Mind Association

Personal Identity. by Godfrey VeseyReview by: R. G. SwinburneMind, New Series, Vol. 85, No. 337 (Jan., 1976), pp. 143-145Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253274 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 143

does not believe that this constitutes his identity, for 'even if we have no memory or other knowledge of a past experience, and could not therefore know of ourselves as the persons involved in it, that in no way precludes our being the subject of it' (p. 92). In this he is surely right, but that means that he ought also to give us some alternative account of what it is that constitutes continuing personal identity. Granted, however, his account of the nature of the knowledge of self, it is difficult to see what we can say about that self which will give us a toehold on the notion of continuing identity.

One possibility which is considered and rejected is that of bodily continuity. In his discussion of this Lewis considers the case outlined by Bernard Williams, of two of our contemporaries, each claiming to be Guy Fawkes and to have the memories appropriate to being the continuing self who was Guy Fawkes. Lewis deals with this case by asserting that we should retain our belief that there can only be one continuing Guy Fawkes and that thus in the case of only one of the contenders can the 'alleged memories of a life as Guy Fawkes' be genuine (p. I03). Granted his rejection of this possibility and the fact that he does not believe memory to constitute, or to be a condition of there being, continuing identity, it is difficult to see what other alternative is offered, as an account of the nature of continuing personal identity. Certainly the dangers of looking for an impression or experience of self are avoided, as are the risks of arguing that we are what we remember ourselves to be. Lewis's alternative view is that there is a 'basic sense of identity in which everyone knows who he is, however little he may say about it or reflect upon it' (p. 8i) and our memory is on the whole sufficiently trustworthy for us to accept memories of our having been aware of, or having known, ourselves in this particular and unique way (p. 9X). At this point, however, we return to the question raised about knowledge of self: Is the memory in question a memory of our having particular experiences, say, talking to a friend, or is it a memory of our being conscious, in at least a minimal way, of our- selves in these experiences, or is it, as now seems to be possible a memory of a particular kind of experience which is the memory of the experience of being conscious of oneself? On the whole Lewis seems to accept the second of these possibilities and there is in addition a hint, which is not further clarified, that it is significant that in the process of remembering one is, of course, also aware of oneself in this minimal way.

UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING STEWART R. SUTHERLAND

Personal Identity. By GODFREY VESEY. London: Macmillan, 1974. Pp. I28. ?2.50.

There has been a considerable recent literature on the topic of Personal Identity. It is appropriate that a volume in Macmillan's Problems of Philosophy series should deal with this topic. Professor Vesey considers in turn various traditional accounts of what it is for a person at one time to be the same person as a person at a later time-that it consists in the

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144 BOOK REVIEWS

experiences of the two persons being both related to a self-conscious self) in their experiences both being related to an enduring experience, in their experiences being related to each other in some way (e.g. by causal links), that it consists in the two persons having the same body. Vesey criticises these answers and then goes on to consider Parfit's answer that personal identity is a matter of degree, and that the extent to which it is present depends on the extent to which there is 'psychological continuity'-which is spelt out in terms of 'q-memories'. These various answers to the question, Vesey considers, all get us into a 'labyrinth' by getting us too far away from our 'ordinary reckonings', and the true answer is that contained in The Blue Book. Under ordinary circumstances (where brains are not bisected or transplanted, and men do not turn up in the twentieth century claiming to have the memories of Guy Fawkes), we have agreed criteria which allow us to make judgments about personal identity. Vesey writes: 'we can decide ordinary disputes- in the way in which we do'. Vesey does not tell us what this way is, but I would suppose that bodily continuity would be a fairly central criterion, assisted no doubt by appearance, fingerprints, and what a man claims about his past experiences. However, under extraordinary circumstances (when brains are bisected and transplanted, and men do turn up in the twentieth century claiming to have the memories of Guy Fawkes) our normal criteria break down and the expression 'same person' has no clear use. Unless we extend our normal concept of 'person', there is no right answer in such circumstances to questions about whether a certain later person is the same as a certain earlier person. He is the same in some respects (e.g. he has most of the earlier person's body) and not the same in other respects (e.g. he does not have the earlier person's brain), and that is all there is to be said.

