Will.I.Am Or Was it Paul?
Brian Caldwell
Baristas need your name, bartenders need your age, retailers need your PIN number, and job applications often have the gall to ask the existential question: who are you? However, I am doubtful I will be getting any paid job if I simply write: Brian. But surely there is something more to me than just an amalgam of traits I post to Facebook? Certainly there is a core essence that describes me, that perseveres through time, and remains the same? This is an age-old problem: how can I still be me if my constituent parts are continually in flux? Yet, on the other hand how can I grow, change and mature if I am incarcerated in my own identity? The matter of personal identity is implicated in a wide array of important topics and without a belief in some entity that is essentially ‘you,’ one cannot make sense of the social concepts on which we rely, such as personal responsibility and freedom of the will. Famously, philosopher John Locke devised a theory to account for personal identity. Locke argues that a person is composed entirely of a string of memories, and a person’s awareness that they are strung together links that present person with the past self. Hume, another well-known philosopher, challenges the conventional notion with his claim that the self is just the sum of our experiences that succeed one another. Buddhists straightforwardly claim a reduction is impossible and advance what is essentially an eliminatist theory. I contend many philosophers engage in a form of prevarication that conflates several crucial terms and improperly reduces personal identity to illusory status or to only partial, incomplete explanations of personal identity. Specifically, personal identity must necessarily be understood as a broad process, not something that remains static or is too narrowly asked to adhere to properties.
For John Locke personal identity consisted in the continuity of consciousness, while two other, and perhaps less urgent types of identity, body/life, consisted in sameness and continuity of life, respectively. Essential to Locke’s conception of personal identity is memory, for “consciousness alone makes the self. Nothing but the consciousness can unite remote existences into the same person” (Locke 370). Locke posits that, like a set of dominos, each memory segues into the next one, with the mind acutely aware of each succession. Though the particles we are composed of may flow in and out of us, and our distinctive “souls” temperaments, or personalities may morph, as long as there exists a contiguity or casual string of memories extending backwards into the past the self is retained, according to Locke. In his famous prince and the pauper scenario Locke demonstrates the apparent validity of his claim by having us imagine the memories of a prince and a pauper switched into the other’s body (Pojman 361). Because continuity is maintained the man, (different from the person), seen as the prince would insist personhood subsisted in the identity of the pauper because he remembered being him and has all the psychological hallmarks of being a pauper. All moral responsibility and the lattice of ethics are built upon this awareness and implicit assumption that each individual is responsible for their actions because they are conscious of their actions. Thus, Locke believes that each time consciousness of this succession is lost, the mind and the ‘self’ cease to exist, as do the ties the individual maintained to the external world.
The stream of consciousness theory championed by Locke is an intuitively attractive theory because it accounts for the persistence of the self, but also justifies the uniqueness of each individual. Locke makes it clear that “self is that conscious thinking thing” and that substance is essentially superfluous cartilage (Pojman 365). Therefore, Locke’s conception of personal identity is quite separate from the body or any substance and is contained solely in the same continued consciousness, which he maintains is also distinct from the soul, (soul meaning inclinations, tendencies and idiosyncrasies of a person). He shows the tendency to identify oneself with the soul as a misinterpretation, (after all, couldn’t someone have the soul of Socrates?) because it lacks the uniqueness needed for an individual person (Pojman 368). I contend this is a mistake.
Hume, on the other hand, posited his own conception of person identity that he likens to a theater: a procession of perceptions with no real form or unifying aspect (Hume 134). Thus he concludes that we are, “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions” (Hume 136). Hume’s proposal comes on the heels of what appears to be careful consideration about how a person may remain the same if we are continually bombarded with new perceptions that necessitate change. He finds the ideas of an enduring or invariable entity fallacious, a convenient illusion we co-opt to maintain a sense of order. Reflection, he says, gives us this false notion that they are specially united, but in reality are just the sum of our perceptions, nothing more. In response to Locke, Hume asserts memory merely discovers, rather than produces, personal identity by allowing us a broad view of many of our perceptions.
The key issue with Hume is that he seems to confuse the word same and identity, thinking of them as completely equitable synonyms, which causes big problems for his definition. Hume says, “we have this distinct idea of an object that remains invariable through...time and this idea we call that of identity or sameness” (Pojman 370). By its definition, identity can be flexible, malleable, encapsulating, and dynamic. Identities really only needs one parameter, one predicate, one criterion, for their subject to be classified properly. Sameness denotes absolute uniformity in all ways. Assume for a moment a person did remain uniform in all ways throughout time, while their phone changes. The thing I call “their phone” still has the same identity, because it is the object I identify as that person having, even though the physical object has actually been transferred. Thus, when Locke says that personal identity consists in a string of memories, that is his one condition, his criterion for personal identity. As I will show this view is perhaps errant but not for the same equivocal error Hume makes.
