Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Being and Time', 'Personal Identity and Memory' and 'A Specimen of Discoveries'

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4 ideas

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
There is an everyday self, and an authentic self, when it is grasped in its own way [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: The self of everyday Dasein is the they-self [das Man-selbst], which we distinguish from the authentic self - that is, from the Self which has been taken hold of in its own way.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.4.27)
     A reaction: To a novice this sounds like a requirement for increased self-consciousness during daily activity. 'Be a good animal, true to your animal self' said one of Lawrence's characters.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
If memory is the sole criterion of identity, we ought to use it for other people too [Shoemaker]
     Full Idea: If memory were the sole criterion of personal identity it would have to be the sole criterion that we use in making identity statements about persons other than ourselves.
     From: Sydney Shoemaker (Personal Identity and Memory [1959], §4)
     A reaction: From Locke's point of view, he is much less certain about the continued identity of other people, because he allows the possibility of transference of minds. Even we might reject physical identity, if a person had suffered a severe trauma.
Bodily identity is one criterion and memory another, for personal identity [Shoemaker, by PG]
     Full Idea: Bodily identity must be one of the criteria for personal identity (to establish that a rememberer was present at a past event), but memory itself must also be accepted as one of the criteria.
     From: report of Sydney Shoemaker (Personal Identity and Memory [1959], §5) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: This concerns the epistemology of personal identity, not the ontology. Someone with total amnesia would probably accept a driving licence as a criterion. Is personal identity a mental state, or a precondition which makes mental states possible?
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
Everyone is other, and no one is himself [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: Everyone is other, and no one is himself.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.165), quoted by Rüdiger Safranski - Nietzsche: a philosophical biography 09
     A reaction: Safranski describes this as the idea of 'structural self-evasion'. He detects the same idea in Nietzsche's 'Daybreak'.