Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self [Paperback]

John Perry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2002 | ISBN-10: 0872205207 | ISBN-13: 978-0872205208

This volume collects a number of Perry's classic works on personal identity as well as four new pieces, 'The Two Faces of Identity', 'Persons and Information', 'Self-Notions and The Self' and 'The Sense of Identity'. Perry's Introduction puts his own work and that of others on the issues of identity and personal identity in the context of philosophical studies of mind and language over the past thirty years.

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John Perry

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Inc (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872205207
• ISBN-13: 978-0872205208
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,253,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Waving..., February 6, 2006

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David Kovacs "Dave" (Hungary) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self (Paperback)

As the title promises, the book deals with three big topics: the general (logical) problems of identity, the special problems of personal identity, and problems of "the self"; that is, some related problems in the philosophy of psychology.

The first part starts with two essays, both devoted to refute Geach's famous thesis about relative identity. Relative identity says that it's meaningless to say "x is identical to y"; instead we should say "x is the same F as y". Relative identity has interesting consequences in the theory of personal identity; for instance, you can say "x is the same person as y, but x is not the same animal as y". According to the classical view, this is impossible; if relative identity is true, such cases are possible.
Since I'm not very familiar with the literature about the logical problems of identity, I cannot judge how good these papers are. I found them convincing, but perhaps with more knowledge I would be more critical.
"Can the Self Divide" is also in this part, though I think it rather belongs to part II. This paper defends the "mentalist" view about personal identity: that is, some form of the psychological criterion. Perry tries to solve the well-known fission problem by introducing person-stages; so he is four-dimensionalist. I like this paper, though I remain agnostic about four-dimensionalism.
"The Two Faces of Identity" deals with some logical properties of the identity relation. Perhaps some may like this essay, I found it rather uninteresting.

The second part deals with the special problems of personal identity. The best piece here is "Williams on the Self and the Future", where he tries to show that Williams's famous thought experiment, in which two people (say, A and B) "exchange" their memories. Williams argues that the A-body person at the end of the story is A, and the B-body person is B. Hence, memory doesn't suffice for identity. Perry - I think, conclusively - shows that Williams's argument begs the question. On the other hand, Perry doesn't show that Williams's theory is false, and intuitively it still seems to me better then the psychological theory.
In "The Importance of Being Identical" he defends the "Parfit-Shoemaker" thesis that strict identity is not what we care about, but "survival" (the survival of our memories and personality with the right sort of causation). Good paper, though - if I didn't miss something - it doesn't add much to what can be known by reading Parfit's Reasons and Persons.

The third part is about "the self". Here he deals with problems about indexicality, self-reference, self-notions and the like. More interestingly, he argues against Nagel's view that we can distinguish between an "objective" sense of self and "I". The first is compatible with a third-personal view of the world, and means only that we have our own senso-motoric system, whereas the second is some "deeper" concept of I. Nagel thinks there is a problem about the self: what causes a person being just me? Perry argues, conclusively in my view, that introducing the objective self, Nagel doesn't get nearer to the solution of the problem.

Now I think that some of these essays are great, but unfortunately all of them can be found in other collections, or in old issues of philosophy journals. The only new paper which contains really innovative thoughts is "The sense of identity". To me, it's three and a half stars. I give it three; anyway, if you are not at all familiar with Perry's philosophy, buy it, because it's a good summary of his work.