In this essay I will first explain John Locke’s statement, “whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions is the same person to whom they both belong” (278). Then I will elaborate on the criteria outlined by Locke to describe the concept of a persistent self. Following the flushing out of Locke’s reasoning, I will delve into David Hume’s concept of the Self as a bundle of perceptions. The juxtaposition of these two propositions of the nature of self will show that John Locke’s idea of persistent self is flawed when examined against David Hume’s concept of self as a bundle of perceptions.
Locke states that, “whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions is the same person to whom they both belong” (278). What he means by this is that the self is persistent to the extent of the memories held by an individual. Locke believes the self to be an immaterial thing, external to the physical body.
Locke defines self to be, “a conscious, thinking thing which is sensible or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself as far as that consciousness extends” (278). The self is self-interested and capable of self-identification. This differs from the concept of “man” which in Locke’s usage means others perception of an individual. For example, under Locke’s definition of self if one were to lose all of their memories, then they are not the same self as before, but they are the same “man.” Therefore, Locke acknowledges that the self is potentially subject to rapid, fundamental change external to any physical variation.
Locke’s definition of self lends itself to a chain view of self. The chain view of self can be used to extend the persistent self even ...
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...ntity. However, this is not the case because these changes constitute an entirely new boat as each part of it changes. The new boat is closely linked to the old, but the fact remains that with each of its new parts the boat’s original identity was fundamentally altered.
Upon examination of the concepts of diversity and identity, Locke’s statement that, “whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions is the same person to whom they both belong” (278), is shown to be flawed. Locke makes the mistake of confusing identity for diversity in his statement. He makes the mistake of logic which Hume outlines in his example of gradual change as illustrated by a boat undergoing repairs. By taking the varied forms of self which occur over time, and using their shared link of memory to call them one individual identity, Locke mistakes identity for diversity.
Personal identity is a nonphysical structure and cannot be found within the soul or in the body. Due to the separation between consciousness and body, Locke proclaims that physical injuries do not influence who somebody is. Personal identity is limited to an individuals compacity to continue the sameness of consciousness. Locke states that “whatever past actions [a man] cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, can be no more concerned in than if [it] had never been done”, (Locke 4). which proclaims that the forgotten experience was not part of them at all. According to Locke, who a person is, can be tracked by their memories of their life previously. Therefore, Locke’s views imply the body of Clive is constantly harboring new consciousness that comprises different personal identities. Since each “new” life of Clive every few seconds is oblivious to the lives before, the multiple personal identities must not be a part of his present state or
John Locke is a seventeenth century philosopher who believed that government should be based around the people rather than the power of one person. Equality and property were two factors that Locke considered to be the key to a great society. Locke begins his writings with a discussion on individual property and how each man body is his own property. This leads Locke into the argument that man can obtain property only by using his own labor. an example Locke gives is the picking of an apple. The apple is the property of the man who used his labor to pick it. He goes on to say “A person may only acquire as many things in this way as he or she can reasonably use to their advantage”. With the discussion of property Locke leads into the discussion of trade and monetary value stating that it is natural of man to w...
The question of personal identity is very intuitive, yet very difficult to define. Essentially, what makes you, you? John Locke was one philosopher who attempted to answer this question. He proposed a psychological theory to define personal identity. His theory does have some merit, but it is not a correct definition of personal identity, since there are some counter-examples that cannot be accounted for. My argument will prove that Locke’s theory of personal identity is false.
To answer the question of whether a person can persist through time, it is important to consider what is meant by a ‘person’. This consideration seems trivial at first, and if one were to take the physicalist route, it would be – a person persists through time by existing as the same human animal. However, it is in fact a lot harder to pinpoint what the ‘self’ actually consists of if we were to take the psychological route and consider the voice inside our heads, the voice that thinks and experiences and suffers. What is this mysterious immaterial phenomenon that we hold to be our personal identity? And what makes it the same entity as the one yesterday? Although these questions don’t have an explicit answer yet, in this essay I will attempt to give an insight on how they could be answered, offering a psychological
In conclusion, John Locke’s philosophy states that the experiences that people go through can determine who they are. People go through good and bad experiences that can change who they are. In the book Frankenstein, the monster went through experiences that made him a good person; ultimately, the negative experiences outweigh the good, causing he to become a bad person. In the end, it is the experiences that count that stand out the most in a person’s life making them who they are - proving Locke’s philosophy to be
Locke first outlined his view of personal identity in Chapter XXVII of book II in ‘An Essay concerning Human Understanding’ however faced a number of criticisms. This essay will assess how convincing John Locke’s account of personal identity is, whilst analyzing Reid and Berkeley’s criticisms of his view. Locke’s psychological account of personal identity is not a persuasive one due to the inconsistencies that are highlighted by Reid and Berkeley and I will defend this view in this essay. Locke’s account of personal identity leads to a number of contradictions which he attempts to respond to, however whilst barely addressing the criticisms he faces, his responses are also unsuccessful as both Reid and Berkeley counter each response further.
