THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM The issue of personal identity is focused on conditions wherein a person at one time is the same person at another time (Wikipedia).
The analysis of personal identity gives us a set of necessary conditions as to the identity of the person over a period of time. Personal identity is also sometimes referred to as the diachronic problem of personal identity. It is quite different with synchronic problem. This is the problem of what constitutes personhood at a timewhich is the question of what a person is (Personal Identity. Wikipedia).
Meanwhile, Locke was one of the philosophers to have considered personal identity or self as founded on consciousness and not of substance of the soul or the body.
He also believed in the principle of separation of powers. However, he felt that the legislature should be superior to the executive (and therefore to the judiciary, which he considered a part of the executive branch).
A believer in legislative supremacy, Locke would almost certainly have opposed the right of courts to declare legislative acts unconstitutional. Though Locke firmly believed in the principle of majority rule, he nevertheless made it clear that a government did not possess unlimited rights. A majority must not violate the natural rights of men, nor was it free to deprive them of their property rights. A government could only rightfully take property with the consent of the governed. It is evident from the foregoing that Locke had expressed virtually all the major ideas of the American Revolution almost a century before that event.
The Essay on Personal problems
1. There are many things that contribute to the pessimism of poor people. Some of the most prominent reasons why poor people believe that it is impossible to them to get out of poverty are high competition in labor markets, increased population (increased competition), lack of sufficient jobs, lack of proper education and the perception that the government is not doing anything to help them. With ...
Lockes ideas penetrated to the European mainland as well. (Personal Identity. Wikipedia).
Harold Noonan states that there is a problem with the issue on personal identity when he writes The problem of personal identity over time is the problem of giving an account of the logically necessary and sufficient conditions for a person identified at one time being the same person as a person identified at another. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy states that, The problem is to say in an informative way what the necessary and sufficient conditions are. (Metaphysics by Default.).
This is because everyone has a personal identity. It is there despite ones individual traits or ones personal identity.
Thus, in order to improve the knowledge of the souls nature, it is important to understand the problem of personal identity. The best definition of personal identity is one that takes into consideration the necessary and sufficient conditions. This should also be done in a manner that is most informative. It is important to note at this point that in manners when a corporeal function can be found, that function strengthens the argument for complete mortality. (Metaphysics by Default.).
Author Godon posits that the Interplay between the two moments is crucial in influencing the way we understand our world. (Godon).
The first criterion is in the area of memory. This is considered as the cabinet of imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and the council chamber of thought. The value of memory to the mind is not controversial. It is the value of memory in the light of the issue of personal identity. John Locke elucidates more on this in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: (Metaphysics by Default.).
Here he states that: For since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ’tis that, that makes every one to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of that Person.
In trying to interpret what Locke really means by this, John Perry explains more the last sentence by saying that Locke must mean something like this: “Any experience I can remember being reflectively aware of, is mine, i.e., one that happened to me.” Thus the distinction between knowing of present experiences by our five external senses and knowing of them by our sixth inner sense is carried over into memory; all and only experiences I can remember having been aware of in this latter way were mine. (Metaphysics by Default.).
The Essay on The Natural Mind Altered State Of Consciousness
The Natural Mind, by Andrew Weil, is a book about humans and their interaction with an altered state of consciousness. To find a way to help the drug problem, the problem with humans and psychoactive drugs, Weil explores the positive aspects of drugs. His stand is not that drugs are good but that when a person alters their consciousness it is not all bad. Three of his concepts in this book really ...
This issue manifests itself in the area of consciousness. Locke is asking quite the impossible by implying that we must remember everything that happens to us. In his Essay, he defined consciousness as the perception of what passes in a mans own mind. Consciousness or reflection is a persons observing or noticing the internal operations of his or her own mind.
It is by means of consciousness that a person acquires the ideas of the various mental states, such as perceiving, thinking, doubting, reasoning, knowing and willing and learns of his or her own mental states at any given time. Lockes use of consciousness as described here was widely adapted by philosophical thinking and common sense until the late nineteenth century. At that time, the word introspection began to be used: To introspect is to attend to the workings of ones own mind. (Metaphysics by Default.).
Just as some philosophers have denied the existence of a self, many have denied the possibility of introspection. One reason given is that introspection implies the absurdity that people could divide themselves in two, one part reasoning and the other observing the first reasoning. Another objection has been raised concerning the physical organ of introspection. Traditionally, introspection has been seen as analogous to perception: a nondiscursive act by which the mind contemplates its own acts.
Just as we can distinguish between seeing and object and making judgments about itthe tree is hugeso we can distinguish between introspecting a mental state and making judgments about that state. Perceiving, however, involves use of the sensory organsthe eyes, ears, and so on. Since there is no physical organ of perception to do the job, so traditionally, it must be the mind or one of its parts. It would seem that the mind is a nonphysical entity capable of having sensorylike experiences. This involves a specific view of the mind-body relationship and is rejected by both behaviorists and materialists, those philosophers who reject nonphysical entities. In response to the critics of both introspection and consciousness as conceived by Locke, two questions need to be asked.
The Essay on How Can Human Identity Transcend Biology
The question How can human identity transcend biology? can be answered simply. Human identity can transcend biology in two ways: easily and barely. It all depends on the type of identity an individual possesses and on the circumstances, which can influence individuals decision. However, why should human identity transcend human biology? Is there a real need for identity to fight biology? I think ...
How can we have any awareness of the existence of mental states if we do not have the consciousness or introspection? It would appear that consciousness is the only evidence we have of the existence of mental states. (Personal Identity).
To conclude, some of us are convinced that there is a uniqueness and definite reality to the human self. A private sense of oneself is so persuasive that to deny the reality of a self seems inconsistent with ordinary experience. Interpretations that understand human beings as physiochemical objects, physiological mechanisms or un-self-conscious creatures appear to be at best partial representations of the united I within. An adequate description of human nature must account for human self-awareness, our sense of individual continuity, the human faculty, and processes of abstract thought, our capacities for ethical discrimination and aesthetic appreciation and the human sense of consciously establishing purposes followed by deliberate action. WORKS CITED Godon, Rafal.
Understanding Personal Identity and Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education. Vol. 38, No. 4, 2004 Retrieved Dec. 13, 2006 at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111 /j.0309-8249.2004.00406.x/pdf Personal Identity. Wikipedia.
Retrieved Dec. 13, 2006 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity Personal Identity. Chapter 8.Metaphysics by Default. Retrieved Dec. 13, 2006 at: http://mbdefault.org/8_identity/default.asp.