In a departure from both Hume and Locke, the Buddhist theory teaches that personal identity, and in point of fact, all identity is illusory. In a dialogue between the King and a wise sage the sage explains to the King why identities are merely empty names, comparing the self to a chariot and asking the King to define it. “Pray, your majesty, are pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner staff, yoke, reins, and goad unitedly the chariot?” to which the king answers no (Pojman 373).
The common sense notion is that you accumulate things, gain things. You experience things, desires, emotions, and there exists a subconscious notion that there is a you, something that at its core, is essentially you. But this way of thinking (one owns one’s personal identity) is a form of verbal equivocation that leads to a category mistake.
A category mistake is a semantic error committed when one improperly assigns things belonging to one type of group to another. The Buddhist sage commits this error when explaining to the king that chariot is not unitedly the chariot, but it is interesting since the sage recognizes that there is only one thing, since most assume there are two. It’s simply a word game or pun gone wrong. If Bob reserves a table at a romantic restaurant for the Johnsons, and arrives with his wife, Susan, the hostess would not say, “I see Bob, and I see Susan, but where are the Johnsons?” The moniker given to united constituents leads many to believe there are two things, when in reality there is just one, but to invalidate the name, to assume something is illusory or superfluous, is clearly misguided. Hume, likewise, draws a similar conclusion on the basis that a static entity, a possessor, does not exist. Since, for him this is a premise of personal identity he says identity is nothing more than a bundle. But there need not be an audience to view the show; why can’t the show itself be its own audience, or more appropriately, why does there need to be an audience. To ask for an entity that can apprehend or witness is too much, it is ascribing dissimilar properties to one concept.
The notion that all names require or necessitate an essential feature, a particular property or single core that can be recognized is easily and effectively challenged; some names are such that they can be successfully used even when there is no property or set of property they connote. We must tread lightly here; so to avoid confusion let me clearly explain what I mean by property and criteria. By property I mean trait or attribute while I use criterion intending it to be broader, fuzzier and capable of describing relations, processes and connections. This linguistic concept describing a fuzziness or web of relational connections that cohere into a broader concept is nothing new; the philosopher Wittgenstein called this familial resemblance gave the example of game (Wittgenstein& 24). This term is effectively used in English and yet, when we try to evince even one common property to all games that also distinguishes them from other things we can never find it. Some involve skill, chance, or endurance, some involve two people, and others involve whole teams, yet it is hard to say every game has one single property. No one feature is necessary. There can be unity without uniformity.
It seems up to this point the theory of Locke has emerged the least tattered and susceptible to criticism. Yet Locke’s exclusion of key psychological features, or the soul, is primarily where his logic falters. A succession of memories and a consciousness of this succession is hardly a person, merely a component to one. As a staunch empiricist Locke insists that there are no tendencies or inclinations relevant to a person uninformed by experience, just organismal machinations and processes. But what if I forget something? What about when we sleep? Thus is seems possible that personal identity may not exist, if there are gaps in memory. And this reveals that there are some cracks in Locke’s theory, intuitively at least.
Allow me to demonstrate the complexity implied by Locke’s repudiation from certain psychological characteristics with a continuation of the prince and pauper experiment given by Locke with three different thought experiments. Imagine two persons have just had their brains switched by some medical procedure. In the first experiment their memories are switched. In the second merely their personalities, temperaments, and inclinations are switched but their memories erased. In the final scenario they are told their memories and personalities will be erased, then replaced with alternative memories and psychological traits, but their current body will be tortured. In the first scenario almost everyone would rationally identify with the memories and not with one’s body. In the second case everyone would still certainly identify with the mental characteristics, despite their exclusion of memory. In fact, numerous films, like Momento, The Bourne Trilogy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Vow are predicated upon this assumption. The audience has no trouble believing the person is by and large the same person; they behave and are treated as the same person, despite the loss of what Locke would classify as their very personhood. In the final scenario I contend most would identify solely with the body about to be tortured, fearing the forthcoming pain and misery.
