On the traditional relationalist conception of singular thought, a thought has singular content when it is based on an ‘information relation’ to its object. Recent work rejects relationalism and suggests singular thoughts are distinguished from descriptive thoughts by their inferential role: only thoughts with singular content can be employed in ‘direct’ inferences, or inferences that ‘trade on identity’. Firstly this view is insufficiently clear, because it conflates two distinct ideas—one about a kind of inference, the other (...) a kind of process that grounds inferences—under the title, ‘trading on identity’. Secondly, this leaves us without a notion that can be used as an alternative to relationalism about singular thought. The first notion is no more applicable to singular than to descriptive thought. The second may help us better understand singular thought, but does so, not by replacing the view that singular thoughts are information-based, but by helping us understand the nature of information-based thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I set out a semantics for identity in relevant logic that is based on an analogy between the biconditional and identity. This analogy supports the semantics that Priest has set out for identity in basic relevant logic and it motivates a version of the Routley–Meyer semantics in which identities can be viewed as constraints on the ternary relation that is used to treat implication.

In discussion with M. Buber, F. Rosenzweig, A.J. Heschel, F. Fischer and E. Levinas, Ephraim Meir outlines a novel conception of a selfhood that is grounded in dialogical thought. He focuses on the shaping of identity in present day societies and offers a new view on identity around the concepts of self-transcendence, self-difference, and trans-difference. It is suggested that in trans-different religiosity, one may discover what unites people.

Critical study of David Wiggins's Sameness and Substance (1980).

This article discusses Alejandro Vallega’s book, Latin American Philosophy: From Identity to Radical Exteriority, proposing a series of questions in which the problem of situating Latin American thought in the topos of Western philosophy is addressed. Further questions considered here include how to rethink identity and difference from the perspective of Latin American experience, and, last but not least, what do “situated thinking” and “engaged thought” mean?

In this paper, I discuss a view of de re thoughts that can be naturally endorsed in the wake of Russell's account. This is the view that a thought is about the very thing (res) rather than a mere characterization of it if and only if it is constitutively tied, if not to the existence, at least to the identity of its object and the thinker knows which/who the object of his/her thought is. Faced with the challenge of (...) accommodating far from uncommon cases of mistaken identity or substantial confusion on the part of the subject, I argue that the integrity of the view can be preserved and that the restrictions set on its truth by the advocates of the two-component picture and the anti-essentialists can be lifted. (shrink)

Commented article: LIANG, T. Impact of College English Education Thoughts on Enhancing National Cultural Identity. Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp, v. 47, n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e0240065, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/14624.

`The work develops and articulates a brilliant and original central thesis; namely that modern individuals are best understood as complex bodies of thought, as embodied symbolic and material beings. Future work on mind, self, body, society and culture will have to begin with Burkitt's text' - Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois `After his excellent Social Selves, Ian Burkitt has produced a new theory of embodiment which will become required reading for those working in the areas of social theory, sociology, (...) cultural studies and social psychology. Steering between constructionist and realist theories of the social actor, Bodies of Thought provides an innovative assessment of Foucaultian, Eliasian, and feminist approaches to the body and a sustained critique of Cartesian notions of the subject' - Chris Shilling, Department of Social and Historical Studies, University of Portsmouth In this incisive and truly impressive book, Ian Burkitt critically addresses the dualism between mind and body, thought and emotion, rationality and irrationality, and the mental and the material, which haunt the post-Cartesian world. Drawing on the work of contemporary social theorists and feminist writers, he argues that thought and the sense of being a person is inseparable from bodily practices within social relations, even though such active experience may be abstracted and expanded upon through the use of symbols. Overcoming classic dualisms in social thought, Burkitt argues that bodies are not purely the constructs of discourses of power: they are also productive, communicative, and invested with powerful capacities for changing the social and natural worlds. He goes on to consider how such powers can be developed in more ethical forms of relations and activities. Bodies of Thought will be essential reading for students and academics in social theory, social psychology, cultural studies, feminist theory and the sociology of the body. (shrink)

Commented article: LIANG, T. Impact of College English Education Thoughts on Enhancing National Cultural Identity. Trans/Form/Ação: revista de filosofia da Unesp, v. 47, n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e0240065, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/14624.

