Identity, Consciousness and ValueOxford University Press, 12. 7. 1990 - 368 strán (strany) The topic of personal identity has prompted some of the liveliest and most interesting debates in recent philosophy. In a fascinating new contribution to the discussion, Peter Unger presents a psychologically aimed, but physically based, account of our identity over time. While supporting the account, he explains why many influential contemporary philosophers have underrated the importance of physical continuity to our survival, casting a new light on the work of Lewis, Nagel, Nozick, Parfit, Perry, Shoemaker, and others. Deriving from his discussion of our identity itself, Unger produces a novel but commonsensical theory of the relations between identity and some of our deepest concerns. In a conservative but flexible spirit, he explores the implications of his theory for questions of value and of the good life. |
Obsah
| 3 | |
SIX METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINES | 36 |
3 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL | 66 |
4 THE PHYSICAL APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL | 102 |
5 A PHYSICALLY BASED APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL | 139 |
AGAINST THE SIX METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINES | 170 |
DISTINCTIONS COMPROMISES AND LIMITS | 211 |
8 FISSION AND THE FOCUS OF ONES LIFE | 255 |
9 THE APPRECIATION OF OUR ACTUAL VALUES | 295 |
Bibliography | 339 |
Name Index | 343 |
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activity actual appropriate assimilation attitudes basic beliefs brain and body brain stem brain-parts branches causal cells cerns chapter completely congenial decomposition conscious experience contrast conventions core psychology Derek Parfit Descartes distinctive psychology duplicate ego-centric endure entity example exist experience inducer extremely focus future half-brain happens Hobbesian ical idea important intuitions involved last bare survival least less lives loss lower brain Mark Johnston matters in survival mental capacities middle ground miss neurons objective view occur ordinary original brain original person pain Parfit particular perhaps personal identity philosophers physical approach physical continuity physical realizer precisely similar present prudential psychological approach question rational reason Reasons and Persons regards relevant relevantly replaced response rience rock salient ship significant situation solar system sort spectrum of congenial standard fission super freezing suppose taping teletransportation things thought tion transceivers true verificationism view of ourselves
Populárne pasáže
Strana 93 - What is it that matters in survival? Suppose I wonder whether I will survive the coming battle, brainwashing, brain transplant, journey by matter-transmitter, purported reincarnation or resurrection, fission into twins, fusion with someone else, or what not. What do I really care about? If it can happen that some features of ordinary, everyday survival are present but others are missing, then what would it take to make the difference between something practically as good as commonplace survival and...
Strana 93 - ... mostly want in wanting survival is that my mental life should flow on. My present experiences, thoughts, beliefs, desires, and traits of character should have appropriate future successors. My total present mental state should be but one momentary stage in a continuing succession of mental states. These successive states should be interconnected in two ways. First, by bonds of similarity. Change should be gradual rather than sudden, and (at least in some respects) there should not be too much...
Strana 104 - There is psychological continuity if and only if there are overlapping chains of strong connectedness. X today is one and the same person as Y at some past time if and only if (2) X is psychologically continuous with Y, (3) this continuity has the right kind of cause, and (4) there does not exist a different person who is also psychologically continuous with Y.
Strana 104 - I weigh more than three pounds, am more than six inches high, have a skeleton, etc. But the brain is the only part of me whose destruction I could not possibly survive. The brain, but not the rest of the animal, is essential to the self .9 As the last quote reveals, Nagel is not an orthodox brain theorist.
Strana 94 - I will call the prudential use of 'what matters in survival,' the expression will be glossed in some such rough way as this: From the perspective of a person's concern for herself, or from a slight and rational extension of that perspective, what future being there is or, possibly, which future beings there are, for whom the person rationally should be "intrinsically
Strana 94 - ... intrinsically" concerned. Saying that this rational concern is "intrinsic" means, roughly, that, even apart from questions of whether or not he might advance the present person's projects, there is this rational concern for the welfare of the future being. So, in particular, this prudential use is to connect directly with our favorite sacrifice for future well-being test, namely, the avoidance of future great pain test. (1991, p. 94...
Strana 83 - ... intermediate places. Either the molecules of the decomposed body are beamed or (truer to the intent of the stories) a fully informative description of the body is beamed to another place, where the body then is reconstituted (from numerically distinct molecules) according to the received information. Yet the readers of such stories, and the many viewers of such television programs, calmly accept this as a mode of travel. They do not view it as a killing of one person with the production of another...
Strana 316 - On the first option, your daughter will live and will continue to occupy the same place in your family, while the duplicate is destroyed. Further, on this option, after the duplicate is killed, you will suffer some considerable painful experience, produced by some electric shocks and, except for the stipulated fact regarding your daughter, you will get no reward. On the second option, the duplicate lives and occupies that role, while your daughter is destroyed. Further, after the switch you will...
Strana 93 - ... the succession of mental states — regularities, moreover, that are exemplified in everyday cases of survival. And this should be so not by accident (and also not, for instance, because some demon has set out to create a succession of mental states patterned to counterfeit our ordinary mental life) but rather because each succeeding mental state causally depends for its character on the states immediately before it. I refrain from settling certain questions of detail. Perhaps my emphasis should...
Strana 121 - On the other hand, for any significant portion of my brain, there is a certain bionic structure that may replace it, with the result that the very same dispositional psychology realized organically before will, right after the replacement, be realized by an integrated structure. And, after a suitable sequence of such replacements has been completed, we are supposing, all of my psychology will be realized in an entirely bionic inorganic structure.