Personal Identity - Philosophy Essay Example for Free

Personal Identity Philosophy Essay It is easy to see oneself as the same person we were ten, twenty, or fifty years ago. We can define identity through our physical presence, life experiences, memories, and mental awareness of self. One can testify our persistence as a person through our existence as a person. But what makes us the same person? In this paper, I will argue for the â€Å"simple† view of the persistence of identity – that it is impossible to determine what single thing that makes us the same person over time. I will support my claim with the refutation of the main complex view claims of the body, brain and psychological continuity criterion. Entrenched in the â€Å"simple† view is the idea that personal identity, and the persistence of personal identity, cannot be measured through philosophical discourse or scientific investigation. There are a number of opposing arguments, known as complex theories of personal identity. In each of these arguments, the central claim is that either the body, the brain, or the psychological continuity of an individual determines how they persist as the same person (Garrett, 1998, p 52). To call them complex is a misnomer – for each is far too narrow to properly define and explain personal identity. Complex argument 1– Psychological continuity John Locke defines a person as a ‘thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places’ (Locke, 1689, p 1-6). This statement suggests that, in order to persist as the same person, we must have a mental consciousness which persists through time. We can say that a person is psychologically continuous if they have a mental state that is descendent from their previous mental states. For example, this theory states that a five-year-old will be the same person when they are a 25-year-old, because their mental state in later years is descendent from their earlier years. Counter argument By its very nature, the idea of psychological continuity is flawed. It is not uncommon for an individuals mental state to be changed so drastically that they could not truly be considered the same person. Several examples have been made by Waller: sufferers of cognitive impairments such as dementia, people who have gone through stressful or traumatic situations, and war eterans that are affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (Waller, 2011, p 198-210). In any of these cases, it would be difficult to argue that the individual has a continuous mental state – more accurate would be to describe them as a â€Å"snap† or â€Å"break† that, effectively, creates a new person. The only conclusion is that these individuals do not persist, as their psychological states become radically different from their previous psychological states. Complex argument 2 – Persistence of the body Another expression of the complex view is the body criterion. Put simply, a person is said to persist if they exist in the same physical body over time. In this case, the previously mentioned dementia or PTSD sufferers would be considered the same people, as their physical body has continued. The theory suggests a â€Å"brute physical relation† between body and identity (Korfmacher, 2006). Without regard for mental state, an individual is considered to have a persistent personal identity as long as their body survives. Counter argument This theory lends itself easily to thought experiments, and they quickly expose some problems. If individual A receives an organ donation from individual B, can it be said that individual A has taken some of Bs identity? Surely not. It would be absurd to suggest that having the kidney or liver of another person would affect ones persistence as an individual. Similarly, if individual C had their body cloned, it would not make their clone the same person. There is much more to personal identity than can be defined by something so comparatively insignificant as the physical body. Complex argument 3 – Persistence of the brain The brain is the functional centre of the human body; the place where memories are stored, feelings are felt, and environmental signals are processed. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the brain is so often considered to be the â€Å"home† of personal identity. This theory is a staple of many science fiction texts – as a convention, the cognizant â€Å"brain in a jar† or brain transplant recipient is fairly common. Proponents of this â€Å"we are our brains† theory claim that, so long as the brain persists, so does the person. Counter argument This theory seems to refer to consciousness rather than the physicality of the brain, so it is important to make a clarification between the two. Julian Baggini suggests that we should view the relationship between consciousness and identity similarly to the relationship between a musical score and the paper it is written on (Baggini, 2005, pp. 112-114). In other words, the brain is simply a storage space for our memories, thoughts, and self-awareness. Should it not, therefore, be so that an individual could simply persist as a brain in a jar, provided they could be sustained in that state? If the entirety of personal identity is stored in the brain, there must be no need for the rest of the body beyond keeping the brain alive. Such a theory could not possibly be true – life experiences and interactions with the world are such an intrinsic part of identity that we could not persist without them. The theory that consciousness plays a significant role in the persistence of personal identity is appealing, but it can not be said that the brain alone could sustain consciousness. Conclusion  To call the simple view of the persistence of personal identity â€Å"simple† is almost deceptive; deep consideration on the subject quickly turns towards the complex. It is easy to grasp at the categories of body, brain, and mental state, but it would be wrong to say that the persistence of any of those equates to the persistence of an individual. Personal identity is something so much harder to define, and it is harder still to find definitive measures of its continuation. Personal identity is evasive, and fleeting; it is intangible, ever-changing. Its persistence is so much more than can be determined.

