display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
5 ideas
21317 | Despite consciousness fluctuating, we are aware that it belongs to one person [Butler] |
Full Idea: Though the successive consciousnesses which we have of our own existence are not the same, yet they are consciousnesses of one and the same thing or object; of the same person, self, or living agent. | |
From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1) | |
A reaction: Butler's arguments seems to be that he appears to be the same person, so he is the same person. He is explicitly disagreeing with Locke. |
21313 | If consciousness of events makes our identity, then if we have forgotten them we didn't exist then [Butler] |
Full Idea: Though consciousness of what is past does ascertain our personal identity to ourselves, yet to say that it makes personal identity, or is necessary to our being the same persons is to say a person has not existed a single moment but what he can remember. | |
From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1) | |
A reaction: An over-cautious scepticism has crept in about the reliability of bodily identity. Now we can have photographs and CCTV to prove that we experienced events we have forgotten. Butler is right. |
21314 | Consciousness presupposes personal identity, so it cannot constitute it [Butler] |
Full Idea: One would think it really self-evident that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity, any more than knowledge can presuppose truth, which it presupposes. | |
From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1) | |
A reaction: It rather begs the question to dogmatically assert that mere consciousness presupposes a self, especially after Hume's criticisms. That consciousness implies a subject to experience needs arguing for. Is it the best explanation? |
21318 | If the self changes, we have no responsibilities, and no interest in past or future [Butler] |
Full Idea: If personality is a transient thing ...then it follows that it is a fallacy to charge ourselves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present selves interested in any thing which befell us yesterday, or what will befall us tomorrow. | |
From: Joseph Butler (Analogy of Religion [1736], App.1) | |
A reaction: We seem to care about the past and future of our children, without actually being our children. Can't my future self be my descendant, a close one, instead of me? |
6721 | Ideas are perceived by the mind, soul or self [Berkeley] |
Full Idea: The thing which knows or perceives ideas is what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself. | |
From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §2) | |
A reaction: The interest here is in making no distinction between 'mind' and 'self', which seems to ally Berkeley with Locke's view of personal identity, as continuity of consciousness. The addition of 'soul' tries to connect Locke to Christian thought. |