it true that is A=B", etc. However, it is a common term used in philosophy.(3 votes)
Brains constantly reshape themselves with new info being learned and old info being forgotten.
Cells die and other cells divide and emerge. The organic system is always changing. I am NOT the same person I was 3 months ago. People DO change. Animals change. Plants change. Humans grow (older), they change psychologically, physically, they change their views, their religion and their ideologies.
This debate is useless. An innate object (object without consciousness, NOTE that I didn't use the dogmatic word 'soul') stays the same unless an outside force changes its structure/appearance/chemical configuration.
It's really easy and some 'metaphysical' philosofers want to make a big deal about all this (Heidegger, Sartre, Nietsche, .....) Pure loss of time. Anyone another viewpoint? I'm open to other opinions :D(2 votes)
Everything use to change on every being physic but his identity remain the same.even if you change your name ,you will still be the person you was. hence the person identity is the very one in the present past and futur time.(2 votes)
- Isn't the first part of the video how he discusses that advancements in an idea shed new light on the problem.
Isn't that the same thing? As people change over time, they are the same person.
As a problem changes over time it is the same problem.
It seems by this logic then, what changes an idea or a person is the light shed on it. The way we view the idea and ourselves.(1 vote) 
Is it truly correct to call the questions of philosophy problems in so much as the term problems implies that their are solutions? I think a more appropriate term is life questions or perhaps contemplatives, in that these in themselves exist in order to be explored.(1 vote)
I think that there are pretty obviously answers to many philosophical questions, such as "Do mind-independent objects exist?" This is a question than can be answered with either yes or no, and there really seem to be only two possibilities which contradict each other. So even if we never find the solution to this problem, I think that there is one.(1 vote)
- I don't understand exactly what both statements are saying, e.g. A relation such that if 'A' is identical to 'B' then 'A' and 'B' stand in this relation. If someone could explain each phrase in a simpler form that would be great!(1 vote)
8:21Video transcript
(intro music) This is a lecture on personal identity, as this problem arises in
the case of John Locke, a British philosopher of
the seventeenth century. Hi, my name is Michael Della Rocca, I'm a professor of philosophy at Yale, and I've been a professor here at Yale for what seems to me to be an
unbelievably long period of time, since 1991. It's unbelievable to me that
I've spent so much time at Yale doing this one job that I love, and it's also unbelievable to me because it's hard to see what it could be, in virtue of which I today, the person speaking to you right now, am the same person as
this inexperienced person who came to Yale right out
of graduate school in 1991. I'm that same guy, but what is it, in virtue
of which I'm the same person as that inexperienced
young philosopher in 1991? There've been many changes
over that period of time. I've gained or lost weight,
mostly gained weight, over that period of time. I've read a lot of books. I've taught a lot of classes. Many changes. I've had a family during
that period of time. But through all these
changes it seems that the same person, me, has persisted. What can make it the case that the person now speaking to you here is the same as, is identical to, the young person who began
teaching at Yale in 1991? This is one question that arises when one considers the
problem of personal identity over time, and it is a
question that philosophers have long struggled to answer. And there is, of course, no consensus as to the best answer to this question, the question of what it
is, in virtue of which, an earlier person is
identical to a later person. It is this question that I
want to shed light on today, by looking at the example
of John Locke's theory. But before I do that, I want to say a bit, and this is relevant to our topic, a bit about the nature of
philosophical problems in general, and about what it is to make progress on philosophical problems. Many of the most central
problems of philosophy, including the problem
of personal identity that we are going to talk about today, they've been with us for hundreds,
if not thousands, of years. And there is, as I said, no consensus as to the solution of these problems. This might seem frustrating
and dispiriting, because if there is no
progress on these problems, then why do we bother addressing
these problems at all? This is a challenging question. Indeed, it's a question,
it's a philosophical question, about the nature of philosophy itself. Why do we continue to pursue
philosophical problems when most of the main,
important philosophical problems have not been resolved over the years? One thing I'd like to suggest
is that in philosophy, the problems are often more important than the solutions, if indeed
there are any solutions at all. And this is because the
problems in philosophy are ways of seeking
understanding about ourselves and about our place in
the world around us. And any development that helps us to see an old problem in a new light, any development that opens
up a new possible position with regard to an existing
philosophical problem, is a development that
increases our understanding, not only of the philosophical problem, but also, and thereby, it increases our
understanding of ourselves. And that's an important kind
of philosophical progress. We can make philosophical progress by understanding an old
philosophical problem in a new light. We thereby learn something
important about ourselves, even if we have not gone all the way toward answering definitively
a philosophical problem. That's a phenomenon I
want to illustrate today in our discussion of
personal identity over time, because I think John Locke made precisely that kind of progress with regard to a longstanding philosophical problem, in his very original account
of personal identity. Let me say a bit about John Locke. He's, as I mentioned,
a British philosopher. He lived from 1632 to 1704. He's perhaps more famous for his work in political
philosophy. He had a very important influence
on political thought at the time and down to the present. But he also wrote some
important works in metaphysics and epistemology, and it's one aspect of his metaphysical views that we're considering today: the problem of personal