Renaissance and Reformation Essay -- Changes, Influence, Origin

The European Renaissance was characterized by advancements and new developments in literature, science, religion, politics, and most importantly artwork. It proved to be a reappearance of learning based on classical sources. The renaissance was not as widespread as one would think. Essentially it is described as a time of cultural movements rather than technological advancements. Its time period ranged roughly from the 14th century to the 17th century. There is debate as to how far the movement stretched and exactly how many areas were influenced by the renaissance era. The European Renaissance is thought to have originated in Florence, Italy in the 14th century, and occurred after the Black Death. The Black Death was a disease which affected all of Europe. It caused about a third of the population of Europe to die out. The survivors were devastated at the loss of their loved ones, but they found that they were better off financially and socially, making their way up the social ladder. Specifically in Italy, there was greater social mobility. The upward mobility of individuals around this time allowed them to patronize early artists and rebuild libraries. Some areas were seeing more competitively between workers and their bosses, but the 'new' wealth was spent to display items to reinforce prestige. This allowed citizens to patronise the Renaissance artists. Merchants in regions like Italy saw increases in their wealth from trading, using the same trade routes in which the Black Death was spread. The trade income was further developing by Renaissance developments in commerce, causing the merchants to have more wealth to patronise with. The Renaissance brought on new conceptions of life and ... ...such as Italy and Germany. Italy and Germany's economy went bankrupt, causing an increase of famine and disease to spread throughout the populace. The main effect the Reformation had on Europe was the religious thinkings. The Churches now taught the importance of the individual conscience and gained new purity and strength through counter Reformation. The counter Reformation was created by the Catholic Churches as an answer to the Protestant Reformation. Both the Renaissance and the Reformation helped shape all countries today. The Renaissance helped people focus more about the individual person rather than the social class in which they were born. The Reformation was a building block to more forms of Christianity that are still taught today, such as Protestantism. If we had not had either of them, our religion, politic, and even our writing would be different.

