Kilcran, AM;
(2016)
Wide content and psychological continuity views of personal identity.
Masters thesis , UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Externalism about mental content is the thesis that the content of at least some of a subject’s mental states is individuated by things in the subject’s environment. Psychological continuity accounts of personal identity claim that what it takes for a person to persist over time is to be share a suffi- cient degree of psychological similarity with themselves. I will argue that the truth of externalism about content implies that psychological continuity accounts of personal identity violate a plausible principle about identity, namely the Only x and y principle, which states that an object’s identity and persistence conditions should be not be fixed by anything other than that very object. I will consider whether this result can be avoided by either denying that the Only x and y principle is true or applies in the case of personal identity or by adopting a version of psychological continuity grounded only in narrow content. I argue that taking either of these options means giving up some intuitively plausible views and that this counts against psychological continuity views of personal identity.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Title: | Wide content and psychological continuity views of personal identity |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1485771 |
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