Application of Reductionism in Resolving the Problem of Personal Identity

Personal Identity
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Personal Identity
Introduction
The problem of personal identity and its associated frustrations has been a historical concern for philosophers. Personal identity confronts the ultimate questions of human existence and attempts to provide answers to rather mundane but complex questions such as who were we, and if there is life after death (Olson, 2021). Nevertheless, this sort of analytical approach to personal identity offers sufficient and critical conditions for understanding the identity of persons over time. It is a concept about oneself that keeps evolving throughout one’s life. This way of thinking introduces the concept of persistence of existence across time and how much can be proven. The important question to philosophers here includes what it takes for a person to persist from one time to the other or simply, to continue existing instead of ceasing to exist. Out of fear or hope that our lives may continue to exist after we die, the question of persistence remains a philosophical quagmire (Perry, 1978). For instance, John Locke talks of personal identity and the existence of consciousness after one has died. According to Locke’s description, personal identity is a psychological continuity, which is founded on consciousness rather than on either matter of body or soul (Olson, 2021). However, in a dialogue on the personal identity between Gretchen Werob and her two friends, Sam Miller and Dave Cogen, John Perry presents the implications that it is unnecessary to exist after death without personal identity (Perry, 1978). Modern philosophy of mind has labeled the conundrum of personal identity as a diachronic problem. This classification differs from the synchronic problem, which is based on the question of the traits or features that define a person at one time (Nimbalkar, 2014). Developments and inquiries into this problem of personal identity have resulted in several theories, including John Locke’s theory of personal identity. Other theories that have attempted to resolve the problem of personal identity include the simple view, reductionism (general, psychological, and physiological), and quasi-psychology. In this paper, I will attempt to apply reductionism in resolving the problem of personal identity.
Theory of personal identity: Reductionism
The problem of personal identity has remained to be a question of sufficient conditions, especially when a person is said to be identical at a given period to another person existing during a different time. Reductionism attempts to offer the criteria to this problem from the perspective that personal identity can be reduced and therefore, divisible. The opposite to reductionism is non-reductionism approaches such as the Cartesian theory (Olifer, 2021). There are two forms of reductionism approach: physical and psychological. In the psychological criterion to personal identity, an individual’s identity over time consists in the holding of the relation of psychological continuity between a person across time. This criterion may exist in the form of continuity of consciousness, continuity of memories, and mental consciousness. Using the physical criterion, philosophers have employed spatial and temporal continuities in resolving the conundrum of personal identity. In this criterion, all mental activities, including consciousness are all matter (Olifer, 2021). However, the physical criterion has several variations. Some thinkers identify persons with a body because the existence of a body represents the precondition of the existence of consciousness.
Whilst other thinkers have considered the unity of consciousness as a characteristic of brain activity. Therefore, while a brain might continue to function, a person can exist even when the rest of the body does not survive. This observation has led E. Olson and P. Snowdown to introduce the concept of animalism to serve as a variant to the physical criterion (Olifer, 2021). These thinkers argue that an individual is numerically similar and identical to a human animal. Therefore, if the human-animal keeps the biological continuity or lie, then it can be a person. During the early developments of modern philosophy, personal identity was always viewed as the continuity of memories. However, in analytic philosophy, the problem of personal identity is viewed as the continuity of consciousness, which adds other mental faculties to memories. Analytic philosophers think that personal identity is a formal relationship between two different stages (Olifer, 2021). Other modern thinkers now pursue the problem of personal identity by considering mental connectedness although they admit that the identity between persons and stages is not strictly a one-to-one relation, and therefore, it can have some levels of similarities.
Best arguments for Reductionism
In understanding the case of personal identity, Woike et al (2020) narrate a short story about Arnaud du Tilh, who was hanged in September 1560 in front of a house that belonged to Martin Guerre. Tilh stole the Guerre’s name and place for three years, taking ownership of his possession and wife. Returning from war, Guerre met his impostor and pursued a legal suit that found the impostor guilty and was sentenced to death. It is generally accepted that two people have no legitimate right to be the same individual. This also applies to the case of monozygotic twins who may share several features. However, the twins will later undergo different experiences in life and will entirely be remaining to be two different persons. The problem of personal identity is philosophically served as the impostor’s story. Rather than examining the qualitative properties of a person, numerical sameness is considered across time. The identity of objects and persons refer to the same form of sameness or continuity (Woike et al., 2020). Philosophers have grappled with the question of identity not only for legal reasons such as the case of the impostor but also for intellectual interests in an attempt to probe and define tan individuals’ concepts. In terms of continuity of persons, personal identity is critical for any justification of punishments or rewards, moral responsibility, or future self-concern. Within the legal system, persons can be tracked because of continuity, and these procedures are conducted as a prove personal identity to show their entitlement, insurance covers, credit scores, or criminal responsibilities (Woike et al., 2020). This is why continuity makes logical claims compared to the Cartesian theory.
The reductionism approach of solving the personal identity problem emerged as a critique of the Cartesian theory, which holds that humans are indivisible. However, many thought experiments have taken center stage drawing from the debates about personal identity (Woike, 2020). Sergio Canavero, an Italian neurosurgeon, made rather controversial claims that he would be able to perform a successful head transplant by grafting ahead of one human into a donor’s body. While experiments such as Canavero’s human head transplant have been ethically challenged, they disprove the proponents of the Cartesian theory of human identity (Hjelmgaard, 2019). There has been increasing support to such thought experiments claiming that they are sufficiently possible and that humans should follow their intuitions seriously. The reductionism approach to resolving the problem of personal identity takes two forms: psychological and physiological continuities.
Locke pursued the question of personal identity using the example of the soul of the prince that found itself in the body of the cobbler and asked whether the newly formed person is ...