John Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity Essay

John Locke states that personal identity is a matter of physiological continuity that is based on the consciousness of a person rather than the individual’s body. Personal identity is constituted by memory connections; specifically the depiction of autobiographical memory connections that result in constituting personal identity. John Locke states that a person’s personality and psychology can be transferred to another body and that individual can still stay the same person because the consciousness of the person did not change. This idea is known as transplant intuition. This intuition is the basis of the account of personal identity. If a cerebrum was removed from one body and transplanted into a different body, the transplant intuition

The writings of John Locke were basic in the idea that they focused on the natural rights of people, the rights given by God. Locke had theories when it came to religious tolerance. Locke believed that earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints. InA Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke argues for freedom of religion, which became one of the bedrock principles which the country was founded on.

Locke’s view one must make an inference to substance; it is not a part of sense-experience. And, he thinks it is a justified inference. General idea of substance is an unknown something that supports accidents. Particular substance is nothing but several combinations

In John Locke’s argument for personal identity, he believes that we are not substances or mere souls. In his argument, Locke stresses to convey that there is a crucial difference between distinguishing a “man” and a “person” (Locke 221). According to Locke’s definition, a man is a living body which is homogenous to an animal’s body. Therefore, any living body of a particular shapes refers to a “man.” Locke emphasizes that a “person” is a sensible being that is aware of its own

Just what is a person? What makes a person, a person? Are humans just made of atoms and molecules just like what the scientists say? Or are humans something else, a soul perhaps? This has been debated for centuries by great philosophers, and one of them is John Locke. His idea of identity of a human is that humans are conscious beings thus their identity involve consciousness. However, Thomas Reid believes that Locke is wrong and identity of humans are transitive. But Locke’s

Personal identity, in a philosophical point of view, is the problem of explaining what makes a person numerically the same over a period of time, despite the change in qualities. The major questions answered by Locke were questions concerning the nature of identity, persons, and immorality (Jacobsen, 2016). This essay will discuss the three themes John Locke presents in his argument regarding personal identity, which are, the concept of categories, substance vs. man vs. person, and the continuity of consciousness.

He argues that there are no absolute ideas because, if there were, they would be known to children directly at birth, and they are not (Locke, 8). Locke Believes that if his theories were not true than children would be able to walk and talk at birth. Believing that humans do not know anything else before birth, he believed that the mind was a "tabula rasa" or "blank slate", Locke also says that if any idea is pre-programmed before birth, than the idea of God is innate. Since there is not a universally agreed notion of God, the idea of God cannot be innate (Locke, 25-26). It is through our senses, not through a divine source like GOD that we are able to attain knowledge. Locke proclaims that we as humans learn what we see and hear, in other words, personal experience. Locke does not believe that there is any certain knowledge (Locke, 263). Instead, he believes that we only know what we see and hear and also what the individual chooses to learn. Since he believes in learning information he does not believe in a life that is pre-determined. I believe that knowledge is obtained through life experience sharing many of the views of Locke. Locke says that all ideas come from sensation and reflection; all knowledge is founded on experience (Locke, 33). Essentially our ideas begin at a very simple level but when we see, hear, smell, and touch our surroundings, we learn to think and

Like Descartes, Locke also believed in an external world. As an empiricist, Locke relied heavily on the senses to provide true knowledge (Moore 2002). He shared Aristotle’s belief that the mind is a blank slate, also known as tabula rasa, at birth (Paquette 211). Our sense experiences thereafter provide us with knowledge to fill in those slates (Paquette 211). In Locke’s “Representative Theory of Perception,” also known as Epistemological Dualism, he stated that material objects exist and are separate entities from human beings (Paquette 227). However, he also believed that objects exist in the mind as psychological entities (Paquette 227). Locke concluded that people can taste, smell, touch, and see the external world which, in turn, becomes impressions in our minds (Paquette 227). Descartes and Locke are thus seen to be similar in the sense that they both believed in an external world.

Locke feels that we do not have any innate ideas.  Then the question arises of

John Locke starts off his treatise with the thesis that ideas spring from two fountainheads--sensation and reflection. The former, man acquires from external sensible objects that affect man's five senses--those same senses endowed upon all men by the Creator. Material things outside man's being are the objects of sensation. Through experiencing sensation, man's thinking process gives rise to ideas thereby gaining for the thinking being a certain amount of

Locke's view on personal identity has strengths but it also has several weaknesses or limitations. One important strength is when Locke states that a person should be held responsible for his/her actions if he/she recalls doing those actions. In this case, the person

Locke believed that the identity of a person could be assigned to the consciousness. He thought that a person would remain the same as

How is John Locke acknowledged in society? Rene Descartes became accredited by what? Well, people knew these men for their philosophical views, their views on identity varied undoubtedly. For example, Descartes famous line "I think, therefore I am" alludes to the fact that he most certainly exists. On the other hand, Locke believes that if you committed a crime, but cannot recall your actions, then you should not serve time for your crime. Hence, Descartes perspective of identity contains the self, as Locke reveals that identity is something that cannot have two things existing at the same time.

The question on personal identity has been a philosophical debate for a long time. Philosophers over time have tried to argue what being a person that one is, from one day to the necessarily contains. In their endless search for philosophical bases on the same, multiple questions on the issues of life and death arise such that the correct answers to personal identity determine the changes that one person undergoes, or may undergo without being extinct but rather continuing to exist. Personal identity philosophical theory confronts the most ultimate questions on our existence as well as who we are and if by any chance there is a possibility of life after death. In attempts to distinguish change in a person in survival and after death, a criterion of personal identity over time is given. Such criterion specifies all the necessary and sufficient conditions that must prevail for a person to continue to exist (Perry et al,103)

The problem he has with us thinking like this is that all sorts of things would end up being defined as innate. Locke thought that we had the capacity to recognise “self evident” truths and that we do have an innate capacity allowing us to recognise things, however they are not actually innate ideas within us, but ideas we gain from experience which our innate capacity allows us to understand. He was of the opinion that ideas are material of thinking and that there was no thinking before perception. While the mind has the capacity to think, it is not actually constantly thinking. For example, if you are asleep but not dreaming, then according to Locke, your mind isn’t actually thinking.