Embodiment and Personal Identity in Dementia

Abstract

AbstractTheories of personal identity in the tradition of John Locke emphasize the importance of psychological continuity and the abilities to think, to remember and to make rational choices as basic criteria for personhood. As a consequence, persons with severe dementia are threatened to lose the status of persons. Such concepts, however, are situated within a dualistic framework, in which the body is regarded as a mere vehicle of the brain as the organ of mental faculties. The chapter elaborates a different approach to personal identity: according to this, selfhood is primarily constituted by pre-reflective self-awareness and the body memory. Dementia is then characterized as a loss of reflexivity and meta-perspective, which is contrasted with the preservation of individual forms of body memory even in the later stages of the illness. The ethical consequences of such an embodied approach to dementia are outlined.