Browsing by Subject "personal identity"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Dion, Theon, and the Many-Thinkers Problem
    (2004) Burke, Michael B.
    Dion is a full-bodied man. Theon is that part of him which consists of all of him except his left foot. What becomes of Dion and Theon when Dion’s left foot is amputated? Employing the doctrine of sortal essentialism, in Burke 1994 (J. Phil.) I defended a surprising position last defended by Chrysippus: that Dion survives while the seemingly unscathed Theon perishes. This paper defends that position against objections by Stone, Carter, Olson, and others. Most notably, I offer here a novel, conservative solution to the many-thinkers problem, a solution that enables us to accept the existence of brain-containing person-parts (such as the pre-amputation Theon) while denying that those person-parts are thinking, conscious beings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Is My Head a Person?
    (Ontos Verlag., 2003) Burke, Michael B.
    It 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.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Plasticity, Numerical Identity,and Transitivity
    (Philosophy Documentation Center, 2022-09) Kahn, Samuel; Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    In a recent paper, Chunghyoung Lee argues that, because zygotes are developmentally plastic, they cannot be numerically identical to the singletons into which they develop, thereby undermining conceptionism. In this short paper, I respond to Lee. I argue, first, that, on the most popular theories of personal identity, zygotic plasticity does not undermine conceptionism, and, second, that, even overlooking this first issue, Lee’s plasticity argument is problematic. My goal in all of this is not to take a stand in the abortion debate, which I remain silent on here, but, rather, to push for the conclusion that transitivity fails when we are talking about numerical identity of non-abstract objects.