Identity, Consciousness and Value
Published on 12. July 1990
359 pages
978-0-19-972935-7 (ISBN)
Description
The topic of personal identity has prompted some of the liveliest and most interesting debates in recent philosophy. In a fascinating new contribution to the discussion, Peter Unger presents a psychologically aimed, but physically based, account of our identity over time. While supporting the account, he explains why many influential contemporary philosophers have underrated the importance of physical continuity to our survival, casting a new light on the work of Lewis, Nagel, Nozick, Parfit, Perry, Shoemaker, and others. Deriving from his discussion of our identity itself, Unger produces a novel but commonsensical theory of the relations between identity and some of our deepest concerns. In a conservative but flexible spirit, he explores the implications of his theory for questions of value and of the good life.
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Peter Unger
Identity, Consciousness and Value
Book
07/1990
Oxford University Press Inc
€34.66
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Person
Peter Unger is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He is the author of Ignorance (OUP 1975, 2002), Philosophical Relativity (1984, OUP 2002), and Living High and Letting Die (OUP 1996).
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- 1. INVESTIGATING OUR BELIEFS ABOUT OURSELVES: AN INTRODUCTION
- 1. Two Hypothetical Examples: A Clear Case of Survival and a Clear Failure of Survival
- 2. Three Main Topics: Personal Identity, Conscious Experience and Actual Values
- 3. Toward a Sensibly Balanced Methodology
- 4. Method and Substance
- 5. Two Cartesian Views of Our Survival
- 6. Experience Inducers
- 7. Two Attempts at Transporting Some Inanimate Objects
- 8. Three Attempts at Getting Human People to Survive
- 9. The Idea that Our Survival Requires Much Physical Continuity
- 10. The Avoidance of Future Great Pain Test
- 11. Some Evidence About Some Strong Beliefs
- 2. CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCES AND SUBJECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: SIX METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINES
- 1. The Objective View of Ourselves
- 2. Conscious Experience and Subjects of Consciousness: Three Metaphysical Doctrines Concerning Each
- 3. Three Competing Views of Ourselves
- 4. The Continuity of Consciousness and Physical Division
- 5. Continuity of Consciousness Through Rapidly Radical Change
- 6. The Explanation of Our Responses to These Examples
- 7. Methodology, Continuous Consciousness and Personal Identity
- 8. The Spectrum of Decomposition Versus the Absoluteness of Subjects
- 3. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL
- 1. Core Psychology and Distinctive Psychology
- 2. A Formulation of the Psychological Approach
- 3. Three Salient Motivations Toward This Approach
- 4. Three Subtler Motivations
- 5. From Science Fiction to Philosophical Investigation
- 6. First-Order Intuitions and Second-Order Intuitions
- 7. Other Societies, Other Statements, Other Conditions of Survival
- 8. Three Uses of "What Matters in Survival
- 9. Three Other Objective Approaches
- 4. THE PHYSICAL APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL
- 1. Two Formulations of the Physical Approach
- 2. A Better Formulation
- 3. Wide Physical Continuity and Contextual Flexibility
- 4. The Derivative but Great Importance of Physical Continuity
- 5. Survival and the Realization of Psychological Capacities
- 6. How Important for My Survival Is My Capacity for Life?
- 7. Physical Continuity and the Gradual Replacement of Matter
- 8. Physical Continuity and Constitutional Cohesion
- 9. Physical Continuity and Systemic Energy
- 10. Thinking Beings and Unthinking Entities: A Contrast Concerning Survival
- 11. Physical Continuity and Physical Complementarity
- 5. A PHYSICALLY BASED APPROACH TO OUR SURVIVAL
- 1. Might Distinctive Psychology Be a Factor in Survival?
- 2. Can One Survive Without a Capacity for Consciousness?
- 3. Survival and Assimilation
- 4. Some Differences in Assimilation for Some Different Kinds of Ordinary Individuals
- 5. Assimilation and Disassimilation
- 6. Might We Survive Brain Replacements and even Brain Exchanges?
- 7. Disassimilation and Double Bisection
- 8. Some Strange Doings with Ships
- 9. Extrinsicness, Time and Identity
- 10. From Strange Ships to Puzzling People: The Hobbesian Personal Case
- 6. PHYSICALLY BASED SUBJECTS AND THEIR EXPERIENCES: AGAINST THE SIX METAPHYSICAL DOCTRINES
- 1. What Do the Six Doctrines Claim?
- 2. How Might These Doctrines Be Contested Persuasively?
- 3. Against the Metaphysical Privacy of Experiences
- 4. Against the Metaphysical Separateness of Subjects
- 5. Against the Indivisibility of Experiences and of Subjects
- 6. Against the Absoluteness of Subjects: The Spectrum of Congenial Decomposition
- 7. Against the Absoluteness of Subjects: Spectra of Human Conception and Human Development
- 8. Against the Absoluteness of Experience: Congenial Decomposition Again
- 9. Against the Absoluteness of Experience: The Spectrum of Radio Communications
- 10. How One Person May Fade into Another
- 7. WHAT MATTERS IN OUR SURVIVAL: DISTINCTIONS, COMPROMISES AND LIMITS
- 1. Survival as a Precondition of Broad Ego-centric Value
- 2. The Spectrum of Congenial Decomposition with Reconstruction
- 3. Three Shots at Survival: Easily Getting Through, Barely Getting Through and Barely Missing
- 4. The Prudential Use of "What Matters," Tests for What Matters and Highly Prudential Occasions
- 5. How Presumptive Tests for Survival Beliefs May Be Improved
- 6. Basic, Derivative and Independent Value
- 7. Underlying Realities and Conventional Separations
- 8. Striking a Compromise Between Two Conflicting Concerns
- 9. Moderating Concern Throughout a Middle Ground
- 10. Restricted Ranges for the Relevance of Underlying Realities
- 11. What Matters and the Minimal Conception of a Person
- 12. A Spectrum of Assimilation: Parallels, Differences and Questions
- 8. FISSION AND THE FOCUS OF ONE'S LIFE
- 1. The Standard Fission Case and the Standard One-sided Case
- 2. Might I Survive My Standard Fission?
- 3. Fission Cases and Questions of Realism
- 4. The Focus of a Person's Life
- 5. The Focus of Life and Heavily Discounted Branches
- 6. A Person's Singular Goods
- 7. Three Ways for Singular Goods to Go Two Ways
- 8. Branches that Run in Parallel and Branches that Diverge
- Appendix: Toward Greater Realism in Personal Branching
- 9. THE APPRECIATION OF OUR ACTUAL VALUES
- 1. The Phenomenalism and the Verificationism of Values: The Ego-centric Form
- 2. The Universal Form of These Views
- 3. The Value of Experience of External Reality
- 4. The Rationality of This Value
- 5. The Value of Particular People and of Relations with Them
- 6. Two Forms of Flexibilism
- 7. An Inflexible Aspect of Our Norms for Our Lives and for Our Personal Relations
- 8. Two Extreme Claims
- 9. These Extreme Claims and Three Demanding Views
- 10. The Extreme Doctrine and Norms for Our Action
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- U
- V
- W
- Z