Abstract:I suggest that Hume’s recantation, in the Appendix to the Treatise, of his account of the idea of personal identity in section 1.4.6 hinges on the contrast between the first-personal cognitive roles of that idea and its imagination-based explanation. In stark, if implicit, contrast with Locke, Hume’s account divorces personal identity from consciousness, considering oneself as oneself. But, later in the Appendix, Hume realized, if imperfectly, that something was missing from the idea of self he had constructed. I (...) suggest that what is missing is the intimate consciousness of ourselves that idea should allow us to achieve. While Hume despaired to find a solution to this problem, a change in the background of his earlier theory—a change he had available and which is perhaps alluded to in a letter to Kames—could have made his original account consistent with the first-personal features of the idea of self. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] In this paper, I present an interpretation on how Hume can escape from his intellectual ordeal concerning personal identity in the Appendix of the Treatise. First of all, I present the source of Hume’s despair to offer an interpretation on what would have truly bothered Hume in the Appendix, and I identify several lines of interpretation. Recently Jonathan Ellis has distinguished various ways of understanding Hume’s predicament. Of the four groups (...) of explanations that Ellis distinguishes, in this paper I elaborate on the three that Ellis does not sufficiently explicate, addressing some key issues that Ellis missed. Last, I offer an alternative reading of Hume’s difficulty, based on Dennett’s ideas on the matter, and make a suggestion about what Hume ought to have said about these problems. (shrink)

Resumen: La cuestión hoy en día de la identidad cultural es una manifestación inevitable del progreso económico y social de China en el ámbito de la cultura. Sus raíces se encuentran en el lento desarrollo social de la China moderna y en la invasión de la cultura extranjera, que se manifiesta en la apatía hacia la gran cultura tradicional. El inglés es una lengua internacional de uso común que se habla en todo el mundo. Con la creciente popularidad del inglés, (...) la enseñanza universitaria de este idioma ha acaparado una mayor atención en los últimos años. La filosofía es muy teórica, hipotética y difícil de entender, por lo que los profesores de inglés deben ser hábiles a la hora de movilizar la subjetividad y la creatividad de los alumnos mediante el uso de numerosos y beneficiosos recursos. El inglés es un recurso valioso, y su uso correcto en la identificación cultural puede tener implicaciones educativas imprevistas. En consecuencia, la forma de emplear las ideas de la enseñanza universitaria del inglés para fortalecer la identidad cultural nacional es fundamental para avanzar en el crecimiento general de la enseñanza universitaria del inglés y la construcción de la cultura nacional. (shrink)

African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in which the discussions remain apart (...) and that is on a point of method. The Western discussion makes widespread use of thought experiments. In the African discussion, they are almost entirely absent. In this article, we put forward a possible explanation for the method of thought experiment being avoided that is based on considerations stemming from John Mbiti’s account of the traditional African view of time. These considerations find an echo in criticism offered of the method in the Western debate. We consider whether a response to both trains of thought can be found that can further bring the Western and African philosophical traditions into fruitful dialogue. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, Beck and Wagner have been arguing about the general role that thought experiments can play in the debate on personal identity, showing their disagreement about the famous criticisms that Wilkes’ launched against their use. In this article I come back to Wilkes’ criticisms to show that her position is deeply problematic. If we adopt instead the mental model account of thought experiments, we can accommodate Wilkes’ criticisms and justify the use of thought experiments (...) in the debate of personal identity. This will allow us to see why Beck and Wagner were both half right and half wrong in their discussion. (shrink)

In this paper, I clarify some central aspects of Stoic thought concerning identity, identification, and so-called peculiar qualities (qualities which were seemingly meant to ground an individual’s identity and enable identification). I offer a precise account of Stoic theses concerning the identity and discernibility of individuals and carefully examine the evidence concerning the function and nature of peculiar qualities. I argue that the leading proposal concerning the nature of peculiar qualities, put forward by Eric Lewis, faces a (...) number of objections, and offer two constructive suggestions which turn upon reconsidering the nature and function(s) of peculiar qualities. Finally, I examine a simple but potent Academic argument against the view that identification requires detecting some attribute(s) unique to the relevant individual. Such an argument is, I argue, largely successful and may have encouraged later Stoics not to think that peculiar qualities enable identification. (shrink)

Many philosophers have become sceptical of the use of thought experiments in theorising about personal identity. In large part this is due to work in experimental philosophy that appears to confirm long held philosophical suspicions that thought experiments elicit inconsistent judgements about personal identity, and hence judgements that are thought to be the product of cognitive biases. If so, these judgements appear to be useless at informing our theories of personal identity. Using the methods of experimental philosophy, (...) we investigate whether people exhibit inconsistent judgements and, if they do, whether these judgements are likely to be the source of cognitive bias or, instead, sensitivity to some relevant factor. We do not find that people’s judgements are sensitive to any of the factors we investigate (relevant or irrelevant), nor that people have inconsistent judgements across cases. Rather, people’s judgements are best explained by them having a very minimal account of what it takes for a person to survive. Since this pattern of judgements is no reason to think that we are subject to cognitive bias, we see no reason, as things stand, to be sceptical of our judgements. (shrink)