identity over time. In his account of personal
identity over time, he hit upon an insight
that put the entire problem in an entirely new light, and opened up a new area of research, of philosophical research,
into the nature of persons. This was, I think, an important kind of philosophical progress, and
many philosophers today who work on personal identity
are very much indebted to Locke's development in this field. And it's his insight that
I want to examine today. Now, in general form (I'll
just talk about the problem in general now without
mentioning Locke in particular, but we'll turn to Locke in a moment), in a general way, the
problem of personal identity takes the following form. Let's call the person who
started teaching at Yale in 1991, me, let's call that person "A." A is going to be my very
unimaginative name for a person. The earlier person is the person A, the person who started
teaching at Yale in 1991. And the person speaking
before you right now is this new person. This person is called "B." It's also me, and we want to say that A is the same as, the same person as, is identical to, person B. A is identical to B. But what is it, in virtue of which the identity between A and B obtains? This question can be broken down roughly into two further questions. This doesn't capture the complete content of the "in virtue of"
question that I raised, but it's a large part of the content. And the two questions are these: "What are the necessary conditions "for A to be identical to B?" and "What are the sufficient conditions "for A to be identical to B?" Let me say a bit more
about those two questions, 'cause they'll guide us throughout
our discussion today. The first question asks, "What relation is required, "in order for A to be the same as B? "What relation must obtain "in order for them to be identical?" The form that the answer to
this question would take would be to find a certain relation which is such that if A is identical to B, then A and B stand in this relation. So we're looking for a relation that's a necessary condition
for personal identity over time. That's the first question. The second question, about
the sufficient conditions for personal identity over time, asks what is enough for
a person at one time to be identical to a
person at another time? What is enough, what is sufficient, for A to be identical to B? The form that an answer to
this question would take would be to find a certain relation, perhaps another relation, a
relation which is such that if A and B stand in this relation,
then A is identical to B. So a necessary condition
for personal identity is a condition which is such that if A is identical to B, then A
and B stand in this relation, and a sufficient condition
for personal identity is a condition such that if A and B stand in this
relation, then they're identical. Now when you have both the necessary and the sufficient
conditions of the identity of the earlier person A
and the later person B, when you have both sets of conditions, then you have a full account
of personal identity over time, or at least you have the
beginnings of such an account. Now, the problem of personal
identity over time is addressing those two questions. It's a more specific version of the general problem of identity over time for objects in general. You can ask the question not just about personal identity over time,
but "What is it for a dog "to be identical over time? "What is it for an earlier dog to be "identical to a later dog?" There was a dog that
was my dog last year. His name was Jade, and
that dog is identical to a dog that is with me today. What is it, in virtue of which the dog Jade, the earlier dog Jade, is identical
to the dog before me now, the later dog. That's the question
of dog identity over time. Similarly, we might ask about
the identity of artifacts. What makes the table
that I'm sitting at now, what makes this table
now, identical to a table that was in my office last week? It's the same table, we want to say. What is it, in virtue of
which the table before me now is identical to the table that
was in my office last week? We all think that there
are such identity claims that are true, but what is it
that makes these claims true? So the problem of personal
identity over time is a specific version
of a general problem about the identity of objects over time. The question can arise in
any area of philosophy concerning any kinds of objects, but specifically we're interested
in the problem here of personal identity over time. And this focus makes sense, because persons are really important to us. I mean, dogs are important
too, don't get me wrong. But persons are especially
important to us. Tables, of course, are important to us, but it's persons that we
have a special interest in, and we really want to know what makes us the persons that we are. What is it, in virtue
of which we as persons can persist over time? The whole question of our
practices concerning ourselves seems to be premised on views about personal identity over time. The reason why I'm interacting
with my friend right now and I enjoy interacting with him or her is that I think that the
person I'm interacting with right now is identical to the
person that I grew up with in Brooklyn many years ago. It's the same person before me now who I went to Coney Island with
in Brooklyn many years ago. And so there's a presupposition
of identity over time that guides this interaction that I have with this person right
now, because I believe there's an identity claim
that's true about this person. Our practices of moral praise and blame also seem to require certain
presuppositions about personal identity over time. It doesn't seem right or fair to blame someone before me
now for a certain crime or a certain bad action
if the person before me now is not identical to the person who performed
that bad action last week or last year or whatever. Practices of moral blame
seem to presuppose personal identity over time, and similarly for moral praise. More generally, planning for the future seems to presuppose beliefs in
personal identity over time. I may have a certain
plan that I want to go to a certain concert tomorrow night, because I believe that the
person who will go to the concert will be identical to me. So I'm making up plans
for myself in the future, and that seems to
presuppose a belief about the persistence of a
certain person over time. So, all of our practical,
day-to-day claims in daily life presuppose, it seems, a belief about some kind of
personal identity over time. That's one of the reasons
why this question about personal identity over
time is so important. Subtitles by the Amara.org community