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“Personal identity” minus the persons

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Abstract

This paper defends a version of strong conventionalism minus the ontological commitments of that view. It defends the claim that strictly speaking there are no persons, whilst explicating how to make sense of talk that is about (or purportedly about) persons, by appealing to features in common to conventionalist accounts of personal identity. This view has the many benefits of conventionalist accounts in being flexible enough to deal with problem cases, whilst also avoiding the various worries associated with the existence of both persons and human animals occupying the same place at the same time to which conventionalist accounts are committed.

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Notes

  1. Shoemaker (2007).

  2. This view has been defended most rigorously by Olson (1997a) and Snowdon (1990).

  3. Olson (1997) and Sider (2001). Olson does not endorse the view, he merely considers it. See also Eklund (2004) for discussion of these issues.

  4. Then a person (as construed by the psychological continuity theory) being associated with a human animal at a time is metaphysically neutral regarding the nature of the relationship between the two at a time. It is neutral, for instance, between the two being three-dimensional entities related by constitution, or being four-dimensional entities related by part-sharing.

  5. West (1995).

  6. Braddon-Mitchell and Miller (2004).

  7. The plethora of person-directed practices Braddon-Mitchell and West (2001) argue are important for personal-identity.

  8. I owe this suggestion to David Braddon-Mitchell.

  9. See for example Baker (2000).

  10. See for example Lewis (1976) and Sider (2001a).

  11. Of course, some four-dimensionalists co-opt the term ‘constitution’ to describe the sharing of temporal parts. Here I intend to distinguish between part-sharing, and constitution as it is conceived by three-dimensionalists.

  12. Olson (2002).

  13. Noonan (1999).

  14. Wiggins (1980).

  15. Olson (2003).

References

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  1. Department of Philosophy, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Kristie Miller

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  1. Kristie Miller
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Correspondence to Kristie Miller.

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Miller, K. “Personal identity” minus the persons. Philos Stud 166 (Suppl 1), 91–109 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0065-7

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