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On What We are and How We Persist
Author(s) -
Langford Simon
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12035
Subject(s) - variety (cybernetics) , persistence (discontinuity) , epistemology , psychology , philosophy , sociology , computer science , artificial intelligence , engineering , geotechnical engineering
This article defends novel approaches to what we are and how we persist. First it is claimed that we have disjunctive persistence conditions: we can persist by way of either biological continuity or psychological continuity. Then it is claimed that we are neither human beings nor persons essentially. Rather, we are essentially bio‐psycho‐continuers , a concept to be explained along the way. A variety of objections are considered and found wanting.