Through careful analysis of a specific example, Parfit’s ‘fission argument’ for the unimportance of personal identity, I argue that our judgements concerning imaginary scenarios are likely to be unreliable when the scenarios involve disruptions of certain contingent correlations. Parfit’s argument depends on our hypothesizing away a number of facts which play a central role in our understanding and employment of the very concept under investigation; as a result, it fails to establish what Parfit claims, namely, that identity is (...) not what matters. I argue that Parfit’s conclusion can be blocked without denying that he has presented an imaginary case where prudential concern would be rational in the absence of identity. My analysis depends on the recognition that the features that explain or justify a relation may be distinct from the features that underpin it as necessary conditions. (shrink)

The article deals with the role of Russian culture in the period of the RF war against Ukraine. The history is considered as the basic structure that shapes the discursive foundation of identity. Historical narratives as well as the cultural background of imperial identity and risks of the full scale representation of Russian culture in the Ukrainian social consciousness are analyzed. The two tendencies are also comprehended — junk science foundation of geopolitical projects and devalu- ation of the (...) historically formed senses. So the communicative action is penetrated by the strategic action bazed on the false reality fundament, this significant element of the war of the world. The vivid example of junk science is the neoeurasian ideology, that defines the strategy of Kremlin informational attack on the Ukrainian identity. Standoff between the identities takes place in the course of the imperial mobilization project development. The symbiosis of governmental authorities and artists plays the key role in its realization. The author outlines the main features of the strategic effect of penetration into the core of communicative process and the false reality building. Also the author develops the thought that the heartbreaking and impetuous change of con- tradictory narratives are the one of the fundamental resources of information war. In particular it deals with the great Russian Simulacrum as the vivid example of the instrumental reason that is in the base of the information war against Ukraine. It is also defined the historical origin of the simulacra as the instrument of the Russian special services and the role of their partners — the iconic figures of the Russian literature — in the projects of the public opinion manipulation. (shrink)

This paper intends to discuss some aspects of what we conceive as personal identity: what it consists in, as well as its alleged fragility. First I will try to justify the methodology used in this paper, that is, the use of allegories in ontological debates, especialy in the form of thought experiments and science fiction movies. Then I will introduce an original thought experiment I call “Who am I actually?,” one that was coined with the intent to shed light (...) on several aspects of the issue under examination, that is, the fragility of personal identity. Then I will move on to Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige, as well as to Derek Parfit’s ‘divided minds’ thought experiment, to further discuss the fragility of personal identity; next to identity theft, the prospect of duplication is also intriguing, especially with regard to the psychological impact this might have on both the prototype and the duplicate. I will conclude with the view that spatial and temporal proximity or coexistence, especially when paired with awareness on behalf of the duplicates, would expectedly result in the infringement of the psychological continuity of one’s identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 87-101 [Access article in PDF] Collingwood on Re-Enactment and The Identity of Thought Giuseppina D'oro University of Keele Collingwood's The Idea of History is often discussed in the context of the issue of the reducibility/non-reducibility of explanations in the social sciences to explanations in the natural sciences. In the 1950s and 60s, following the publication of Hempel's influential article, "The (...) Function of General Laws in History,"1 many looked at Collingwood's defence of the autonomy of history as providing the appropriate conceptual resources to counter Hempel's claim that explanations in history and in the natural sciences share the same logical structure. Collingwood was recruited as an ally in a number of debates in analytical philosophy of history with a view to clarifying the nature of appropriately historical explanations and the proper subject matter of historical science. In this paper, I wish to consider Collingwood's account of historical understanding from a related but distinct perspective, that is, I wish to consider re-enactment from the perspective of Collingwood's (controversial) claim that thought stands outside time, and that it is because thought stands outside time that it is possible to understand the thoughts of other agents, including those of agents who lived in a distant past. Although Collingwood's account of re-enactment is developed in the context of his philosophy of history, it addresses some very general issues within the philosophy of mind. It is with Collingwood's approach to these general issues that the present paper is concerned: First, I explicate Collingwood's account of re-enactment against the background of his philosophy of mind and, second, attempt to show that one important goal of Collingwood's account of re-enactment is to undermine a certain type of scepticism about the possibility of sharing the thoughts of others, rather than provide a straightforward refutation of this sceptical position. While I believe Collingwood's claim that thought stands outside time to have important repercussions on how to understand [End Page 87] issues more closely related to the philosophy of history, I will not attempt, for reasons of space, to cash out these implications here.In The Idea of History2 the concept of re-enactment is expounded largely via an engagement with an imaginary objector. The position that Collingwood attributes to the imaginary objector can be preliminarily summarized as saying that the objector identifies thoughts with token acts of thinking which can be spatio-temporally located, rather than with the propositional content expressed by those token acts. It is because the objector holds thoughts to be token acts which can be spatio-temporally located that s/he denies that two agents can have or share one and the same thought. Collingwood's reply to the imaginary objector relies on a philosophy of mind that is developed elsewhere3 but whose key elements are presupposed by his discussion of re-enactment in The Idea of History, and essential to an understanding of Collingwood's position.4An important aspect of Collingwood's philosophy of mind concerns his understanding of what is meant by an 'object of thought': When I call a thing subjective I mean that it is or pertains to a subject or conscious mind. When I call it objective I mean that it is or pertains to the object of which such a mind is conscious. I do not call a real rose objective and an imaginary one subjective, or the molecules in it objective and the beauty of it subjective. A real rose I call real and an imaginary rose I call imaginary; and I call them both objective because they are the objects of a perceiving and imagining mind respectively. (SM, 11)5For the sake of clarity I shall refer to the subjective/objective distinction as used by Collingwood as subjective2 and objective2 and to the subjective/objective distinction against which it is contrasted as subjective1 and objective1. Objective1 means existing in... (shrink)

