20th-century theories of personal identity

Abstract

This chapter focuses on personal identity over time holds by virtue of psychological continuity. It is motivated by the fact that the psychological-continuity view is the single most discussed theory of personal identity during the past century. It has been protested, however, that while this approach accommodates some ideas in the vicinity of the intuition that personal identity is what matters, it does not accommodate that intuition itself. However, psychological continuity — with or without the non-branching qualification — is not necessary and sufficient for a human animal's identity over time, and so if we are human animals, as animalism says, it is not necessary and sufficient for our identity over time, contrary to the psychological-continuity view. So if the psychological-continuity view is true, then we are not human animals. This is troublesome for the psychological-continuity view, for there is an influential argument in favor or animalism: the thinking animal problem, most forcefully put forward by Eric Olson.