Personal Identity

by Perry, John

• ISBN13: 9780520256422
• ISBN10: 0520256425
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-07
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

This volume brings together the vital contributions of distinguished past and contemporary philosophers to the important topic of personal identity. The essays range from John Locke's classic seventeenth-century attempt to analyze personal identity in terms of memory, to twentieth-century defenses and criticisms of the Lockean view by Anthony Quinton, H.P. Grice, Sydney Shoemaker, David Hume, Joseph Butler, Thomas Reid, and Bernard Williams. New to the second edition are Shoemaker's seminal essay "Persons and Their Pasts," selections from the important and previously unpublished Clark-Collins correspondence, and a new paper by Perry discussing Williams.

Author Biography

John Perry is Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, host of the award-winning radio program Philosophy Talk, and author of many books, including Knowledge, Possibility, and Conciousness, and Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	p. vii
Introduction
The Problem of Personal Identity	p. 3
Versions of the Memory Theory
Of Identity and Diversity	p. 33
The Soul	p. 53
Personal Identity	p. 73
Criticisms of the Memory Theory
Of Personal Identity	p. 99
Of Identity	p. 107
Of Mr. Locke's Account of Our Personal Identity	p. 113
Personal Identity and Memory	p. 119
Personal Identity, Memory, and the Problem of Circularity	p. 135
Abandonment of Personal Identity
Our Idea of Identity	p. 159
Of Personal Identity	p. 161
Second Thoughts	p. 173
Personal Identity and Survival
The Self and the Future	p. 179
Personal Identity	p. 199
The Unity of Consciousness
Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness	p. 227
Selections for the Second Edition
Persons and Their Pasts	p. 249
Selections from the Clarke-Collins Correspondence	p. 283
Locke and Collins, Clarke and Butler, on Successive Persons	p. 315
Williams on the Self and the Future	p. 327
Suggestions for Further Reading	p. 345
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