Through his views on perspectivism and the will to power, Nietzsche indirectly influences many current discourses on identity. This article places these themes in the broader context of Nietzsche’s thought. Firstly, it is indicated how difficult it is to speak of someone’s identity by showing how many ‘Nietzsches’ appear in his writings, notebooks and letters and the accounts of his contemporaries. Such comparative readings, although they may cast new light on Nietzsche’s philosophy, are rare in Nietzsche scholarship. Next, (...) his views on identity are briefly explored, paying attention to his rejection of the centred subject, equality and morality and his view on hierarchy, creativity and power struggles. Finally, it is argued that Nietzsche confronts our discourses on identity with challenges regarding the ubiquity of power struggles, the role of ressentiment, the possibility of communication across boundaries, the importance of the individual and the problem of affirmation. Contribution: Discourses on identity, although fashionable, are often confusing. Instead of offering solutions, this article uses Nietzsche’s life and philosophy to identify some causes of confusion and indicates where crucial decisions regarding our presuppositions have to be taken. Its aim was not to produce knowledge but, in line with Nietzsche’s practice, to ‘produce ignorance’, to question the terms we use confidently, without fully considering their meaning or implications. (shrink)

Task-unrelated thought (TUT) occurs frequently in our daily lives and across a range of tasks, but we know little about how this phenomenon arises during and influences the way we communicate. Conversations also provide a novel opportunity to assess the alignment (or divergence) in TUT during dyadic interactions. We conducted a study to determine: (a) the frequency of TUT during conversation as well as how partners align/diverge in their rates of TUT, (b) the subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and (...) TUT divergence during conversation, and (c) if perceived social group identity impacts TUT and TUT divergence during conversation. We used a minimal groups induction procedure to assign participants (N = 126) to either an ingroup, outgroup, or control condition. We then asked them to converse with one another via a computer-mediated text chat application for 10 min while self-reporting TUTs. On average, participants reported TUT about once every 2 min; however, this rate was lower for participants in the ingroup condition, compared to the control condition. Conversational pairs in the ingroup condition were also aligned more in their rates of TUT compared to the outgroup condition. Finally, we discuss subjective and behavioral correlates of TUT and TUT divergence in conversations, such as valence, turn-taking ratios, and topic shifts. (shrink)

What is the significance of and logic behind Jacques Derrida's recent "political" writings? While Derrida's work refuses to obey any singular movement or register, he does, nonetheless, make recurrent attempts to negotiate between a politics of identity and difference. A similar undertaking can be found in the radical democratic writings of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. An encounter between these thinkers is here carried out in order to elucidate key themes in Derrida's The Other Heading. The reading aims at (...) developing and contextualising Derrida's relation to radical democratic thought so that his political strategies can be made more explicit. (shrink)

