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Open inquiry12 min4 historical perspectives

What makes a mind and a self persist?

Use amnesia, bodily duplication, and unfamiliar experience to compare accounts of the self in terms of soul, consciousness, process, and subjectivity.

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  1. 1From the fifth century BCEBuddhist not-self — Continuity without an owner

    Early Buddhist not-self tradition · Not-self discourses and Abhidharma analysis

    If experiences form a causal stream, must we posit an unchanging owner behind it?

    Indian Buddhist theories analyze mental life as interrelated physical and psychological processes rather than the activity of an independent, enduring substantial self.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: Introduction; §1 History of the Issue

      Open source

    Later notions such as mind-stream, life-continuum mind, and repository consciousness seek to explain continuity and karma without reinstating a permanent self.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §1.1 The Not-Self Doctrine; §5 Theories of Mind

      Open source
    1. Not-self analysis opens a tradition that treats persons as aggregates and causal processes.

      From the fifth century BCE

  2. 21641Descartes — The thinking self and the extended body

    René Descartes · Meditations on First Philosophy

    If every bodily fact is doubted, does the thinking self remain, and could it exist without the body?

    Descartes structures the Meditations to withdraw from the senses through doubt and reach certainty about the thinking subject.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • René Descartes

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §4.2 The Meditations; Meditation II

      Open source

    The Sixth Meditation argument for real distinction treats mind and body as non-identical and argues for the possibility of their existing apart.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Descartes' Modal Metaphysics

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §5 Real Distinction; AT 7:78, CSM 2:54

      Open source
    1. The Latin Meditations appears in Paris and places the mind-body distinction at center stage.

      1641 · Paris · 출판

  3. 31694Locke — The same person as far as consciousness reaches

    John Locke · Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxvii

    If consciousness cannot reach a past action, is the present person the one who performed it?

    Locke connects personal identity to the extent that consciousness reaches backward to past actions or thoughts.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Locke on Personal Identity

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §1 Locke on Persons and Personal Identity; Essay II.xxvii.9

      Open source

    This account separates personal identity from the persistence of the same immaterial soul and has generated competing interpretations of consciousness and substance.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Locke on Personal Identity

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §1 The Basics; §2 Locke on Persons: What’s Up for Debate

      Open source
    1. The second edition of the Essay adds the chapter on identity and diversity.

      1694

  4. 41974Nagel — Does the bat’s point of view survive physical explanation?

    Thomas Nagel · What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

    After every observable fact is collected, does the fact of what it is like for that creature remain?

    Nagel characterizes a conscious organism as one for which there is something it is like to be that organism.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • What Is It Like to Be a Bat?

      Thomas Nagel · 1974

      Locator: pp. 436–438

      Open source

    The bat case asks how objective physical explanation could include the subjective character of experience; it does not deny that bats have experiences.

    Source and exact locator

    The text is a Korean-English summary of the source, not a direct quotation.

    • Animal Consciousness

      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

      Locator: §2.2 Phenomenal Consciousness; discussion of Nagel 1974

      Open source
    1. Nagel's article makes the subjective character of consciousness a central problem in philosophy of mind.

      October 1974