Self-made People

Mind 125 (500):1071-1099 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The Problem of Overlappers is a puzzle about what makes it the case, and how we can know, that we have the parts we intuitively think we have. In this paper, I develop and motivate an overlooked solution to this puzzle. According to what I call the self-making view it is within our power to decide what we refer to with the personal pronoun ‘I’, so the truth of most of our beliefs about our parts is ensured by the very mechanism of self-reference. Other than providing an elegant solution to the Problem of Overlappers, the view can be motivated on independent grounds. It also has wide-ranging consequences for how we should be thinking about persons. Among other things, it can help undermine an influential line of argument against the permissibility of elective amputation. After a detailed discussion and defence of the self-making view, I consider some objections to it. I conclude that none of these objections is persuasive and we should at the very least take seriously the idea that we are to some extent self-made.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Diachronic Self-Making.David Mark Kovacs - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (2):349-362.
A puzzle about desire.Jared Peterson - 2019 - Synthese 196 (9):3655-3676.
Immaterialist solutions to puzzles in personal ontology.Kristin Seemuth Whaley - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Pluralism about introspection.Kateryna Samoilova Franco - 2024 - Mind and Language (2):293-309.
Reasoning and Self-Knowledge.Martin Francisco Fricke - 2018 - Análisis Filosófico 38 (1):33-55.
Taking control of belief.Miriam McCormick - 2011 - Philosophical Explorations 14 (2):169-183.
The Meno Paradox of Reflection.Eli Alshanetsky - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy 117 (4):219-235.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-05-15

Downloads
554 (#41,742)

6 months
110 (#49,678)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David Mark Kovacs
Tel Aviv University

Citations of this work

Were You a Part of Your Mother?Elselijn Kingma - 2019 - Mind 128 (511):609-646.
Animalism.Andrew M. Bailey - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (12):867-883.
Diachronic Self-Making.David Mark Kovacs - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (2):349-362.
Community-Made Selves.Michael Tze-Sung Longenecker - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (3):459-470.

View all 26 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The extended mind.Andy Clark & David J. Chalmers - 1998 - Analysis 58 (1):7-19.
Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Themes From Kaplan.Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.) - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 98 references / Add more references