Contents
22 found
Order:
  1. Locke on Relations, Identity, Persons, and Personal Identity.Ruth Boeker - forthcoming - In Patrick J. Connolly (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of John Locke. New York: Oxford University Press.
    This essay examines Locke’s chapter “Of Identity and Diversity” (Essay 2.27) in the context of the series of chapters on ideas of relations (Essay 2.25–28) that precede and follow it. I begin by introducing Locke’s account of how we acquire ideas of relations. Next, I consider Locke’s general approach to individuation and identity over time before I show how he applies his general account of identity over time to persons and personal identity. I draw attention to Locke’s claim that “person” (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Locke on Education, Persons, and Moral Agency.Ruth Boeker - 2023 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 31 (2):1-9.
    In her book Experience Embodied Anik Waldow devotes a chapter to “Locke’s Experimental Persons.” Her chapter aims to show how Locke’s views on persons, personal identity, and moral agency in his Essay concerning Human Understanding build on his esteem-based approach to education that he develops in Some Thoughts concerning Education. After outlining main contributions that Waldow makes in her chapter, I turn to three issues that in my view deserve further consideration. First, I draw attention to the question of how (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Locke and William Molyneux.Ruth Boeker - 2022 - In Jessica Gordon-Roth & Shelley Weinberg (eds.), The Lockean Mind. Routledge.
    William Molyneux (1656–1698) was an Irish experimental philosopher and politician, who played a major role in the intellectual life in seventeenth-century Dublin. He became Locke’s friend and correspondent in 1692 and was probably Locke’s philosophically most significant correspondent. Locke approached Molyneux for advice for revising his Essay concerning Human Understanding as he was preparing the second and subsequent editions. Locke made several changes in response to Molyneux’s suggestions; they include major revisions of the chapter ‘Of Power’ (2.21), the addition of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  4. Can Thought Experiments Solve Problems of Personal Identity?Lukas J. Meier - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-23.
    Good physical experiments conform to the basic methodological standards of experimental design: they are objective, reliable, and valid. But is this also true of thought experiments? Especially problems of personal identity have engendered hypothetical scenarios that are very distant from the actual world. These imagined situations have been conspicuously ineffective at resolving conflicting intuitions and deciding between the different accounts of personal identity. Using prominent examples from the literature, I argue that this is due to many of these thought experiments (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  5. Locke on Being Self to My Self.Ruth Boeker - 2021 - In Patricia Kitcher (ed.), The Self: A History. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 118–144.
    John Locke accepts that every perception gives me immediate and intuitive knowledge of my own existence. However, this knowledge is limited to the present moment when I have the perception. If I want to understand the necessary and sufficient conditions of my continued existence over time, Locke argues that it is important to clarify what ‘I’ refers to. While we often do not distinguish the concept of a person from that of a human being in ordinary language, Locke emphasizes that (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  6. Locke on Persons and Personal Identity.Ruth Boeker - 2021 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Ruth Boeker offers a new perspective on Locke’s account of persons and personal identity by considering it within the context of his broader philosophical project and the philosophical debates of his day. Her interpretation emphasizes the importance of the moral and religious dimensions of his view. By taking seriously Locke’s general approach to questions of identity, Boeker shows that we should consider his account of personhood separately from his account of personal identity over time. On this basis, she argues that (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  7. Teaching & Learning Guide for: Shaftesbury on Persons, Personal Identity and Character Development.Ruth Boeker - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (8):e12698.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Selfhood and Self-government in Women’s Religious Writings of the Early Modern Period.Jacqueline Broad - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (5):713-730.
    Some scholars have identified a puzzle in the writings of Mary Astell (1666–1731), a deeply religious feminist thinker of the early modern period. On the one hand, Astell strongly urges her fellow women to preserve their independence of judgement from men; yet, on the other, she insists upon those same women maintaining a submissive deference to the Anglican church. These two positions appear to be incompatible. In this paper, I propose a historical-contextualist solution to the puzzle: I argue that the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  9. "Medieval Mystics on Persons: What John Locke Didn’t Tell You".Christina VanDyke - 2019 - In Persons: a History. Oxford: pp. 123-153.
    The 13th-15th centuries were witness to lively and broad-ranging debates about the nature of persons. In this paper, I look at how the uses of ‘person’ in logical/grammatical, legal/political, and theological contexts overlap in the works of 13th-15th century contemplatives in the Latin West, such as Hadewijch, Meister Eckhart, and Catherine of Siena. After explicating the key concepts of individuality, dignity, and rationality, I show how these ideas combine with the contemplative use of first- and second-person perspectives, personification, and introspection (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. The Need for Authenticity-Based Autonomy in Medical Ethics.Lucie White - 2018 - HEC Forum 30 (3):191-209.
    The notion of respect for autonomy dominates bioethical discussion, though what qualifies precisely as autonomous action is notoriously elusive. In recent decades, the notion of autonomy in medical contexts has often been defined in opposition to the notion of autonomy favoured by theoretical philosophers. Where many contemporary theoretical accounts of autonomy place emphasis on a condition of “authenticity”, the special relation a desire must have to the self, bioethicists often regard such a focus as irrelevant to the concerns of medical (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  11. The Role of Appropriation in Locke's Account of Persons and Personal Identity.Ruth Boeker - 2016 - Locke Studies 16:3–39.
