Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza

Spinoza on Mind, Body, and Numerical Identity

Spinoza claims that the mind and body are “one and the same.” But he also claims that the mind thinks and does not move, whereas the body moves and does not think. How can we reconcile these claims? As a way of sharpening the challenge, let’s restate it as a puzzle involving Spinoza’s favorite philosophical character: Peter. Suppose that Peter woke up one morning and decided to go for a run. Le...

Personal Identity and Uploading

Objections to uploading may be parsed into substrate issues, dealing with the computer platform of upload and personal identity. This paper argues that the personal identity issues of uploading are no more or less challenging than those of bodily transfer often discussed in the philosophical literature. It is argued that what is important in personal identity involves both token and type identi...

Utilitarianism and Personal Identity

Brain birth and personal identity

The concept of brain birth has assumed a position ofsome significance in discussions on the status ofthe human embryo and on the point in embryonic developmentprior to which experimental procedures may be undertaken on human embryos. This paper reviews previous discussions of this concept, which have placed brain birth at various points between 12 days' and 20 weeks' gestation and which have em...

Personal Identity and Practical Concerns

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assum...