Burke, Michael B.2016-02-182016-02-182003In K. Petrus (ed.), On Human Persons, 107-125.https://hdl.handle.net/1805/8361It is hard to see why the head and other brain-containing parts of persons are not themselves persons, or at least thinking, conscious beings. Some theorists have sought to reconcile us to the existence of thinking person-parts. Others have sought ways to avoid them, but by radical theories that abandon the metaphysic implicit in ordinary ways of thinking. This paper offers a novel, conservative solution, one on which the heads and other brain-containing parts of persons do exist but are neither persons, thinkers, nor conscious beings. A much briefer statement of the solution is found in section 5 of Burke 2004.enmany thinkers problemproblem of the manymaterial constitutionpersonal identityArticle