What Are We? 王海若

Background Information The main theories about what we are can be divided into neo-Lockeanisms and animalism. Animalism: we are essentially animals -- organisms of the species Homo sapiens, and that the conditions of our persistence are those of animals. Neo-Lockeanisms: we are essentially persons and that psychological continuity is the condition of personal identity. 2

Background Information What is the meaning of ‘person’ (in philosophy)? “’Person’ is a loose term. Let’s just say that it means ‘something rational’. Well, all sorts of things could be rational – God, a robot, an angel, a chimpanzee, and so forth.” 3

Background Information Temporal-parts view (Perdurantism/four- dimensionalism): We have temporal parts as well as spatial parts and that persistence is like spatial extension. The worm view: when we talking about four- dimensional objects, we are exactly referring to them. The stage view: when we talking about four-dimensional objects, we are actually referring to stages of them. 4

Background Information Derivatively Vs. Non-derivatively (Baker2000) An object has some property derivatively iff it has the property by being collocated with another object. An object has some property non-derivatively iff it has the property not derivatively. 5

Background Information Composition theories Nihilism Universalism Intermediate theories The brutal fact view 6

Background Information Biological minimalism (van Inwagen1990) : ‘things compose something if and only if their activities constitute a biological life – a self-organizing event that maintains the internal structure of an organism.’ Biological disjunctivism (Hoffman and Rosenkrantz 1997) : ‘things compose something if and only if they are either functionally united or rigidly bounded.’ 7

Introduction Animalism: Thinking-animal problem Thought experiments based on physical properties objection Neo-Lockeanism: Thinking-parts problem Thought experiments based on psychology continuity condition 8

Introduction Thinking-animal problem: Assume that you are sitting in a chair thinking, then there is an animal sitting in the chair thinking; and if you are not the animal, there are two thinking beings here. The clay-model puzzle 9

Introduction Physical properties objection (Parfit2012): ‘On this objection, we have many physical properties which cannot be had by our conscious thinking parts, whether we claim this part to be a brain, or a mind, or a Lockean person. Since we have such physical properties, we must be human animals, rather than some parts of these animals.’ 10

Introduction Thinking-parts problem: It is structurally analogus to the thinking-animal problem. Why suppose that you are an animal, rather than a head or a brain or some other thinking part of an animal. 11

Introduction Psychological continuity condition (Shoemaker): We have the strong intuition that psychology continuity is a sufficient and necessary condition for our persistence. 12

Neo-Lockeanism The ontological question: If there are two thinking beings here – you and the animal, what is the relation between you and the animal? The epistemic question: If a person and an animal both think the same thoughts, how can you know that you are the person but not the animal? 13

Neo-Lockeanism Constitutionalism: We are constituted by animals. Brain view and its likeness: We are brains or the thinking parts of brains or the temporal parts of brains. 14

Constitutionalism Why are two things of exactly the same properties (except for modal ones) are different? (Leibniz’s Law: identity of indiscernible) Four-dimensional constitutionalism: Permanent coincidence problem Derivatively and non-derivatively distinction: Persons do not exist Adhocness 15

Brain Physical properties objection The embodied mind view (Parfit2012): We are embodied mind, thus we have these physical properties only derivatively. Biological minimalism and biological conjunctivism The problem of exactly thinking parts The problem of unconscious existence 16

Brain Brain is the thinking organism in our body. Thinking-subject minimalism (Olson2001) : We should equates us to the things which exactly do the thinking things. Minimal thinking subject problem: Our brains have parts that only controlling our respiration and motion and other non-thinking things. 17

Brain Unconscious moments: are we dead when we are unconscious? Yes: counter-intuitive, complex No: permanent vegetative state Two solutions: Combing temporal-parts view Denying the existence of problematic objects 18

Animalism Response to the thinking-parts problem: biological minimalism or biological disjunctivism The practical problem We have to change systematically our knowledge about the world and the way that we are talking and thinking about things. 19

Animalism Ambiguity of ‘self-organizing’ Embryo Brain Cell Zygote 20

Animalism Counter-intuitive consequence ‘Imagine that you got a surgery and you heart was transplanted by an artificial one.’ By biological minimalism, either it is nothing or a human person without a heart. 21