The Metamorphosis by F. Kafka

Franz Kafka belongs to those writers of the twentieth century whose fiction express sorrow over the fracturing of human community. Though Kafka remains exceptional in that he enjoyed no public recognition during his lifetime, his world-fame came to him only after his death. His well-developed, modernist parables often do not have any fixed meaning, yet they reflect the insecurities of an age when faith in old-established beliefs has crumbled. Kafka masterfully combines within one framework the knowable and mysterious, an exact portrayal of the factual world with a dreamlike and magical dissolution of it. By unifying those contrary elements he was able to achieve some new fusion style in prose fiction. The analysis of one of his works will allow seeing in what way Kafka attains that profound quality of his expression of the experience of human loss, estrangement, and guilt – an experience increasingly dominant in the modern age.Kafka's best-known story The Metamorphosis is the demonstrative example of Kafkaesque paradox which consists in clashing the realism of commonplace detail with not just improbable but absurd turns of events. The inner world of Kafka’s character seeps from imaginable to actual, Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis transmews into an insect as the only way to manifest his insect-like relationship to the world, where he lives. It is no dream.The Metamorphosis is peculiar as a narrative in having its climax in the very first sentence: â€Å"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.† (Kafka, 19) The rest of the story falls away from this high point of astonishment in one long expiring sigh. This form of narrative, which contradicts all conventional concepts of presenting the discourse, violates the rules just the same as the people’s faith in particular ancient beliefs had been violated in the twentieth century. As it is known, the traditional na rrative bases on the drama of dà ©nouement, the so-called solution of complications and the coming to a conclusion.For Kafka such form is not acceptable because it is just exactly the absence of dà ©nouement and conclusions that is his subject matter. His story is about death, but death that is without dà ©nouement, death that is merely a spiritually petering out. The first sentence of The Metamorphosis announces Gregor Samsa’s death and the rest of the story is his slow dying. However, in no case Kafka’s protagonist is going to give up meekly. He struggles against the reality of life which, actually turned out to be a death for him; in his case, it follows, his life is his death and there is no escape. For a moment, it is true, near the end of his long dying, while listening to his sister play the violin, he feels â€Å"as if the way were opening before him to the unknown nourishment he craved† (Kafka, 76); but the nourishment remains unknown, he is locked i nto his room for the last time and he expires.What Gregor awakens to on the morning of his metamorphosis is the truth of his life. His ordinary consciousness has lied to him about himself; now he is confronted with the transference from his habitual self-understanding into the nightmare of truth. That dreadful dream, which he got into, reveals, in fact, reality, which he could not have understood before – he is a vermin, a disgusting creature shut out from â€Å"the human circle.† (Kafka, 33) At this point it should be underlined that Kafka prefers to use a metaphor, so that Gregor Samsa is not like a vermin but he is vermin. Anything less than metaphor, such as a simile comparing Gregor to vermin, would diminish the reality of what Kafka is trying to represent. Gregor appears in a dream and it is only natural that a dreamer, while dreaming, takes his dream for reality. However, his metamorphosis is indeed no dream but a revelation of the truth. And this truth is compo sed of an array of facts.First of all he grasps the deteriorative effect of his job upon his soul, the job that materially supports him but cuts him off from the possibility of real human associations:Oh God, he thought, what an exhausting job I've picked on! Traveling about day in, day out. It's much more irritating work than doing the actual business in the office, and on top of that there's the trouble of constant traveling, of worrying about train connections, the bad and irregular meals, the human associations that are no sooner struck up than they are ended without ever becoming intimate. The devil take it all! (Kafka, 20)He has been sacrificing himself by working at his meaningless, degrading job so as to pay off an old debt of his parents’ to his employer. Otherwise â€Å"I'd have given notice long ago, I'd have gone to the chief and told him exactly what I think of him.† (Kafka, 21) But even now, with the truth of his self-betrayal pinning him on his back to h is bed, he is unable to claim himself for himself and decide to quit—he must wait â€Å"another five or six years†:Once I’ve saved enough money to pay back my parents' debts to him—that should take another five or six years—I’ll do it without fail. I’ll cut myself completely loose then. For the moment, though, I'd better get up, since my train goes at five. (Kafka, 21)Another truth revealed through metamorphosis is the situation in the Samsa family: on the surface, the official sentiments of the parents and the sister toward Gregor, and of Gregor toward them and toward himself; underneath, the horror and disgust, and self-disgust: â€Å"†¦ family duty required the suppression of disgust and the exercise of patience, nothing but patience.† (Kafka, 65) His metamorphosis is a judgment on himself from the standpoint of his defeated humanity. Philip Rahv has very suggestively analyzed the subjective meaning of the insect symbol here by showing that quite frequently brothers and sisters are symbolically represented in dreams as animals or insects and that, since in this story of family life one of the underlying themes is the displacement of Samsa in the family hierarchy by his sister, it should, on the psychological plane, be looked upon as, on Kafka’s part, a construct of wish and guilt thoughts. (Rahv, pp. 61-62)Gregor breaks out of his room the first time hoping that his transformation will turn out to be â€Å"nonsense†; the second time, in the course of defending at least his hope of returning to his â€Å"human past.† His third eruption, in Part III, has quite a different aim. The final section of the story discovers a Gregor who tries to dream again, after a long interval, of resuming his old place at the head of the family, but the figures from the past that now appear to him—his boss, the chief clerk, traveling salesmen, a chambermaid (â€Å"a sweet and fleeting memor y†), and so on—cannot help him, â€Å"they were one and all unapproachable and he was glad when they vanished.† (Kafka, 69) Defeated, he finally gives up all hope of returning to the human community. Now his existence slopes steeply toward death. His room is now the place in which all the household’s dirty old decayed things are thrown, along with Gregor, a dirty old decayed thing; and he has just stopped eating.At first he had thought he was unable to eat out of â€Å"chagrin over the state of his room† (72).   But then he discovered that he got â€Å"increasing enjoyment† from crawling about the filth and junk. On the last evening of his life, watching from his room the lodgers whom his family have taken in putting away a good supper, he comes to a crucial realization: â€Å"I’m hungry enough,† said Gregor sadly to himself, â€Å"but not for that kind of food. How these lodgers are stuffing themselves, and here am I dying o f starvation!†(Kafka, 74) In giving up at last all hope of reentering the human circle, Gregor finally understands the truth about his life; which is to say he accepts the knowledge of his death, for the truth about his life is his death-in-life by his banishment from the human community. But having finally accepted the truth, he begins to sense a possibility that exists for him only in his outcast state. He is hungry enough, he realizes, but not for the world’s stuff, â€Å"not for that kind of food.† (Kafka, 74)When Gregor breaks out of his room the third and last time, he is no longer trying to deceive himself about himself and get back to his old life with its illusions about belonging to the human community. What draws him out of his room the last night of his life is his sister’s violin playing. Although he had never cared for music in his human state, now the notes of the violin attract him surprisingly. Indifferent to the others, at last he has the courage to think about himself. The filthy starving underground creature advances onto â€Å"the spotless floor of the living room† where his sister is playing for the three lodgers. Here Kafka makes use of the idea that music expresses the inexpressible, that it points to a hidden sphere of spiritual power and meaning.Creating in The Metamorphosis a character who is real and unreal, replete with meaning and empty of self, Kafka encourages his readers to fill in the void that exists at the center of the insect-Gregor's self. Thus, as a reader, one can come to conclusion that Gregor’s metamorphosis is a symbol of his alienation from the human state, of his â€Å"awakening† to the full horror of his dull, spiritless existence, and of the desperate self-disgust of his unconscious life.Reference:Kafka, Franz (1952) Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka. Translators Edwin Muir, Willa Muir New York: Modern Library, 1952Rahv, Philip. (1939). Franz Kafka: the Hero as L onely Man. The Kenyon Review, I (1)

