On Personal Identity: the Epistemic Problem, Personal Pronoun Revisionism, and De Se Attitudes
Date
2017-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
The thesis focuses on the contemporary ‘animalism vs. neo-Lockeanism’
debate on personal identity over time. I will look at Noonan’s defence on behalf of
neo-Lockeanism against the version of animalism formulated and popularised by
Olson (1997, 2003, 2007). Noonan argues for neo-Lockeanism (1989/2003,
2010a,1998) by rejecting the animalists’ thinking animal argument. In doing so, the
neo-Lockean theorist commits to claims that give rise to the epistemic problem:
how do I know which thinker is me, given the neo-Lockean claim that the thinking
animal and the Lockean person are numerically distinct, but qualitatively identical
entities capable of occupying the same temporal-spatial location? In response,
Noonan devises personal pronoun revisionism (or the linguistic solution) as an
attempt to resolve the problem: personal pronouns don’t refer to the thinker who
thinks the I-thought e.g. the thought that ‘I am a person’, but instead they refer to
the person who thinks the I-thought. According to the neo-Locekan view, since i)
you know that you are a person viz. ’you’ refers to a person and ii) persons are
Lockean persons you can know that the thinker who is a person, the Lockean
person, is you viz. ‘you’ always refers to the Lockean person not the thinking
animal. Therefore, the epistemic problem is resolved since the question answers
itself in the proposed semantic rule for the reference of personal pronouns. I argue
that for considering problems of de se attitudes—propositional attitudes (knowing
that, thinking that, believing that etc.) held towards propositions/beliefs identified
by I-utterances such as ‘I am hungry’, ‘I want to have some ice-cream’ etc.,
Noonan’s response to the epistemic problem is not adequately motivated. With the
epistemic problem unsolved, we have strong reasons for refuting neo-Lockeanism.
This thesis will have the following structure: In Section 1 I discuss Olson’s
animalism as a position on personal identity. I will explain how Noonan’s refutation
of the thinking animal argument leads to the epistemic problem as part of the
broader thinking animal problem. Section 2 and 3 discuss this problem and
Noonan’s proposed solution, personal pronoun revisionism, to it. Section 4 is an
extended exposition of Noonan’s proposal. In Section 5 I argue that Noonan’s
proposal fails for considering the problem of de se attitudes. Finally, I conclude that with the problems Noonan’s account faces, we have strong reasons to reject
Noonan’s neo-Lockeanism.
Description
Keywords
animalism, personal identity, Noonan, neo-Lockeanism, propositional attitudes, epistemic problem