Online research in philosophy

Contents PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 John Perry: The Problem of Personal Identity, 3 PART II: VERSIONS OF THE MEMORY THEORY 2 John Locke: Of Identity and ...

I will trace the history of western conceptions of soul and self from the ancient Greeks to the present. The story line that I will present is based mainly on material covered in two books by Ray Martin and myself: _The Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in the_.

Introduction -- John Locke and the problem of personal identity : the principium individuationis, personal immortality, and bodily resurrection -- On separation and immortality : Descartes and the nature of the soul -- On materialism and immortality or Hobbes' rejection of the natural argument for the immortality of the soul -- Henry More and John Locke on the dangers of materialism : immateriality, immortality, immorality, and identity -- Robert Boyle : on seeds, cannibalism, and the resurrection of the body -- Locke's theory of personal identity in its context : a reassessment of classic objections.

This is a review of Raymond Martin and John Barresi's The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity (Columbia University Press, 2006).

This paper presents a solution to the problem of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics. I argue that Professor Gracia’s solution to the problem of personal identity, existence, and Professor Stump’s solution, form or the human soul, are not only compatible but also necessarily interdependent on one another. This argument rests on (1) the special nature of the human soul, and (2) the metaphysical claim that for Thomas the human soul and existence are inseparable. First, I refine the problem of personal identity and briefly clarify some important distinctions. Second, I present Gracia’s arguments for the principle of existence (esse) being the criterion of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics. Third, I explain Stump’s arguments for form being the principle of personal identity over time in Thomas’s metaphysics, and show how Stump’s solution can answer some of the objections that Gracia presents. Finally, I argue that, according to Thomas, the soul of an individual human person and that person’s existence embrace one another with the strength of self-identity, and that it is correct and not inconsistent to say that both the human soul and existence are the cause and principle of personal identity over time in the metaphysics of Thomas.

The soul has played many different roles in philosophy and religion. Two of the primary functions of the soul are the bearer of personal identity and the foundation of immortality. In this paper I shall consider different interpretations of what the soul has been taken to be and argue that however we interpret the soul we cannot consistently maintain the soul is both what we are and what continues after our bodily death.

Naturalization of the Soul charts the development of the concept of soul in western thought, from Plato to the present. The authors place particular emphasis on the eighteenth century which witnessed an enormous intellectual transformation in the way theorists perceived self and personal identity and paved the way for contemporary philosophical and psychological debates.