The Self : a Humean bundle and/or a Cartesian substance ?
European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 5 (1) (2009)
| Abstract | Is the self a substance, as Descartes thought, or is it 'only' a bundle of perceptions, as Hume thought ? In this paper I will examine these two views, especially with respect to two central features that have played a central role in the discussion, both of which can be quickly and usefully explained if one puts them as an objection to the bundle view. First, friends of the substance view have insisted that only if one conceives of the self as a substance is it possible to account for genuine particularity of selves and genuine persistence through time of them. I will discuss in detail this claim as well as a special case of persistence - the case of a fission of a self - and I will ask, as Shoemaker (1997) did, how such a case can be handled by the two competing theories. The second central point of traditional disagreement concerns independence : it is often said that only a substance, but not a mere bundle, is independent enough of its properties to play properly the role of a self, and I will have something to say about this. Concerning all these points, my thesis will be a meta-theoretical one : contrary to appearances, both views can accommodate all of them (particularity at a time, persistence, fission, independence) in the same way, and I will examine two possible conclusions to be drawn from this : either that the differences between the two views are no more than terminological and that they turn out to be equivalent views, or that the differences are metaphysical but that it is epistemically under-determined which one of the views we should choose. | |||||||||
| Keywords | self substance bundle theory | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,631 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesGonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2008). Descartes's Substance Dualism and His Independence Conception of Substance. Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (1):69-89.
L. Nathan Oaklander (1978). The Bundle Theory of Substance. The New Scholasticism 52 (1):91-96.
Ralph W. Clark (1976). The Bundle Theory of Substance. The New Scholasticism 50 (4):490-503.
Markku Keinänen (2011). Tropes – The Basic Constituents of Powerful Particulars? Dialectica 65 (3):419-450.
Matteo Morganti (2009). Are the Bundle Theory and the Substratum Theory Really Twin Brothers? Axiomathes 19 (1):73--85.
Jiri Benovsky (2011). The Relationist and Substantivalist Theories of Time: Foes or Friends? European Journal of Philosophy 19 (4):491-506.
Glenn Parsons & Patrick McGivern (2001). Can the Bundle Theory Save Substantivalism From the Hole Argument? Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2001 (3):S358-.
Ross Cameron (2006). Tropes, Necessary Connections, and Non-Transferability. Dialectica 60 (2):99–113.
Jiri Benovsky (2008). The Bundle Theory and the Substratum Theory: Deadly Enemies or Twin Brothers? Philosophical Studies 141 (2):175 - 190.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-15Total downloads61 ( #15,472 of 548,972 )Recent downloads (6 months)10 ( #6,708 of 548,972 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
