The Human Animal
Personal Identity without Psychology
Published on 2. September 1999
200 pages
978-0-19-802647-1 (ISBN)
Description
Most philosophers writing about personal identity in recent years claim that what it takes for us to persist through time is a matter of psychology. In this groundbreaking new book, Eric Olson argues that such approaches face daunting problems, and he defends in their place a radically non-psychological account of personal identity. He defines human beings as biological organisms, and claims that no psychological relation is either sufficient or necessary for an organism to persist. Rejecting several famous thought experiments dealing with personal identity, he instead argues that one could survive the destruction of all of one's psychological contents and capabilities as long as the human organism remains alive.
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Book
09/1999
Oxford University Press Inc
€99.00
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Person
Eric Olson is a Lecturer in philosophy at Cambridge University.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Psychology and Personal Identity
- I. Human Vegetables and Cerebrum Transplants
- II. The Psychological Approach
- III. The Biological Approach
- 2. Persistence
- I. Criteria of Personal Identity
- II. Substance Concepts
- III. Movers and Thinkers
- IV. "Person P1 at Time t1
- 3. Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach
- I. The Transplant Intuition
- II. Whole-Brain Transplants
- III. Fission and Hemispherectomy
- IV. Prudential Concern
- V. Moral Responsibility
- VI. The Treatment Argument
- VII. Same Person
- VIII. Practical Consequences of the Biological Approach
- 4. Was I Ever a Fetus?
- I. The Fetus Problem
- II. Playing the Problem Down
- III. Future-Directed Identity and Disjunctive Criteria
- IV. Second-Order Capacities
- V. When Did I Begin?
- 5. Are People Animals?
- I. Human People or Human Animals?
- II. Appearances
- III. Coincidence
- IV. Personhood
- V. Why We Are Animals
- VI. Psychological Persistence Conditions for Animals?
- VII. Death and Ceasing to Be
- VIII. A Counterattack
- 6. The Biological Approach
- I. Further Questions
- II. Organisms
- III. The Identity of Organisms
- IV. Lives
- V. Brainstem Replacements and Other Difficulties
- VI. The Bodily Criterion
- 7. Alternatives
- I. Are There Any People?
- II. Relative Identity
- III. Temporal Parts
- Notes
- References
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Z