Analysis Of Simone De Beauvoir s The Second Sex

The first text we explore in this step is Bonaventure’s â€Å"On Seeing God in his Image†. Bonaventure shows us that through inward reflection we can see God. God can then lead us to God’s two most important laws, and the best ways for us to live in community with others; by loving God, and our neighbors. The next text is from the 2nd Vatican Council called â€Å"Pastoral Constitution,† which focused on bringing the church into modern times. This text focuses on the importance of helping those being marginalized, those who are on the brink of society, and what is the best way that the Church as a community can fight to protect them. The following text comes from Simone de Beauvoir called â€Å"The Second Sex,† which discusses the ideas of the feminist†¦show more content†¦One major link includes the fight between an oppressed group and their persecutors. Whether it’s the proletariat and the bourgeois in â€Å"The Communist Manifesto,† or the inequality of genders in â€Å"The Second Sex,† or the flight of the African Americans in the â€Å"Letter from Birmingham Jail†. In all of these texts we are shown how easy it is for one group to abuse their power and create unfair rules and regulations only imposed on the more inferior members of society. Each group of oppressor thrives off of alienating, and subjugating their inferiors. So it seems the theme of solidarity is the only way to combat this linkage of oppression. In all of the texts we are shown that through solidarity comes freedom. We see in Bonaventure, and Vatican Council II that all God wants for God’s people is inclusion, and to fight for the rights of the â€Å"others† of the world. In the more secular texts from King, de Beauvoir, and Marx and Engels, we see the same ideas. The only way to fight prejudice is to unite the people of either side of the problem, and have them work together to make the whole of society a more inclusive place. By uniting together to fight oppression we overcome the trivialities that separate seemingly opposing groups. The next theme contingent throughout the step is the benefits of community. This is similar to the inclusiveness that comes from solidarity, but through community we can prevent oppression from happeningShow MoreRelatedThe Second Sex By Simone De Beauvoir888 Words   |  4 Pages In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir commenced the development of second-wave feminism. The publication of her theoretical work, The Second Sex, issued a fervent response to gender-based oppression during the twentieth century. However, the philosophy that de Beauvoir espoused in The Second Sex still proves relevant to contemporary women. 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To solve this TMA in a good way we should know about Sylvia Plaths life, because in the students notesRead MoreThe noun feminism is derived from the French in the 19th century . It refers to the campaign at700 Words   |  3 PagesFeminism Theory Simone de Beauvoir pioneered . Beauoir paper entitled The Second Sex has given a tremendous influence in the field of feminism . It developed in France after World War II . The function of this theory is to rebuild the confidence of the public after the war . Beauvoir denies weakness and softness of the female form naturally. He thinks women should give the definition of themselves . He also proposes that the traditional role of women reject them for independent life . Beauvoir alleged that