1. Philosophy JAN. 12 Objective Opener:
Understand the problem of personal identity by identifying the conditions for identity and evaluating Animalism and Soul Theory.
If you had no body, would you still be you?

2. Chapter 4 The Problem of Personal Identity
How is it possible to retain our identities over time given that we are constantly changing?
What is it for a person at one time to be identical to a person at another time?
Can we survive the death of our bodies if we don’t retain our identity?
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3. Thought Probe: Uploading
Suppose you were suffering from a terminal illness and your only chance for survival was to upload your mind into a robot body.
Would you do it? Why or why not?
Is uploading into a robot body on Earth relevantly different from uploading into a celestial body in heaven?

4. The Problem of Change
How can something change and yet remain the same thing?
If something changes, it’s different. And if it’s different, it’s no longer the same.

5. Qualitative vs. Numerical Identity
Two objects are qualitatively identical if and only if they share the same properties or qualities.
For example: two cue balls from the same manufacturer.
Objects referred to by different names or existing at different times are numerically identical if and only if they are one and the same.
For example: Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens.

6. Accidental vs. Essential Properties
An accidental property is one that something can lose without ceasing to exist.
For example: The length of your hair.
An essential property is one that something cannot lose without ceasing to exist.
For example: Your being a person.

7. Thought Probe: A Different Person
Reading: 2 min bio
Kathleen Soliah (a.k.a. Sara Jane Olson) now is qualitatively different from the Kathleen Soliah of the 1970s.
Is she also numerically different? Has the old Kathleen Soliah ceased to exist?
Is she different enough that she should get a reduced sentence?

8. Descartes’ Wax Thought Experiment
Class Discussion
Handout

9. Section 4.1 We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
Self as Substance

10. John Locke on Personal Identity

11. Locke on Identity Conditions
Masses of matter like rocks or lumps of clay retain their identity as long as they retain the atoms out of which they are made.
Living things like plants or animals retain their identity as long as they retain their functional organization.

12. Thought Probe: Hobbes’s Ship of Theseus
Suppose that the planks in Theseus’s ship have been replaced one by one over the years until none of the original planks remained.
Suppose further that the original planks were saved and put back into their original order.
Which ship is Theseus’s?

13. Animalism
The doctrine that identical persons are identical human animals.
According to animalism, once our bodies die, we cease to exist.
So our only hope for eternal life is some form of resurrection.

14. Thought Probe: Safe Cloning
“The Raelians eventually hope to develop adult clones into which humans could transfer their brains.”
Suppose that this procedure turns out to be as safe as in vitro fertilization.
Would it be wrong to try to achieve immortality this way?

15. Crash Course: Identity

16. Homework Due Tuesday 4/17 4.1 Assignments
Bring a Hard copy of your II#1 results
Online Discussion