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16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity

[Self as the continuity of our conscious existence]

22 ideas
For Socrates our soul, though hard to define, is our self [Vlastos on Socrates]
A person is the whole of their soul [Plotinus]
For Locke, conscious awareness unifies a person at an instant and over time [Locke, by Martin/Barresi]
If the soul individuates a man, and souls are transferable, then a hog could be a man [Locke]
Identity must be in consciousness not substance, because it seems transferable [Locke]
If someone becomes conscious of Nestor's actions, then he is Nestor [Locke]
If a prince's soul entered a cobbler's body, the person would be the prince (and the man the cobbler) [Locke]
On Judgement Day, no one will be punished for actions they cannot remember [Locke]
Locke sees underlying substance as irrelevant to personal identity [Locke, by Noonan]
We know our own identity by psychological continuity, even if there are some gaps [Leibniz]
Causation unites our perceptions, by producing, destroying and modifying each other [Hume]
Are self and substance the same? Then how can self remain if substance changes? [Hume]
A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell]
The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C]
One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit]
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
It seems absurd that there is no identity of any kind between two objects which involve survival [Fine,K]
Maybe we should see persons in four dimensions, with stages or time-slices at an instant [Martin/Barresi]
Maybe personal identity is not vital in survival, and other continuations would suffice [Martin/Barresi]
In continuity, what matters is not just the beginning and end states, but the process itself [Macdonald,C]