For individual property to exist, there must be a means for individuals to appropriate the things around them. Locke starts out with the idea of the property of person; each person owns his or her own body, and all the labor that they perform with the body. When an individual adds their own labor, their own property, to a foreign object or good, that object becomes their own because they have added their labor. This appropriation of goods does not demand the consent of humankind in general, each person has license to appropriate things in this way by individual initiative.
Locke viewed the identity of living entities in a different light. Above, change in mass constituted a change in identity. But, in living entities a change in mass does not affect the identity of the object. Locke uses the example of the oak tree. It starts off as a sapling and grows into a huge oak tree, with a massive change in mass. That oak tree could be subjected to the cutting of branches, and the winter fall of leaves, however it still remains an oak tree because it continues the life of a tree. It maintains the same functional arrangements of components (Blackburn, 1999: 125-126). An interesting example is raised by Blackburn in assessing “how much change to tolerate while still regarding it as the same ‘thing’” (Blackburn, 1999:127). ‘Theseus’ ship’ is used to illustrate this. The ship goes on a long voyage and is in need of constant repair and maintenance. By the end of the voyage, all the components of the ship have been changed.
This essay discusses John Locke statement: “it is as insignificant to ask, whether Man’s Will be free, as to ask, whether his Sleep be Swift, or his Vertue square: Liberty being as little applicable to the Will, as swiftness of Motion is to Sleep, or squareness to Vertue.” Locke came to this conclusion while writing on the subject Of Power in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Subsequently, I argue whether Locke is successful in establishing this parameter against the Will’s being Free. I conclude that Locke makes an inconsistent and unclear argument about this specific subject. This conclusion will be address in this essay. In order to perform this task, I will first state the argument that Locke makes. An explanation of the argument will follow after. Next, I will offer an argument that contradicts Locke’s view. Finally, I will demonstrate how Locke’s argument can be attacked, making it unstable to its previous claim.
The Egocentric Predicament is a problem associated with our ideas and how we perceive the world. Locke believes all knowledge come from personal ideas; these ideas are based upon our perception of the world. However, if we only see the world based on our own ideas how can there be any external or objective world. This begs questions similar to; can I really know an objective world exists? If there is no external world do any other minds –or ideas- other than my own exist? How can we ever test reality if it is our own mental construction? Locke concludes that we do have some knowing in relation to the subjective and objective reality that they do exist, but that we do not have a clear idea between one and of the other.
I will argue that Locke believed that if you remain the same person, there are various entities contained in my body and soul composite that do not remain the same over time, or that we can conceive them changing. These entities are matter, organism (human), person (rational consciousness and memory), and the soul (immaterial thinking substance). This is a intuitive interpretation that creates many questions and problems. I will evaluate Locke's view by explaining what is and what forms personal identity, and then explaining how these changes do conceivably occur while a human remains the same person.
The personal identity continues to be same since a person is the same rational thing, same self, and thus the personal identity never changes (Strawson, 2014). Locke also suggests that personal identity has to change when the own self-changes and therefore even a little change in the personal identity has to change the self. He also provides an argument that a person cannot question what makes something today to remain the same thing it was a day ago or yesterday because one must specify the kind of thing it was. This is because something might be a piece of plastic but be a sharp utensil and thus suggest that the continuity of consciousness is required for something to remain the same yesterday and today. John Locke also suggests that two different things of a similar type cannot be at the same time at the same place. Therefore, the criteria of the personal identity theory of Locke depends on memory or consciousness remaining the same (Strawson, 2014). This is because provided a person has memory continuity and can remember being the same individual, feeling, thinking, and doing specific things, the individual can remain to be the same person irrespective of bodily
John Locke believes that A is identical with B, if and only if, A remembers the thoughts, feelings, and actions had or done by B from a first-person point of view. This shows that the important feature, memory, is linking a person from the beginning of their life to the end of their life. Locke’s memory theory would look something like this: The self changes over time, so it may seem like personal identity changes too. However, even if you are changing, you are still retaining past memories. Therefore, if you can retain memories, memories are the link between you and an earlier you, so personal identity persists over time. So, memory is the necessary and sufficient condition of personal
Hume believes that there is no concept of self. That each moment we are a new being since nothing is constant from one moment to the next. There is no continuous “I” that is unchanging from one moment to the next. That self is a bundle of perceptions and emotions there is nothing that forms a self-impression which is essential to have an idea of one self. The mind is made up of a processions of perceptions.
...have struggled with the nature of human beings, especially with the concept of “self”. What Plato called “soul, Descartes named the “mind”, while Hume used the term “self”. This self, often visible during hardships, is what one can be certain of, whose existence is undoubtable. Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am” concept of transcendental self with just the conscious mind is too simplistic to capture the whole of one’s self. Similarly, the empirical self’s idea of brain in charge of one’s self also shows a narrow perspective. Hume’s bundle theory seeks to provide the distinction by claiming that a self is merely a habitual way of discussing certain perceptions. Although the idea of self is well established, philosophical insight still sees that there is no clear presentation of essential self and thus fails to prove that the true, essential self really exists.