CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Pawlowski, Milosz Jan |
|---|---|
| Title | The Irreducible Self. A Consciousness-Based Account. |
| Summary | This work addresses primarily the questions of personal identity over time: questions about conditions under which the same person can exist at different times. Yet any theory of personal identity must be able to provide also some plausible answer to the question “What are persons?” This question organizes my discussion of personal identity. I develop a balanced methodology of inquiry into personal identity. It places metaphysics at the centre, but takes phenomenology of self-experience as the methodological starting-point and explains how practical implications of theories of persons can affect their plausibility. In accordance with this method, every major view in the field - the Psychological Theory, the Physically Based Approach, the Transience View, the No Self Theory and the Simple View – is examined from two points of view: that of metaphysics and that of intuitions (deep beliefs underlying our practices). I argue that persons are real, irreducible, ultimate components of reality. Their identity is a primitive fact that cannot be fully analyzed. This is the Simple View of persons. Its Consciousness-Based version is the best theory of personal identity we have. According to this view, a person’s survival is intimately tied with the person’s being a potential subject of a continuous flow of consciousness. Arguably the best theory of the nature of persons consistent with this view is Cartesian Dualism. |
| Supervisor | Robinson, Howard Michael |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/fphpam01.pdf |
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