Failure to recognize the philosophical importance of both these questions, Schechtman argues, has undermined analytic philosophy's attempts at offering a satisfying account of personal identity. Considerations related to the characterization question creep unrecognized into discussions of reidentification, with the result that neither question is adequately addressed. Schechtman shows how separating the two questions allows for a more fruitful approach to the reidentification question, and she develops her own narrative account of characterization. She suggests that persons constitute their identities by developing autobiographical narratives that bear the right relation to facts about the environment, the general concept of a person, and other people's concepts of who they are.
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Book Description
An amnesia victim asking "Who am I?" means something different from a confused adolescent asking the same question. Marya Schechtman takes issue with analytic philosophy's emphasis on the first sort of question to the exclusion of the second. The problem of personal identity, she suggests, is usually understood to be a question about historical life. What she calls the "reidentification question" is taken to be the real metaphysical question of personal identity, whereas questions about beliefs or values and the actions they prompt, the "characterization question," are often presented as merely metaphorical.
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"Stimulating and original. I do not know of any other philosopher who connects the two areas of research on personal identity in the way that Marya Schechtman does. The writing is exceptionally clear."--David Wong, Brandeis University
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About the Author
Marya Schechtman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Facts about personal identity stand at the core of our ordinary practice and lay the foundations for our day-to-day interactions. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, George Eliot, Human Understanding, John Perry, The Thread of Life, University of California Press, Harry Frankfurt, Materialist's Account, Free Will, Harvard University Press, Lady Macbeth, Locke's Account, Oxford University Press, Can the Self Divide, Clarendon Press, Derek Parfit, Gary Watson, John Locke New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Facts about personal identity stand at the core of our ordinary practice and lay the foundations for our day-to-day interactions. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, George Eliot, Human Understanding, John Perry, The Thread of Life, University of California Press, Harry Frankfurt, Materialist's Account, Free Will, Harvard University Press, Lady Macbeth, Locke's Account, Oxford University Press, Can the Self Divide, Clarendon Press, Derek Parfit, Gary Watson, John Locke New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 26
books:
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25
books
cite this book:
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- Reasons and Persons (Oxford Paperbacks) by Derek Parfit on 16 pages
- Personal Identity by Harold W. Noonan on 10 pages
- The Thread of Life (William James Lectures) by Professor Richard Wollheim on 8 pages
- Personal Identity (Topics in Philosophy) by John Perry on 6 pages
- Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) by Gary Watson on 4 pages
See all 26 books this book cites
- Self by Richard Sorabji on 9 pages
- Personal and Moral Identity (Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy) by Albert W. Musschenga on 6 pages
- Self and Subjectivity (Blackwell Readings in Continental Philosophy) by Kim Atkins on page 22, page 156, and Back Matter
- Self and Subjectivity (Blackwell Readings in Continental Philosophy) by Kim Atkins on page 22, page 156, and Back Matter
- Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers (Studies in Feminist Philosophy) by Cheshire Calhoun on page 303, and page 304
See all 25 books citing this book
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