ABSTRACTJohn Locke is famous for popularizing the method of the philosophical thought experiment in discussions of personal identity; the cases introduced in the second edition of An Essay Concerning Understanding are still employed by contemporary philosophers. Here I argue that Locke’s method is nonetheless importantly different from later efforts in ways that can help us better appreciate his larger projects. Rather than pumping the reader’s intuitions in support of his preferred account, Locke’s thought experiments serve to illustrate common errors (...) in assessments of identity that he sees as particularly prevalent and problematic. Locke defends his idea of ‘person’ otherwise, through what I call his ‘lived experiments’: observations about linguistic usage that serve to illustrate the term’s role in practical reasoning. I focus especially on Locke’s example of the forensic status of the madman. Examples like these do not, for Locke, demonstrate the intuitiveness of his analysis, but rather bolste... (shrink)

In Part IV of Book I of Hume’s Treatise Hume frequently appeals to an identity ascribing mechanism of the imagination. A psychological mechanism of which it is a special case, to ‘compleat the union’, is also prominent. These mechanisms belong to the imagination narrowly conceived according to a distinction in section ix of Part III. The role and significance of these mechanisms in the development of Hume’s scepticism is explored. Appreciation of their significance is also argued to cast light (...) on Hume’s refusal to locate necessity in objects and to suggest a plausible explanation of his second thoughts about personal identity. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur and Marya Schechtman express grave doubts about the acceptability and informativeness of the thought-experiments employed by analytic philosophers (notably Derek Parfit) in the debate about personal identity, and for what appear to be related reasons. I consider their reasoning and argue that their reasons fail to justify their doubts. I go on to argue that, from this discussion of possible problems concerning select thought-experiments, something positive can be learned about personal identity.

This book offers a uniquely process relational oriented Chinese approach to inter-religious dialogue called Chinese Harmonism. The key features of Chinese harmonism are peaceful co-existence, mutual transformation, and openness to change. As developed with help from Whiteheadian process thought, Chinese harmonism provides a middle way between particularism and universalism, showing how diversity can exist within unity. Chinese harmonism is open to similarities among religions, but it also emphasizes that differences among religions can be complementary rather than contradictory. Thus Chinese harmonism (...) implies an attitude of respect for others and a willingness to learn from others, without reducing the other to oneOCOs own identity: that is, to sameness. By emphasizing the possibility of complementariness, a process oriented Chinese harmonism avoids a dichotomy between universalism and particularism represented respectively by John Hick and S. Mark Heim, and will make room for a genuine openness and do justice to the culturally and religiously OC other.OCO. (shrink)

It is argued that from a genuine Leibnizian point of view the well-known thought experiment, call it BTE, involving a possible world with only two exactly similar objects, cannot be used to refute Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (LIdI). If the claim that there are two objects in BTE is based on primitive thisnesses, the Leibnizian objection is that there are no such things; and even if there were, then, quite generally, something true of one object – (...) that it has its primitive thisness – would not be true of the other. Secondly, if the duality claim is based on a primitive, irreducible relation of distinctness, the Leibnizian objection is that there are no irreducible relations. Finally, if it is said that the (putatively) two objects in BTE cannot be separately individuated, then BTE is not a counter-example to LIdI, because if there is no individuation, there are no individuals either, while LIdI presupposes that there are individuals. (shrink)

The analysis, research and interpretation of the concept of identity in Latin America is far from over. In this article an outline of new proposals that are being formulated in relation to this important theme is presented. Also new thoughts on identity are found to be “oriented towards an und..

The non-identity problem, which is much discussed in bioethics, metaphysics and environmental ethics, is usually examined by philosophers because of the difficulties it raises for our understanding of possible harms done to present human agents. In this article, instead of attempting to solve the non-identical problem, I explore an entirely different feature of the problem, namely the implications it has for the admissibility of outlandish or bizarre thought experiments. I argue that in order to sustain the claim that later (...) born selves cannot be harmed (since they are in fact different persons), one must rule inadmissible certain kinds of modally bizarre imaginary cases. In this paper I explore how one might justify such a constraint on outlandish cases and, in so doing, develop the outline of a model for distinguishing between admissible and inadmissible imaginary cases in philosophical debate. (shrink)

