Card 1.3.2 · Root I — Metaphysics
Personal Identity
Are you the same person you were at five?
This question asks what makes someone the same person over time, despite continuous change in body, memory and character.
Where it sits
Under 1.3 Philosophy of mind. Borders 1.4.1 Persistence and change, 3.4 Moral psychology.
The rival answers
Most rows answer the persistence question — what makes a past or future person you. Narrative identity chiefly answers a different one: which traits and actions are truly yours.
| Position | What makes you the same | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Biological view (animalism) | Continuity of the same human organism | Critics object that transplant cases suggest you would go where your cerebrum goes |
| Brain theory | Continuity of the brain specifically | Hemisphere-transplant cases seem to produce two equal candidates |
| Memory theory | Memory connections to past experiences | Direct memory yields verdicts inconsistent with transitivity (Reid); memories are lost and can be false |
| Psychological continuity | Overlapping chains of memory, character and intention | Duplication cases produce two equal claimants |
| Narrative identity | The self-told narrative that makes a life one’s own | Answers mainly the characterization question; critics find it too permissive as a persistence criterion |
| No-self (anattā) | No permanent, substantial self; continuity is explained through causally connected psycho-physical processes rather than an enduring substance | Must account for responsibility and special concern without appeal to a permanent substantial self |
| Soul theory | An immaterial substance persists | Critics object that there is no independent way to track it |
Key figures
| Figure | Dates | Tradition | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Buddha | c. 480–400 BCE (disputed) | Indian Buddhist | No enduring self; continuity without identity |
| Nagasena | trad. 2nd c. BCE | Indian Buddhist | A literary interlocutor: the chariot (a person as a conventional designation over parts) and the flame (continuity that is "neither the same nor another") |
| John Locke | 1632–1704 | European modern | Personal identity as sameness of consciousness, reaching back to past actions and thoughts; the prince and the cobbler |
| Thomas Reid | 1710–1796 | European modern | The brave officer objection to a direct-memory reading of Locke |
| Derek Parfit | 1942–2017 | Analytic | Identity is not what matters; what matters is Relation R—psychological connectedness and/or continuity, with the right kind of cause |
| Yājñavalkya | attested from 8th c. BCE | Indian | The self as the unseen seer, approached by negation (neti neti) — a doctrine of the self rather than of persistence |
Connections
→ 1.3, 1.1.1 · ↔ 1.4.1, 3.4, 6.20, 1.7 · ◇ biological view, brain theory, memory theory, psychological continuity, narrative identity, no-self, soul theory · ○ Axial Age; Early modern; Modern; Table 2
→ depends on · ↔ borders: genuine overlap, neither prior · ◇ answered by: points from question to answers · ○ appears in: points to the timeline and the comparisons
The full card is in the book
In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 48.
On Coordinates of Thought
Conversations about this question in Personal identity:
- There is no self: the Buddhist and Humean bundle views are basically right 7 replies
- Parfit was right: identity is not what matters in survival 6 replies
- If Nāgasena’s chariot argument removes the self, it removes the chariot too 6 replies
- Reading group: Nāgasena’s chariot and flame in the Questions of King Milinda 6 replies
- I have forgotten most of my childhood. On Locke’s view, am I still that child? 5 replies