The intuitions elicited by these three cases point in opposite directions for developing a theory of personal identity. The first, and second to a lesser extent, suggest that the persistence of one’s psychological characteristics is necessary and sufficient for the persistence of self. The third frame suggests that persistence of one’s psychological characteristics is not necessary for a person to persist, for under that frame it seems that one persists, (to feel the pain), even after distinctive psychological characteristics have been eliminated. What is most striking about the third frame is that it seems to counter any psychological account because, at the very least, the psychological approach says that in order to survive, some psychological characteristics must remain. An obvious alternative, however, is to view the persistence of a person as instead dependent on some measure of physical connectedness as well. If personal identity is understood as a process, rather than thing, if it has criteria rather than properties, perhaps this problem may be resolved.
Following philosophical tradition, we can understand a person to be a more or less autonomous agent that thinks, acts on the basis of reasons, and is subject of perceptual experiences. Yet there is nothing intrinsic in such a notion that stipulates a person must remain the same things to retain its identity. Does a library stop being a library when someone checks out a book? What about when someone brings one back? No, similar to a person, the library is dynamic and flexible, not defined by any bundles, strings, successions or particulars, rather it is a concept in motion. Of course there are memories, desires, sensations and so forth but they are all interconnected, integrated, overlapped in a very precise, ordered way that constantly informs and builds upon the architecture of the past. Each attribute that we consider belonging to us contributes to this dynamic network, and it is important to note awareness of each particular is not required. There can be an ebb and flow of particular properties, but as long as the criterion of interconnectedness is maintained it can surely meet some standard of personal identity. Essentially, you are the sum of all the reactions, influences and processes suffusing each moment of life. But aspiring complete and delineate that sum is too unwieldy-eliciting certain parts given the context is more than sufficient. The starkly divergent conclusions demonstrated by the continuation of the Prince and the Pauper are explained if we adopt this model; someone will identify with the scheme most closely resembling the operation of the functional self, even if this is only a partial component of the true self. Is that fellow over there exactly the same person as he was a moment ago? No, but the identity of that person has not changed. So when, like in third experiment, we only have one thing with which to identify ourselves, (body), then we readily align ourselves with it.
So have I solved this age-old dilemma of personal identity? Probably not, but it seems clear that there is still room for debate. Hume’s theory, as well as Buddhist’s, seem to commit a category mistake but they do raise helpful points and effectively show the difficulty of demarcating a clear boundary for personal identity. Though Locke’s stream of consciousness is very appealing it is not without issues for it ignores certain elements that people willingly and frequently admit constitute a part of their identities and is vulnerable to criticisms. Ultimately, though, it seems to this author that understanding personal identity as a function of a process rather than a thing leaves it far less, (though perhaps not entirely), susceptible to these criticisms.
Works Cited
Hume, David. "Of Personal Identity." A Treatise of Human Nature. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 133- 39. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
<http://michaeljohnsonphilosophy.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/5010_Hume_Treatise_Human_Nature.pdf>.
Locke, John. "Of Identity and Diversity." Essay concerning Human Understanding. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Locke on Personal Identity. Jack Lynch. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
<http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/locke227.html>.
Pojman, Louis P. Philosophy: The Quest for Truth. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, and G. E. M. Anscombe. Philosophical Investigations: The German Text, with a Revised English Translation. Malden, MA [etc.].: Blackwell, 2008. Print.
For John Locke personal identity consisted in the continuity of consciousness, while two other, and perhaps less urgent types of identity, body/life, consisted in sameness and continuity of life, respectively. Essential to Locke’s conception of personal identity is memory, for “consciousness alone makes the self. Nothing but the consciousness can unite remote existences into the same person” (Locke 370). Locke posits that, like a set of dominos, each memory segues into the next one, with the mind acutely aware of each succession. Though the particles we are composed of may flow in and out of us, and our distinctive “souls” temperaments, or personalities may morph, as long as there exists a contiguity or casual string of memories extending backwards into the past the self is retained, according to Locke. In his famous prince and the pauper scenario Locke demonstrates the apparent validity of his claim by having us imagine the memories of a prince and a pauper switched into the other’s body (Pojman 361). Because continuity is maintained the man, (different from the person), seen as the prince would insist personhood subsisted in the identity of the pauper because he remembered being him and has all the psychological hallmarks of being a pauper. All moral responsibility and the lattice of ethics are built upon this awareness and implicit assumption that each individual is responsible for their actions because they are conscious of their actions. Thus, Locke believes that each time consciousness of this succession is lost, the mind and the ‘self’ cease to exist, as do the ties the individual maintained to the external world.
The stream of consciousness theory championed by Locke is an intuitively attractive theory because it accounts for the persistence of the self, but also justifies the uniqueness of each individual. Locke makes it clear that “self is that conscious thinking thing” and that substance is essentially superfluous cartilage (Pojman 365). Therefore, Locke’s conception of personal identity is quite separate from the body or any substance and is contained solely in the same continued consciousness, which he maintains is also distinct from the soul, (soul meaning inclinations, tendencies and idiosyncrasies of a person). He shows the tendency to identify oneself with the soul as a misinterpretation, (after all, couldn’t someone have the soul of Socrates?) because it lacks the uniqueness needed for an individual person (Pojman 368). I contend this is a mistake.
