Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Personal Identity and Memory' and 'The Sceptical Chemist'

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4 ideas

16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self

1389	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.

1390	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?

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

468	Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
	Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
	From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

15961	I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds [Boyle]
	Full Idea: I confess I cannot well conceive how from matter, barely put into motion and left to itself, there could emerge such curious fabricks as the bodies of men and perfect animals, and more admirably contrived parcels of matter, as seeds of living creatures.
	From: Robert Boyle (The Sceptical Chemist [1661], p.569), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
	A reaction: This is here to show that one of the most brilliant intellects of the seventeenth century thought carefully about this question and couldn't answer it. Natural selection really was a rather clever idea.