A solution of this Wittgensteinian type seems to this reviewer to be profoundly unsatisfactory-for reasons which I give elsewhere.' Suffice it to remark here that Vesey does not provide adequate justification for his answer. The only argument which Vesey gives for his view is in the form of a quotation from Wittgenstein that 'our actual use of the phrase "the same person" . . . is based on the fact that many characteristics which we use as the criteria of identity coincide in the vast majority of cases'. But to start with, even if we do use different characteristics as criteria of personal identity, that is quite compatible with one of those characteristics (e.g. bodily continuity) being much more important than others for making judgments of personal identity. If one characteristic were much more important than others, we could still make judgments of personal identity where characteristics did not coincide. Vesey does not show that one characteristic does not have this importance. Further, the force of Wittgenstein's remarks depends on what is meant by a 'criterion', which is something which Vesey does not discuss and Wittgenstein himself was none too clear about.2 If the 'criteria' are the defining character-

I 'Personal Identity', Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society, 74 (0973-74), pp. 231-247.

2 See Rogers Albritton 'On WVittgenstein's use of the term "Criterion"', Journal of Philosophy, 6i (I959), pp. 845-857.

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BOOK REVIEWS 145

istics (or even necessary and sufficient conditions), then these remarks do indeed show that we cannot sensibly talk about 'the same person' where criteria of equal weight conflict. But if 'criteria' are simply non- inductive kinds of evidence, all that follows from a conflict between criteria of equal weight is that we will not have good grounds for saying one thing rather than another (that Charles is Guy Fawkes rather than that Charles is not Guy Fawkes), not that there is no true thing to say. Vesey does not give any argument for the various characteristics (which he does not delineate) being 'criteria' of personal identity in the first sense. But we need argument for this if we are to have reason to accept Vesey's answer.

At the beginning of the book Vesey takes a little time to state the problem, and his attempt to express it in terms of two questions, the unity question (what makes a person's experiences all his) and the identity question (what is essential to personal identity) was not, in the opinion of this reviewer, very helpful. However once he gets going, Vesey provides a fairly useful discussion of various traditional accounts of personal identity. In discussing the view that the identity of two persons consists in their experiences both being related to a self- conscious self, he has a helpful discussion of how 'I am me' does not state anything, any more than does 'I am here'. When he is discussing traditional accounts, it is a pity that Vesey does not discuss the views of Butler and Reid; and when he is discussing modern writers, it is a pity that Vesey pays virtually no attention to Shoemaker. But necessarily the author of a short book has to be selective.

UNIVERSITY OF KEELE R. G. SWINBURNE

Minds, Brains and People. By T. E. WILKERSON.

Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, I974. Pp. I94. ?3.50.

Mr. Wilkerson's book is an attempt to consider 'whether a physicalist account of persons is in principle preferable to a more traditional account' (Foreword, his emphasis). He argues that it is not, as follows:

Descriptive and revisionary metaphysics are distinguished, and physi- calism classed as the latter. A descriptive metaphysic of persons is sketched, in which persons appear as logically primitive and analyses of the notions of personal and mental identity are given. The revisionary account begins by distinguishing philosophical physicalism (hereafter, 'physicalism' tout court) from scientific ('the unity of science'). The former requires the latter's contingent truth, is preferable to its competitors because of its simplicity, and is forced to admit phenomenological properties because they are irreducible and essential to the contingency of scientific physical- ism. The primitive individuals of physicalism are brain-parts, which necessarily have physical properties and contingently have phenomeno- logical properties. The two accounts of persons are found to be competi- tors, though not formally so. Physicalism must be able to render descrip- tive concepts unnecessary by providing extensionally equivalent analyses

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