Hume, on the other hand, posited his own conception of person identity that he likens to a theater: a procession of perceptions with no real form or unifying aspect (Hume 134). Thus he concludes that we are, “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions” (Hume 136). Hume’s proposal comes on the heels of what appears to be careful consideration about how a person may remain the same if we are continually bombarded with new perceptions that necessitate change. He finds the ideas of an enduring or invariable entity fallacious, a convenient illusion we co-opt to maintain a sense of order. Reflection, he says, gives us this false notion that they are specially united, but in reality are just the sum of our perceptions, nothing more. In response to Locke, Hume asserts memory merely discovers, rather than produces, personal identity by allowing us a broad view of many of our perceptions.
The key issue with Hume is that he seems to confuse the word same and identity, thinking of them as completely equitable synonyms, which causes big problems for his definition. Hume says, “we have this distinct idea of an object that remains invariable through...time and this idea we call that of identity or sameness” (Pojman 370). By its definition, identity can be flexible, malleable, encapsulating, and dynamic. Identities really only needs one parameter, one predicate, one criterion, for their subject to be classified properly. Sameness denotes absolute uniformity in all ways. Assume for a moment a person did remain uniform in all ways throughout time, while their phone changes. The thing I call “their phone” still has the same identity, because it is the object I identify as that person having, even though the physical object has actually been transferred. Thus, when Locke says that personal identity consists in a string of memories, that is his one condition, his criterion for personal identity. As I will show this view is perhaps errant but not for the same equivocal error Hume makes.
In a departure from both Hume and Locke, the Buddhist theory teaches that personal identity, and in point of fact, all identity is illusory. In a dialogue between the King and a wise sage the sage explains to the King why identities are merely empty names, comparing the self to a chariot and asking the King to define it. “Pray, your majesty, are pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner staff, yoke, reins, and goad unitedly the chariot?” to which the king answers no (Pojman 373).
The common sense notion is that you accumulate things, gain things. You experience things, desires, emotions, and there exists a subconscious notion that there is a you, something that at its core, is essentially you. But this way of thinking (one owns one’s personal identity) is a form of verbal equivocation that leads to a category mistake.
A category mistake is a semantic error committed when one improperly assigns things belonging to one type of group to another. The Buddhist sage commits this error when explaining to the king that chariot is not unitedly the chariot, but it is interesting since the sage recognizes that there is only one thing, since most assume there are two. It’s simply a word game or pun gone wrong. If Bob reserves a table at a romantic restaurant for the Johnsons, and arrives with his wife, Susan, the hostess would not say, “I see Bob, and I see Susan, but where are the Johnsons?” The moniker given to united constituents leads many to believe there are two things, when in reality there is just one, but to invalidate the name, to assume something is illusory or superfluous, is clearly misguided. Hume, likewise, draws a similar conclusion on the basis that a static entity, a possessor, does not exist. Since, for him this is a premise of personal identity he says identity is nothing more than a bundle. But there need not be an audience to view the show; why can’t the show itself be its own audience, or more appropriately, why does there need to be an audience. To ask for an entity that can apprehend or witness is too much, it is ascribing dissimilar properties to one concept.
The notion that all names require or necessitate an essential feature, a particular property or single core that can be recognized is easily and effectively challenged; some names are such that they can be successfully used even when there is no property or set of property they connote. We must tread lightly here; so to avoid confusion let me clearly explain what I mean by property and criteria. By property I mean trait or attribute while I use criterion intending it to be broader, fuzzier and capable of describing relations, processes and connections. This linguistic concept describing a fuzziness or web of relational connections that cohere into a broader concept is nothing new; the philosopher Wittgenstein called this familial resemblance gave the example of game (Wittgenstein& 24). This term is effectively used in English and yet, when we try to evince even one common property to all games that also distinguishes them from other things we can never find it. Some involve skill, chance, or endurance, some involve two people, and others involve whole teams, yet it is hard to say every game has one single property. No one feature is necessary. There can be unity without uniformity.
