An Analysis Of Three Theories Of Personal Identity Philosophy Essay

An Analysis Of Three Theories Of Personal Identity Philosophy EssayTrying to outline yourself is like trying to bite your admit teeth Alan Watts. Personal Identity play its role as to define human with quality of its own which makes him or her a unique wiz. The identicalness of a person that is in question must be able to realize them, and he must be identified by other people. In short, what makes jakes unique from Felicia? twain internal (mind) and external (body) views are the two essential aspects that suck in to be differentiated by iodin. There are some(prenominal) general philosophical theories of this identity problem.Body guess, Soul theory and Conscious Theory will come to fit into the missing piece of the puzzle of in the flesh(predicate) identity.The body theory is unmatchable of the theories that define personal identity. It can be defined as when Person A has a personal identity if and exactly if they have the same body X. However, two problems can be foun d in this commentary. Qualitatively, it is discipline to own the same body, save if changes happened to the body, can we exempt define that person as the same one? Everyones body is definitely different if we were to compare at the age of 60 and 4. Another problem popped out on the matter of body alteration. If Felicia becomes injured by a mine at war, and then her legs have to be amputated, is she not the same person, Felicia? Therefore, the interpretation of the theory is inadequate as the same body alteration is not accounted for. On the other hand, numerically, if a person lost his riffle due to an accident, does that finger is counted as a different body? What if a scientist decided to use another persons desoxyribonucleic acid to clone another person with the exact 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 living totally different lives. Hence, in defi ning 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 scarce if they have the same soul. The idea became a lot more complicated when we are trying to define a rather controversial term soul. In the religion 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 dark phenomenon since there is no proof that can prove its existence. For instance, when a cloud 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 philosophy theories about personal identity are the consciousn ess theory. However, this theory is interpreted differently in collar ways the experiential content, conscious self, and connected stream of consciousness theories. number 1 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 twain of them has personal identity. At stolon sight, it seems like a good theory to prove personal identity. It is analogous to Descartes cogito, I think therefore I am. Secondly, the consciousness of experiences 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 moot twins for instance. Although they have identical bodies, the moment they were born, they a re already experiencing different moments. Therefore, both of them have personal identity because they experience different surroundings and see things in a different manner. The major problem is that we do not have the ability to call back every single experience in our life consciously. For instance, one can still tell another person what they have eaten trinity days ago but it is impossible for a person to tell another what they ate today after 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 had solved the problem of human being otio se 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 flowing 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 preferred 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 strongly agree with what Reid hold on to. He thinks that personal identity should be determined with something that cannot be divided into parts indivisible but not by determinin g 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 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