Animalism The essential problem: metaphysically arbitrary Why are we animals existing since we are born, but not beings existing since the embryos exist, or the zygotes exist? Our bodies are changing all the time, why should we not count the change from embryos to babies as the change in the persistence of us? If we are not persons, our being animals or other things seems to be a metaphysically arbitrary choice, which is definitely not the result that animalists want. 22

Animalism Radical composition theories are not the way out for animalism. Animalism puts us in a metaphysically arbitrary position to answer ‘what are we’. 23

Four-dimensional Neo-Lockeanism We are persons, but what are persons (or what should be the metaphysical criteria for personal identity) ? Transitivity and metaphysical significance Psychological continuity The first-person perspective exemplification 24

Psychological Continuity Psychological connectedness is the holding of particular direct psychological connections （ quasi-memory, desire, intention ）. Psychological continuity is the holding of overlapping chains of strong connectedness. 25

Psychological Continuity I have a quasi-memory of a past experience if (1) I seem to remember having a experience, (2) someone did have this experience, and (3) my apparent memory is causally dependent, in the right kind of way, on that past experience. 26

Psychological Continuity The psychological criterion (Parfit1984): (1) 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 psychological continuous with Y, (3) this continuity has the right kind of cause, and (4) it has not taken a ‘branching’ form. (5) Personal identity over time just consists in the holding of facts like (2) to (4). 27

Psychological Continuity Overlapping chains: transitivity Quasi-memory: vicious circularity Right kind of cause: funny ways No-branching form: two half-brain men, teletransporter 28

Psychological Continuity Objections: William’s example The psychological spectrum 29

Psychological Continuity I MYSELF TO SOMEONE WITHOUT ANY MEMORY TO SOMEONE WITH NAPOLEON’S MEMORY ‘CONTINUOUS’ CHANGES OF THE MEMMORY FROM MINE TO NAPONLEON’S 30

The first-person perspective We can use self-reference only when we are persons to It is persons who have the first-person perspective essentially (non-derivatively) to The self-references refer to persons to We are persons 31

The First-person Perspective The first-person perspective exemplification(Baker2000): Persons exist as long as their first-person perspectives are exemplified. Unconscious moments 32

The First-person Perspective Unconscious moments: the worm view Determinate truth value ‘I got a surgery yesterday.’ ‘I can touch the ceiling ’ Indeterminate truth value ‘I will stay in the bed for the rest of my life.’ Although we are consist of the whole temporal parts, we are anchored by the time when we are using first-person perspective, just like that we are anchored by the spaces. 33

The First-person Perspective There is a direct first-person perspective exemplification between X and Y if and only if (1) X(or Y) at a time can correctly use a first-person perspective, and (2) Y(or X) at some past time can be exemplified by the first-person perspective. 34

The First-person Perspective There is a first-person perspective exemplification between X and Y if and only if (1) There is a direct first-person perspective exemplification between X and Y, or (2) There are persons X 1, X 2, ……, X n, ……, X m and direct first-person perspective exemplifications between X and X 1, X 1 and X 2, ……, X n and X n+1, ……, X m and Y. 35

The First-person Perspective The first-person perspective exemplification criterion: X and Y are the same person if and only if they have a first- person perspective exemplification. 36

The First-person Perspective Minimal thinking subject problem: just minimal thinking subject Thinking robots, aliens and so on 37

The First-person Perspective Composition theory: an open question Universalism to Four-dimensionalism 38

Reference Baker L R. (2000), Persons and Bodies: A Constitutive View, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoffman J. and Rosenkrantz G. (1997), Substance: Its Nature and Existence. London: Routledge. Hudson H. (2001), A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Locke J. (1975), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Nidditch P. (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press. Olson E T. (2007), What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, New York: Oxford University Press , (2015), “On Parfit’s View that We Are Not Human Beings”, Philosophy 76: Parfit D. (2012), “We Are Not Human Beings”, Philosophy 87: Shoemaker S. (1984), “Personal Identity: A Materialist Account”, in Personal Identity, Shoemaker S. and Swinburne R., Oxford: Blackwell, pp Van Inwagen P. (1990), Material Beings, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 39