Philosophy:Theories of Personal Identity

Believed to be the closest true philosophical theory of personal identity is the memory theory. The majority of philosophers consider this theory to be the best explanation of personal identity. However, there are three distinctive versions of the memory theory: the conscious self and experiential content will be outlined. Thirdly, the memory chain theory will be explained in further detail, as it is the strongest and most relevant argument, in this case.

Firstly, the conscious self is analogous to Descartes’ cogito, ‘I think therefore I am’. In other words, if Michael and Mark have different conscious, they each have personal identity. Being conscious means knowing one would exist, hence being able to think about any experience. The fault here is that it is a circular explanation; the use of the definiens in the definiendum is not an appreciated tactic when defining personal identity.

Following this is the experiential theory. This theory is grounded upon John Locke’s theory of one having a blank mind from birth, which then builds from experience. According to Locke, one would have personal identity as only one being can go through identical experiences in a finite space (Forstrom, 2010). The memory theory does help conclude some problems of other theories. For example, imagine a set of twins. It would be difficult to explain the personal identity of each using the body theory; by using the memory theory it is simple. Even though they have identical bodies, they’ll go through different experiences from their birth date. This then proves that these twins do have their own personal identity as they both have different conscious experiences (Forstrom, 2010). But, what if one has multiple conscious experiences, such as multiple personality disorder? Surely that cannot mean they are truly different people, regardless of their several personalities.  

The biggest problem of this theory is that one cannot recall all their experiences in their lifetime. For instance, if one tries to remember what they got for their fifth birthday, 40years later, it is most of the time impossible – although possible the day after. In other words, the conscious experience needed revision, as the human mind cannot remember every experience.

This is where the memory chain theory is relevant. This theory states that one’s identity is made up from a ‘stream’ of connected conscious experiences. This theory rebuts the body theory – the most dangerous theory to the memory theory. It is able to answer the question, is a person the same at the age of four and the age of forty? The memory theory explains that when a person is forty, they certainly have a different memory then when they were four years old. According to this theory and believed my many philosophers, we are still the same person at the differing ages.

In Perry’s dialogue of personal identity, Miller believes that they had been thinking about personal identity from the wrong aspect. He goes on to suggest it is a simply analogous to the expanse of a road. His idea is as follows; take Old South Head Rd, as an example. Suppose we take someone new to Rose Bay and show him Old South Head Rd. We would point to that street and say, “This is Old South Head Rd”. We then walk along for some time and point to the street when in Bondi Junction, and say “And this is Old South Head Rd”. There should not be any confusion for our friend, as even if the same road is in two different places and looks slightly different; it need not be the same in all of its parts, for something to be the same road (Wallace, 2008). Instead, what makes something the same road is the connection, in the right way, by the continuous road bits. Miller believes this is likewise with personal identity. What makes a person the same over time is that it is connected in the right ways by a continuous conscious (Wallace, 2008).  This is, so long as there is a conscious flow of memory. So long as one retains the memories of his past self, one is psychologically connected in the ‘right sort of way’ (Valaris, 2011).

This theory solves majority of the problems arrived from the other two conscious theories, and personal identity theories. It seems as if the memory chain theory, part of the memory theory, is both a necessary and sufficient definition when defining personal identity.

In conclusion, we have discussed the most common theories of personal identity: the body theory, the soul theory and the memory theory. Of the three theories the memory theory - more specifically the memory chain theory – is the closest to the truth. The body theory fails as people’s bodies change over time, although still hold the same identity. The key problem with the soul theory is that it is immaterial and the idea of souls is disputable and inaccessible. Conclusively, the theory that proved to be the best description of personal identity and the closest to the truth is the memory theory.

Personal identity is always changing slightly as it is made up of a connected chain of memory (i.e. actions, memories, thoughts). As Alan Watts, a British-born philosopher, previously said, “Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”

References:

1. Kolton, T. V. (2010). Personal Identity. Retrieved 17th May, 2011, from http://www.customessaymeister.com/customessays/Philosophy/2627.htm

2. Reported by Markos Valaris, 2011, in a lecture.

3. Wallace, M. (2008). Perry on Personal Identity. Retrieved 19th May, 2011, from http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Perry.html

4. Retrieved from an institutional or personal Web site: Perry, J. (1943). A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Retrieved 16th May, 2011, from https://lmsblackboard.telt.unsw.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Fcontent%2Ffile%3Fcmd%3Dview%26content_id%3D_439559_1%26course_id%3D_10067_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue

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