An Analysis Of Three Theories Of Personal Identity Philosophy Essay

An Analysis Of Three Theories Of soulfulnessal Identity Philosophy seekTrying to set yourself is similar nerve-wracking to bite your possess teeth Alan Watts. Personal Identity play its role as to define gentle with quality of its own which conveys him or her a unique star. The identity of a person that is in question must be able to authorize them, and he must be identified by other people. In short, what makes John unique from Felicia? Both internal ( perspicacity) and external ( em torso) views atomic number 18 the 2 essential aspects that have to be oppositeiated by one. in that location are several general philosophical theories of this identity problem.Body opening, mortal theory and Conscious Theory give come to fit into the lacking piece of the puzzle of personal identity.The body theory is one of the theories that define personal identity. It can be defined as when Person A has a personal identity if and only if they have the alike body X. However, two problems can be found in this comment. Qualitatively, it is right to own the said(prenominal) body, but if changes happened to the body, can we still define that person as the alike one? Everyones body is definitely unalike if we were to compare at the age of 60 and 4. A nonher problem popped out on the government issue of body alteration. If Felicia becomes injured by a mine at war, and then her legs have to be amputated, is she non the same person, Felicia? Therefore, the definition of the theory is insufficient as the same body alteration is not accounted for. On the other hand, numerically, if a person lost his finger ascribable to an accident, does that finger is counted as a antithetical body? What if a scientist immovable to use another(prenominal) persons DNA to clone another person with the contract same DNA? Two people with identical body surely cannot be the same person because they are still two different people with identical body. Both of them would be livi ng totally different lives. Hence, in defining personal identity, the body theory by itself had failed to make it valid.The Soul theory will be the next common theory in defining personal identity. Similarly to the body theory Person A has a personal identity if and only if they have the same soul. The idea became a lot more(prenominal) complicated when we are trying to define a rather controversial term soul. In the faith aspect, it is thought to be spirit of a person that passes through ones body into another realm (eg. Heaven or hell). However, it is still a somber phenomenon since there is no proof that can prove its existence. For instance, when a dapple changes to grayish puffy substance, we will still say, the cloud had turned gray. In short, we still recognized it as a cloud. It is just many souls in one body. Therefore, the soul theory is also not valid as it fails in that the definiens is insufficient to define personal identity.The truest and most recognized ism the ories about personal identity are the intendedness theory. However, this theory is understand differently in three ways the experiential content, conscious self, and committed stream of consciousness theories. First on the list, the conscious self-theory he or she is said to have personal identity if they have the same self-conscious. In another words, if there is a different conscious in two people, then both of them has personal identity. At first sight, it seems like a good theory to prove personal identity. It is analogous to Descartes cogito, I appreciate therefore I am. Secondly, the consciousness of images theory is the common derivatives to the theory of consciousness. It is more easily known as the experiential content. This theory comes from the Lockes theory of having the mind blank, and accumulation from experiences. One is to have personal identity because only one person can experience at one finite space. We take twins for instance. Although they have identical bo dies, the moment they were born, they are already experiencing different moments. Therefore, both of them have personal identity because they experience different surround and see things in a different manner. The major problem is that we do not have the ability to remember every star experience in our life consciously. For instance, one can still tell another person what they have eaten three days ago but it is insurmountable for a person to tell another what they ate today subsequently 10 years. In another example, one cannot be define as having different personal identity because they were drunk and acted like another person. In other words, because the human mind has failed to consciously remember every single moment of their lives, this theory eventually is invalid.The connected stream of consciousness will be the last theory about personal identity. With its definition of a persons identity is made out of a stream of connected conscious experiences, this theory eventually h ad solved the problem of human being ineffective to remember about their experience consciously. With this theory, we will still be the same person although we are unable to remember what we have done at the age of 4 when we are 60 years old. Generally with a finite mind, conscious is affiliated in a chronological pattern. In short, we will take the river as a metaphor. If you see a river current every day, you will not be looking at the same part of the river (representing body or experiences), however you will not be able to dispute that is not a river. Hence, let say the river is personal identity. This theory almost had it all right then.Thomas Reid which is also my preferable option to the idea of personal identity disagreed with Lockes memory theory by reducing it to absurdity. Lockes theory was criticized for a few irrelevancies. First of all, I powerfully agree with what Reid hold on to. He thinks that personal identity should be determined with something that cannot be di vided into parts indivisible but not by determining by operations. He, too, stated the main problem of Lockes is his ideas are of confusing proves of another thing with itself. Officer paradox was introduced by Reid at his attempt to Lockes theory to absurdity.A U.S. author, James Baldwin once quoted, An identity seemed like it has arrived by the way when a person faces and uses his experience. Assuming that we will not be able to put everything into a complete puzzle, we are left over(p) with one choice. Pluck a rose, separate the petals one by one which each petals represents one idea. Whatever came out at the end, it is you call by your very own intuition.Rfrn