The Unity of a Person: Philosophical Perspectives PDF
Preview The Unity of a Person: Philosophical Perspectives
The Unity of a Person What constitutes personhood? How are persons and their bodies related? What is the relationship between personhood and value? The Unity of a Person: Philosophical Perspectives explores the current debates surrounding the philosophy of personal identity and offers a fresh approach to this important topic. It is original in bringing together three approaches to personal identity that are traditionally treated separately: the metaphysical, the phenomenological, and the social. By examining these three areas this volume establishes connections between the underlying metaphysical issues surrounding personal identity and the specific forms of personal existence such as self-consciousness, action, and normativity. Topics discussed include personhood and animalism, process ontology, self-identity over time, social- ity and personhood, and the normative status of personhood. With chapters by an outstanding international roster of contributors, this collection will be of great interest to those studying personal identity and the nature of the self in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology. Jörg Noller is lecturer in philosophy at the University of Munich, Germany. He wrote his dissertation on the problem of freedom after Kant, and his ha- bilitation on personal life forms. He spent research stays in the USA at the Universities of Notre Dame, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. His main areas of re- search are personal identity, freedom of the will, philosophy of digitalization, and German idealism. The Unity of a Person Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Jörg Noller First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter Jörg Noller; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jörg Noller to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Noller, Jörg, 1984– editor. Title: The unity of a person : philosophical perspectives / edited by Jörg Noller. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: LCSH: Self (Philosophy) | Identity (Philosophical concept) | Ontology. Classification: LCC BD438.5 .U55 2022 (print) | LCC BD438.5 (ebook) | DDC 126—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014649 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021014650 ISBN: 978-0-367-72283-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-72286-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-15419-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003154198 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra Contents Notes on contributors vii Introduction 1 JÖRG NOLLER PART 1 Ontology 3 1 Personhood and the relation between metaphysics and value 5 ERIC T. OLSON 2 The Hybrid Account of personal persistence 23 BENJAMIN CURTIS AND HAROLD NOONAN 3 Persons, animals, and persistence 40 PAUL SNOWDON 4 Personal identity – a process account 52 GODEHARD BRÜNTRUP 5 What are persons?: Attempt at a normatively neutral ontological account 67 THOMAS BUCHHEIM vi Contents PART 2 Subjectivity 79 6 Personal identity and the transfer of commitment 81 ERASMUS MAYR 7 Biological subjectivity: Processual animalism as a unified account of personal identity 100 ANNE SOPHIE MEINCKE 8 Coherence in the self-pattern 127 SHAUN GALLAGHER PART 3 Intersubjectivity 147 9 Animals in person space 149 MARYA SCHECHTMAN 10 Personal identity and responsibility 165 KATHLEEN WALLACE 11 Collective intentionality, we-identity, and the role of narratives in the constitution of friendship 185 FELIPE LEÓN 12 A person’s life: Uniting metaphysics and value 207 JÖRG NOLLER Index 227 Notes on contributors Godehard Brüntrup SJ is a Professor of Philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy. His research interests include metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, analytic philosophy of religion, philosophy of psychology, and the history of analytic philosophy. Thomas Buchheim is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mu- nich. Systematically, his research interests include metaphysics and ontol- ogy, especially the problem of freedom and the concept of life. Historically, he focuses on Aristotle’s and Schelling’s philosophy. Benjamin Curtis main research is in metaphysics and bioethics, and the in- tersection between the two. After obtaining his PhD Dr Curtis taught for seven years in the philosophy department at the University of Nottingham before joining Nottingham Trent University. Shaun Gallagher is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis. His research interests include phenomenology and the philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, embodiment, intersubjectivity, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of time. Felipe León is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen. He holds MA degrees in Philosophy from the National University of Colombia and the University of Copen- hagen, and a PhD degree in Philosophy from the University of Copen- hagen. León’s primary research areas are classical phenomenology, social cognition, and collective intentionality. Erasmus Mayr is a Professor for Practical Philosophy at the Friedrich- Alexander-University (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg. He studied philosophy, logic and philosophy of science, and law, in Munich, where he also com- pleted his PhD and his practical law course and worked at the Philosophy Institute as a ‘Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter’. He was a Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at The Queen’s College Oxford, and, after some other positions, he joined the FAU in 2015. His main interests lie in phi- losophy of action, ethics, and metaethics. His publications include Under- standing Human Agency (OUP 2011, paperback 2018). viii Notes on contributors Anne Sophie Meincke holds a PhD from LMU Munich (2012) and was a Research Fellow at the Universities of Innsbruck (2011–2014), Exeter (2014–2018), and Southampton (2018–2019) before moving to the Uni- versity of Vienna with an ‘Elise Richter’ research grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (2019–). Meincke’s main areas of research are meta- physics, the philosophy of mind and action, and the philosophy of biology. Her recent publications include the two edited volumes – Dispositionalism: Perspectives from Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (Springer: Synthese Library, 2020) and Biological Identity: Perspectives from Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Biology (with J. Dupré; Routledge 2020). Meincke is an elected member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–). Jörg Noller is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Munich, Germany. He wrote his dissertation on the problem of freedom after Kant, and his habilitation on personal life forms. He spent research stays at the Universities of Notre Dame, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. His main areas of research are personal identity, freedom of the will, philosophy of digitali- zation, and German idealism. Harold Noonan was educated at the University of Cambridge, and taught at the University of Birmingham between 1979 and 2004, before which he was a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge. His prin- cipal teaching and research interests include the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language (especially reference); identity and personal identity; philosophical logic; and the philosophies of Frege, Russell, and Hume. Eric T. Olson is a Professor of Philosophy at a university he has asked not to be named. His research is primarily in metaphysics and related areas. Top- ics of particular interest include personal identity, material objects, time, and death. He is perhaps best known for his book The Human Animal, which argues for the unorthodox view that we are biological organisms (‘animalism’). Marya Schechtman is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illi- nois at Chicago, a member of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience, and an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She received her PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 1988. Her main areas of interest are personal identity, practical reasoning, and bioethics. Paul Snowdon was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, between 1971 and 2001, and then Grote Professor of Mind and Logic at UCL until retirement in 2014. In a series of articles and a book Persons, Animals, Ourselves (OUP 2014) he defended animalism. He also co-edited with Stephan Blatti An- imalism (OUP 2016) which contains essays discussing that approach. He has published articles on the philosophy of mind and the history of recent Notes on contributors ix philosophy, and will shortly be publishing Essays on Perceptual Experience with OUP, a collection of his papers on perception. Kathleen Wallace is a Professor of Philosophy at Hofstra University, New York. Her areas of specialization are metaphysics, ethics, personal identity, American philosophy, feminism. She is interested in the metaphysics of personal identity and responsibility.
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