Elements of the relation between religion and politics are standard themes in political theory: toleration and free exercise rights; the parameters of separation of church and state; arguments for and against constraints imposed on religious discourse by philosophic norms of public reason. But religious parties and partisanship are no part of political theory, despite contemporary interest in value pluralism and in liberal democratic theory's capacity to address multicultural, religious, and ethnic group claims. This essay argues that religious parties are missing (...) elements in discussions of identity politics. They play an important role not just in expressing but also in constructing and mobilizing religious political identity. Political activity linked to parties is a principal way of bringing diffuse, politically unorganized groups, whose leaders are self-appointed and not regularly accountable for the way they represent co-religionists in political life, into the democratic mainstream. With political organization and especially partisanship, the fact of pluralism is made concrete for democratic purposes. (shrink)

R. G. Collingwood's re-enactment doctrine has been widely discussed in recent years by his commentators. However, most philosophers who discuss the re-enactment doctrine touch only briefly on his view of the identity of thoughts. This is surprising because Collingwood claims that the historian's successful re-enactment of the thought behind the historical agent's action involves re-thinking the same thought as the agent and not merely a copy of his thought.

The author, a member of the faculty in philosophy at Visva-Bharati University, produced this volume under appointment as Visiting Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, after having studied in England. These four essays are concerned with recent analytic thought, concentrating upon the problem of identity and the experiments of reflection which have appeared in modern British philosophy, such as Strawson’s world of nothing but sound. Chandra’s central concern is to analyse the relationship between identity and continuity, (...) and to show that these concepts are not identical. Thus the book is an extended essay in conceptual clarification and logical geography. Saying that a is identical with b is not to say that a is continuous with b. All of this is undertaken because the author finds this inappropriate identification pervasive in contemporary philosophy, and the source of considerable logical confusion, especially in the consideration of personal identity. As an underlying theme attention is also focused upon the relevance of this issue to the debate concerning philosophical skepticism. Strawson’s sound world is seen as an attempt to refute the skeptic, which attempt fails because of Strawson’s failure to distinguish between identity and continuity. With the failure of Strawson’s attack upon the skeptic, and perhaps the phenomenalist as well, his defense of material bodies is thereby undermined. In addition to Strawson, Chandra studies Price, Ryle, Hick, and the very recent work on personal identity by Parfit. The author concludes that identity is consistent with discontinuous existence. He also offers an analysis of after-images, including not only visual after-images but after-images of taste as well. A further underlying theme is the use of science in such thought experiments, for they are frequently presented as if they were of a scientific character, thus exaggerating scientific capabilities. However, the nature of the relationship between philosophy and science is hardly clarified, and the nature of scientific limits remains vague throughout the book. Chandra has isolated a unique feature of contemporary analytic philosophy for consideration, for few others have so concentrated upon this strange feature of thought experiment which pervades British philosophy, nor the identification of identity and continuity. The book would have been improved tremendously, however, if the author had only indicated much more clearly than he does the philosophical conclusions which he wishes to draw from his reflections. These constantly remain uncertain and ambiguous.—H.A.D. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum has argued in support of the view (supposedly that of Aristotle) that we can, through thought-experiments involving personal identity, find an objective foundation for moral thought without having to appeal to any authority independent of morality. I compare the thought-experiment from Plato’s Philebus that she presents as an example to other thought-experiments involving identity in the literature and argue that this reveals a tension between the sources of authority which Nussbaum invokes for her thought-experiment. I also (...) argue that each of her sources of authority presents further difficulties for her project. Finally, I argue that it is not clear that her thought-experiment is one that actually involves identity in any crucial way. As a result, the case she offers does not offer any satisfactory support for her view on the relation between identity, morality and thought-experiments, but we do gain some insights into what that relation really is along the way. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses friendship in relation to self-identity in the thought of Paul Ricoeur. Its main claim is that Ricoeur's notion of self-identity designates a hermeneutically mediated experience, and that this complex experience can only be illumined by a phenomenology that is sensitive to ethical aspects. Another finding is that, according to Ricoeur, whatever we do, say, or write, takes on the form of narrative experience. Finally, the dissertation shows that what looks like the force of the discourse, (...) driving author to reader, and readers to one another, is in fact the force of philia, and that the latter is a source that nourishes practical wisdom exercised in relations with others. The call to friendship is a call to esteem for the being-like-me, a call to recognize a likeness beyond question and doubt, which relates selfhood and alterity, sameness and difference. (shrink)

This is a response to three critical discussions of my book Memory: A Philosophical Study (Oxford University Press 2010): Marya Schechtman, Memory and Identity , Fred Adams, Husker Du? , and Sanford Goldberg The Metasemantics of Memory.