Did Locke Defend the Memory Continuity Criterion of Personal Identity?

Locke Studies 10:113-129 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

John Locke’s account of personal identity is usually thought to have been proved false by Thomas Reid’s simple ‘Gallant Officer’ argument. Locke is traditionally interpreted as holding that your having memories of a past person’s thoughts or actions is necessary and sufficient for your being identical to that person. This paper argues that the traditional memory interpretation of Locke’s account is mistaken and defends a memory continuity view according to which a sequence of overlapping memories is necessary and sufficient for personal identity. On this view Locke is not vulnerable to the Gallant Officer argument.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Locke on Personal Identity.Shelley Weinberg - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (6):398-407.
Memory, quasi-memory, and pseudo-quasi-memory.Christopher Buford - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3):465 – 478.
John Locke, Personal Identity and Memento.Basil Smith - 2006 - In Mark T. Conard (ed.), The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. University of Kentucky Press.
Memory and identity.Marya Schechtman - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 153 (1):65-79.
Personal Identity.John Perry (ed.) - 1975 - Berkeley: University of California Press.
Am I My Brother's Keeper? On Personal Identity and Responsibility.Simon Beck - 2013 - South African Journal of Philosophy 32 (1):1-9.
Personal identity.R. G. Swinburne - 1974 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74:231 - 247.
Personal Identity Un-Locke-ed.Andrew Naylor - 2008 - American Philosophical Quarterly 45 (4):407-416.
The truth about memory.M. Schectman - 1994 - Philosophical Psychology 7 (1):3-18.
Consciousness as a guide to personal persistence.Barry Dainton & Tim Bayne - 2005 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (4):549-571.
Personal identity and the past.Marya Schechtman - 2005 - Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 12 (1):9-22.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-10-14

Downloads
610 (#25,900)

6 months
99 (#35,411)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Johan E. Gustafsson
University of Texas at Austin

Citations of this work

Non-branching personal persistence.Johan E. Gustafsson - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2307-2329.
Hume on Mental Transparency.Hsueh Qu - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (4):576-601.
Thomas Reid’s objection to Locke’s Theory of personal identity.Vinícius França Freitas - 2020 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 24 (1):147-164.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.Thomas Reid - 1785 - University Park, Pa.: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Derek R. Brookes & Knud Haakonssen.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
Locke on personal identity.Kenneth Winkler - 1991 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 (2):201-226.

View all 9 references / Add more references