    According to Locke, appropriation is a precondition for moral responsibility and thus we can expect that it plays a distinctive role in his theory. Yet it is rare to find an interpretation of Locke’s account of appropriation that does not associate it with serious problems. To make room for a more satisfying understanding of Locke’s account of appropriation we have to analyse why it was so widely misunderstood. The aim of this paper is fourfold: First, I will show that Mackie’s (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  12. Locke and Hume on Personal Identity: Moral and Religious Differences.Ruth Boeker - 2015 - Hume Studies 41 (2):105-135.
    Hume’s theory of personal identity is developed in response to Locke’s account of personal identity. Yet it is striking that Hume does not emphasize Locke’s distinction between persons and human beings. It seems even more striking that Hume’s account of the self in Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise has less scope for distinguishing persons from human beings than his account in Book 1. This is puzzling, because Locke originally introduced the distinction in order to answer questions of moral (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  13. Consciousness and Personal Identity.Owen Ware & Donald C. Ainslie - 2014 - In Aaron Garrett (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth Century Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 245-264.
    This paper offers an overview of consciousness and personal identity in eighteenth-century philosophy. Locke introduces the concept of persons as subjects of consciousness who also simultaneously recognize themselves as such subjects. Hume, however, argues that minds are nothing but bundles of perceptions, lacking intrinsic unity at a time or across time. Yet Hume thinks our emotional responses to one another mean that persons in everyday life are defined by their virtues, vices, bodily qualities, property, riches, and the like. Rousseau also (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14. The Metaphysical Fact of Consciousness in Locke's Theory of Personal Identity.Shelley Weinberg - 2012 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (3):387-415.
    Locke’s theory of personal identity was philosophically groundbreaking for its attempt to establish a non-substantial identity condition. Locke states, “For the same consciousness being preserv’d, whether in the same or different Substances, the personal Identity is preserv’d” (II.xxvii.13). Many have interpreted Locke to think that consciousness identifies a self both synchronically and diachronically by attributing thoughts and actions to a self. Thus, many have attributed to Locke either a memory theory or an appropriation theory of personal identity. But the former (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  15. John Locke and Personal Identity: Immortality and Bodily Resurrection in 17th-Century Philosophy. [REVIEW]Lloyd Strickland - 2011 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (4):826 - 830.
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 4, Page 826-830, July 2011.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Locke on Personal Identity.Shelley Weinberg - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (6):398-407.
    Locke’s account of personal identity has been highly influential because of its emphasis on a psychological criterion. The same consciousness is required for being the same person. It is not so clear, however, exactly what Locke meant by ‘consciousness’ or by ‘having the same consciousness’. Interpretations vary: consciousness is seen as identical to memory, as identical to a first personal appropriation of mental states, and as identical to a first personal distinctive experience of the qualitative features of one’s own thinking. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  17. Did Locke Defend the Memory Continuity Criterion of Personal Identity?Johan E. Gustafsson - 2010 - Locke Studies 10:113-129.
    John Locke’s account of personal identity is usually thought to have been proved false by Thomas Reid’s simple ‘Gallant Officer’ argument. Locke is traditionally interpreted as holding that your having memories of a past person’s thoughts or actions is necessary and sufficient for your being identical to that person. This paper argues that the traditional memory interpretation of Locke’s account is mistaken and defends a memory continuity view according to which a sequence of overlapping memories is necessary and sufficient for (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  18. A Body Worth Having.Ed Cohen - 2008 - Theory Culture and Society 25 (3):103-129.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. The Resurrection of the Same Body and the Ontological Status of Organisms: What Locke Should Have (and Could Have) Told Stillingfleet.Dan Kaufman - 2008 - In Hoffman Owen (ed.), Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy. Broadview.
    Vere Chappell has pointed out that it is not clear whether Locke has a well-developed ontology or even whether he is entitled to have one.2 Nevertheless, it is clear that Locke believes that there are organisms, and it is clear that he thinks that there are substances. But does he believe that organisms are substances? There are certainly parts of the Essay in which Locke seems unequivocally to state that organisms are substances. For instance, in 2.23.3 Locke uses men and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. The Necessity of Memory for Self-identity: Locke, Hume, Freud and the Cyber-self.Shane J. Ralston - 2000 - Cyberphilosophy Journal 1 (1).
    John Locke is often understood as the inaugurator of the modern discussion of personal human identity—a discussion that inevitably falls back on his own theory with its critical reliance on memory. David Hume and Sigmund Freud would later make arguments for what constituted personal identity, both relying, like Locke, on memory, but parting from Locke's company in respect the role that memory played. The purpose of this paper will be to sketch the groundwork for Locke's own theory of personal identity (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Leibniz, Locke and I.Simon Beck - 1999 - Cogito 13 (3):181-187.
    In his New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz presents a sharp attack on Locke's theory of personal identity, Matching Locke's thought-experiments with those of his own, Leibniz seeks to show that our identity cannot rest on matters of consciousness alone-being the same person is rather a matter of the continued existence of an immaterial substance. I draw attention to some contemporary thinkers who-while eschewing the immaterial substances-are sympathetic to the kind of argument Leibniz offered. This leads to a dilemma: on (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  22. A Critical Analysis of John Locke's Criterion of Personal Identity.Alpana Chakraborty - 1996 - Indian Philosophical Quarterly 23 (3-4):349-362.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark