PhilosophyLesson 1 of 1 in the course Metaphysics

Philosophical Accounts of Self, Persistence, and Personal Identity

5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 5 match pairs · 5 fill-in sentences · English

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Summary

This lesson introduces the philosophical problem of persistence: how something can remain the same while changing over time.

Identity concerns what makes something the very thing it is. Persistence concerns its continuing to exist over time. These ideas can come apart: an object may retain its identity despite changes in its parts, or it may keep its parts while changing in a way that challenges its identity.

All flashcards

Persistence
The continued existence of something over time, whether or not it changes.
Aquinas's necessary being
A being that exists without being caused by another; Aquinas identifies God with it.
Atman
In many Hindu traditions, the eternal self or spirit associated with reincarnation.
Hume's bundle theory
The view that the self is a changing succession of perceptions, not an enduring substance.
Qualia
The felt, first-person qualities of conscious experiences, such as pain.

Quiz questions

  1. According to Buddhist dependent origination, how do phenomena arise?Answer: Through causes and conditions, depending on other phenomena.
  2. According to Locke's account of personal identity, what is central to identifying a person over time?Answer: Continuity of consciousness, including memory across times and places.
  3. What does Mary’s thought experiment about color vision test?Answer: Whether complete physical knowledge includes knowledge of what color experience feels like.
  4. What does soft behaviorism claim about explaining human activity?Answer: Mental events may exist, but explanations should be grounded in behavior.
  5. What does ubuntu emphasize about personhood?Answer: A person's humanity and identity are fundamentally relational.

Based on Introduction to Philosophy by Nathan Smith (OpenStax), licensed CC BY 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.

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