Jeremy Johnson

Prof. Jeffrey M. Wood

PHIL 1000
12/10/2015

Problem of Personal Identity

As early philosopher Heraclitus notably puts it, No man ever steps in the same river
twice, for its not the same river and hes not the same man. This quote gives a very simple
understanding of the problem of personal identity that points to the more obvious observation of
our ever so changing surroundings. If our surroundings are constantly changing, what is it that
preserves the self over time? What constitutes a person? These questions becomes very
abstract when analyzed from different hierarchical levels of perspective such as a subjective
experience dealing with the mind, or an objective one that more intuitively deals with that of the
physical body. In the following I will be addressing core problems and questions about what it
means to be a person, or have a personal identity.
Persistence through time is one of the biggest problems when it comes to personal
identity. What does it means to be x in one time and x in another? Are we a purely biological
organism that is always changing or are there other factors, such as the soul, allowing for a
persistence that lasts well past death? If biological, then death is the end for the self as we know
it, but if the soul exists then there is an authentic self that persists outside physical boundaries.
The theory of the soul is one of the most popularized notions of personal identity, it is something
that perseveres through death and is you in your purest form. If the soul exists then life after
death would make sense, but there is no way for us to know for certain if a soul truly exists.

More intuitively people refer to personal identity that which is identified from the
physical; the body. There is still the question of what criteria needs to be met for past me to be
identifiable with the future me. How can something be identical and different at varying
intervals? The body theory implies that whatever happens to your body is still you, meaning,
John is John because of his body. The persistence question remains: What makes child John the
same as adult John? They are clearly different bodies, but both are identified as John. The mental
faculties seem to be an important factor in someones identity, or do they? The brain changes
over time as well as science has shown the growth and degeneration of neural circuitry.
We are seeing a pattern of problems arise from distinguishing the self with that of our
constantly changing environment. What then even constitutes one to be a person? If we are to
have a personal identity then we should also be able to define what it means to be a person or
have personhood. This seems to be a hard question to explain as well, Wikipedias definition of a
person: a person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting
personhood, which in turn is defined differently by different authors in different disciplines
(Wikipedia 2015) It was not long ago that slaves were considered to have personhood and that
of fetal rights are still in strong conflict. Personhood, person and the self all appear to be
synonymous amongst each other and something everyone has a different view on.
In The Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume argues that the self does not really
exist by saying, that they (mankind) are nothing but a bundle or collection of different
perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
and movement (Hume 1738, Sect. VI) Meaning that our idea of the authentic self is merely an
illusion of a bunch of concepts and we are only made up of atoms that follow physical,
measurable laws; nothing else, according to Hume.

The problem of personal identity seems to create more controversy when trying to
pinpoint an area to call our own. The mind-body problem is a huge factor in the search for a
personal identity, we are trying to find something that alone connects with the individual and this
seems to be the issue; we are missing a constant. Some believe, like John Locke, that this
constant exists in the consciousness and that memory is the factor for personal identity over time;
but others are not so ready to say that a self even exists (Locke).
A theory that seems to address all these problems and not leave much to question is the
no-self theory. This theory closely resembles that of David Humes bundle theory with a
correction that the idea of a self being associated to a bundle is incompatible with our perception
of self, even if it is an illusion. In a paper titled The No Self Theory: Hume, Buddhism, and
Personal Identity, Giles uses the analogy of a melody (Giles 1993, 178) in comparison to that of
Humes concept of the self through bundled concepts. Showing how Hume does not allow for
an object to have multiple parts or change says, For what is a melody but one thing which is a
succession of other things? (Giles 1993, 179) The Buddhist ideology compares greatly to that of
the no-self theory because just as the melody is made up of notes, so is existence made up of
parts to create the whole.
Giles uses Humes theory as a foundation of his, although a strong theory, Giles disagrees
with Humes idea that parts share no relation to one another. He shows us the correlation to parts
in the syntax structure of our language and if we were to accept that parts constantly changing
did not resemble some precursor we would have to create a new word when noticing the slightest
of changes. With the notion that there is not self, Giles questions the importance of action of
perceiving one as a self with the declaration that when we become aware of the self, it is
only a particular collection (Giles 1993, 190) of ideas that are connected. How we become

self-aware is the real question for Giles, going through stages that allow the brain to create a
sense of awareness, but showing that there are instances like listening to music where we are not
aware of the ego, or self.
By using the Buddhist theory of the five aggregates of life Gile believes that when we
identify the ego or self, we are identifying with one of the aggregates because of our confusion
that language is practical or decorative. The use of language to separate things has then confused
us with the notion that the self also refers to an entity that is something on its own and not just
a word to construct a pragmatic system.
The no-self theory that is closely related to Buddhism has many solutions to why we
cannot seem to identify the self, but also seems to create some confusion in the process. In the
case of cognitive closure, it explains that there may be things that we are limited to understand.
Professor Colin Mcginn from the University of Miami has coined the term Transcendental
Naturalism, (Mcginn 2012) which is saying that we are limited by our biology to really solve our
philosophical conundrums. This seems to be the where science and religion end as well, all we
can really do comes down to what can be measured and applied. A tension zone between
temporal causations seems to be obstructed from our view and may never surface to answer our
call of the ultimate questions.

Citations
Web article
Giles, James. "The No-Self Theory: Hume, Buddhism, and Personal Identity." 2012
pag. Print.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Olson, Eric T., "Personal Identity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall
2015 Edition), Edward N.
NCBI
Nimbalkar, Namita. "John Locke on Personal Identity." Mens Sana Monographs.
Medknow Publications, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.
Wikipedia
"Personal Identity." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Web.
Wikipedia
"Person." Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person. Web.
Ebook
Hume, David. "A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE." Web. Sect VI