No Self to be Found: The Search for Personal IdentityThis book is a exploration of the notion of personal identity. Here it is shown how the various attempts to give an account of personal identity are all based on false assumptions and so inevitably run aground. One of the first Western thinkers to realize this was David Hume, the 18th century empiricist philosopher who argued that self was a fiction. A new interpretation of Hume's no-self theory is put forward by arguing for an eliminative rather than a reductive point of view of personal identity, and by approaching the problem in terms of phenomenology, Buddhist critiques of the notion of the self, and the idea of a constructed self-image. No Self to Be Found explores the problem of personal identity from the most basic level by raising the question of the existence of personal identity itself. |
Contents
The Problem of Personal Identity | 1 |
The Indefinable Self | 25 |
The Psychological Theory | 51 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
A. A. Luce A. J. Ayer allow answer argued argument assertion believe bodily theory body brain brain-state transfer Buddhist Butler Chisholm claims to remember concept Consequently constructed self-image Dam Square distinction dreams episodic memory event example existence experience fact feel a sense first-person fission further G. E. M. Anscombe George Berkeley Guy Fawkes Hume Hume's idea images imagine indirect continuity instance James Locke Madell Mary McTaggart mean memory theory Menander merely misidentification Nagasena no-self theory notion object one's pain Pali Canon Parfit particular past Penelhum perception personal identity perspective philosophers possible present problem of personal psychological connectedness psychological continuity psychological theory question Quinton reason reductionism refer Reid relation reply role seems self-awareness semantic memory sense of identity sense of personal simply social process someone sort soul-phases strict theory strong connectedness theory of personal things thought true type-person unity of consciousness veridical memory Williams