It seems up to this point the theory of Locke has emerged the least tattered and susceptible to criticism. Yet Locke’s exclusion of key psychological features, or the soul, is primarily where his logic falters. A succession of memories and a consciousness of this succession is hardly a person, merely a component to one. As a staunch empiricist Locke insists that there are no tendencies or inclinations relevant to a person uninformed by experience, just organismal machinations and processes. But what if I forget something? What about when we sleep? Thus is seems possible that personal identity may not exist, if there are gaps in memory. And this reveals that there are some cracks in Locke’s theory, intuitively at least.
Allow me to demonstrate the complexity implied by Locke’s repudiation from certain psychological characteristics with a continuation of the prince and pauper experiment given by Locke with three different thought experiments. Imagine two persons have just had their brains switched by some medical procedure. In the first experiment their memories are switched. In the second merely their personalities, temperaments, and inclinations are switched but their memories erased. In the final scenario they are told their memories and personalities will be erased, then replaced with alternative memories and psychological traits, but their current body will be tortured. In the first scenario almost everyone would rationally identify with the memories and not with one’s body. In the second case everyone would still certainly identify with the mental characteristics, despite their exclusion of memory. In fact, numerous films, like Momento, The Bourne Trilogy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Vow are predicated upon this assumption. The audience has no trouble believing the person is by and large the same person; they behave and are treated as the same person, despite the loss of what Locke would classify as their very personhood. In the final scenario I contend most would identify solely with the body about to be tortured, fearing the forthcoming pain and misery.
The intuitions elicited by these three cases point in opposite directions for developing a theory of personal identity. The first, and second to a lesser extent, suggest that the persistence of one’s psychological characteristics is necessary and sufficient for the persistence of self. The third frame suggests that persistence of one’s psychological characteristics is not necessary for a person to persist, for under that frame it seems that one persists, (to feel the pain), even after distinctive psychological characteristics have been eliminated. What is most striking about the third frame is that it seems to counter any psychological account because, at the very least, the psychological approach says that in order to survive, some psychological characteristics must remain. An obvious alternative, however, is to view the persistence of a person as instead dependent on some measure of physical connectedness as well. If personal identity is understood as a process, rather than thing, if it has criteria rather than properties, perhaps this problem may be resolved.
Following philosophical tradition, we can understand a person to be a more or less autonomous agent that thinks, acts on the basis of reasons, and is subject of perceptual experiences. Yet there is nothing intrinsic in such a notion that stipulates a person must remain the same things to retain its identity. Does a library stop being a library when someone checks out a book? What about when someone brings one back? No, similar to a person, the library is dynamic and flexible, not defined by any bundles, strings, successions or particulars, rather it is a concept in motion. Of course there are memories, desires, sensations and so forth but they are all interconnected, integrated, overlapped in a very precise, ordered way that constantly informs and builds upon the architecture of the past. Each attribute that we consider belonging to us contributes to this dynamic network, and it is important to note awareness of each particular is not required. There can be an ebb and flow of particular properties, but as long as the criterion of interconnectedness is maintained it can surely meet some standard of personal identity. Essentially, you are the sum of all the reactions, influences and processes suffusing each moment of life. But aspiring complete and delineate that sum is too unwieldy-eliciting certain parts given the context is more than sufficient. The starkly divergent conclusions demonstrated by the continuation of the Prince and the Pauper are explained if we adopt this model; someone will identify with the scheme most closely resembling the operation of the functional self, even if this is only a partial component of the true self. Is that fellow over there exactly the same person as he was a moment ago? No, but the identity of that person has not changed. So when, like in third experiment, we only have one thing with which to identify ourselves, (body), then we readily align ourselves with it.
So have I solved this age-old dilemma of personal identity? Probably not, but it seems clear that there is still room for debate. Hume’s theory, as well as Buddhist’s, seem to commit a category mistake but they do raise helpful points and effectively show the difficulty of demarcating a clear boundary for personal identity. Though Locke’s stream of consciousness is very appealing it is not without issues for it ignores certain elements that people willingly and frequently admit constitute a part of their identities and is vulnerable to criticisms. Ultimately, though, it seems to this author that understanding personal identity as a function of a process rather than a thing leaves it far less, (though perhaps not entirely), susceptible to these criticisms.
Works Cited
Hume, David. "Of Personal Identity." A Treatise of Human Nature. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 133- 39. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
<http://michaeljohnsonphilosophy.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/5010_Hume_Treatise_Human_Nature.pdf>.
Locke, John. "Of Identity and Diversity." Essay concerning Human Understanding. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Locke on Personal Identity. Jack Lynch. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
<http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/locke227.html>.
Pojman, Louis P. Philosophy: The Quest for Truth. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, and G. E. M. Anscombe. Philosophical Investigations: The German Text, with a Revised English Translation. Malden, MA [etc.].: Blackwell, 2008. Print.