Abstract

In this paper I argue that Locke's account of personal identity is a perspectival theory of how persons appear from different temporal and personal points of view. I sketch some principles governing the use of the phrase „I thinkײ in order to show how „it is by the consciousness it [viz.the self] has of its present Thoughts and Actions that it is self to it self now, and so will be the same self as far as the same consciousness can extend to Actions past or to comeײ. Locke's thesis that my own picture of my future identity depends upon my concern for happiness is shown to be insufficient. The discussion of how another person's identity appears from my point of view finally leads to the author's suggestion that it is our common will which is constitutive of how I conceive of the other's as well as of my own future identity