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Single Idea 17216

[filed under theme 16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self ]

Full Idea

Sometimes a man undergoes such changes that he cannot very well be said to be the same man, as was the case with a certain Spanish poet ...who was so oblivious of his past life that he did not believe the tales and tragedies he had composed were his own.

Gist of Idea

The poet who forgot his own tragedies was no longer the same man

Source

Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], IV Pr 39)

Book Ref

Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics', ed/tr. White,WH/Stirling,AH [Wordsworth 2001], p.193

A Reaction

This seems to need Locke's distinction between 'man' and 'person', since the poor poet was clearly the same human being. Spinoza places huge emphasis on the intellect as the essence of the man.

The 21 ideas with the same theme [relationship between the sense of Self and memories]:

22984 Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine]
17216 The poet who forgot his own tragedies was no longer the same man [Spinoza]
5175 Personal identity is my perceptions, but not my memory, as I forget too much [Ayer on Locke]
1363 Locke's theory confusingly tries to unite consciousness and memory [Reid on Locke]
1368 Locke mistakes similarity of a memory to its original event for identity [Reid on Locke]
1373 Identity over time involves remembering actions just as they happened [Locke]
1380 Should we punish people who commit crimes in their sleep? [Locke]
5027 If a person's memories became totally those of the King of China, he would be the King of China [Leibniz]
12942 Memory doesn't make identity; a man who relearned everything would still be the same man [Leibniz]
21313 If consciousness of events makes our identity, then if we have forgotten them we didn't exist then [Butler]
1333 Memory only reveals personal identity, by showing cause and effect [Hume]
1332 We use memory to infer personal actions we have since forgotten [Hume]
21305 Memory not only reveals identity, but creates it, by producing resemblances [Hume]
21307 Who thinks that because you have forgotten an incident you are no longer that person? [Hume]
21323 The identity of a thief is only known by similarity, but memory gives certainty in our own case [Reid]
7120 It is theoretically possible that the Ego consists entirely of false memories [Sartre]
5666 Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress [Ayer]
5665 Memory is the best proposal as what unites bundles of experiences [Ayer]
1389 If memory is the sole criterion of identity, we ought to use it for other people too [Shoemaker]
1390 Bodily identity is one criterion and memory another, for personal identity [Shoemaker, by PG]
19744 If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers]