Abstract

The philosophical problem of personal identity seems especially complex since the metaphysical and epistemological issues have been conflated in the standard literature and there is a general tendency to equate the ways the identities of persons are constituted with ways they can be verified. Thus, in an attempt to dispel this sort of confusion and to clarify the fundamental difficulties about personal identity, this dissertation attempts to answer two separate theoretical questions: What makes someone the same person through time? and How do I know that someone is the same person at different times? ;First, I attempt to show that memory theories are either objectionably circular or incorrect and argue that memory is not constitutive of personal identity but that it enables us to ascertain the identities of persons. ;Second, I explicate John Locke's long overlooked analysis of the identities of living creatures and, on the basis of his suggestions, develop an extended metaphysical account of the identities of animate beings. Since persons are, first and foremost, human beings included in the class of living things, this theory is developed to serve as a theoretical model for an adequate metaphysical explanation of personal identity. ;Third, I take the concept of a person to be the concept of a somatopsychic being and propose a metaphysical theory of personal identity which is restricted in its application to living human beings with conscious capacities. ;Finally, I compare the proposed theory to both psychological theories and bodily continuity theories and attempt to show that it does have some advantages over traditional accounts of personal identity when it comes to resolving some of the standard puzzle cases in the philosophical literature