Personal Identity and Psychological Reductionism Essay -- Psychology P

Personal Identity and mental Reductionism When we tackle the question of What makes us the individual persons that we are?, one burn up that we can take is to seek an answer to the question of what it is that is inevitable for a person to continue to exist over time. If we could agree on what is required for it to be true that you continued to exist, then we would have good yard to believe that we had discovered what makes someone the particular person they are, and by extension, what makes any person the person they are. In essence, what we are searching for are the infallible and suitable conditions for personalized identity over time. In this essay we impart focus on the claim that it is in fact, only the psychological characteristics of a person that are essential to personal identity over time. These characteristics embroil memory, beliefs, intentions and personality. It might also be the case that persons require some kind of body, or at least a physical means of sust aining thought, hardly it is the thought, not the physical basis of it, which matters. This stance, known as psychological Reductionism, argues that all separate features, be it physical or otherwise, are neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity over time. Looking at the history of mental Reductionism may be useful in helping us visit how this view came to be considered as a possible model for personal identity over time. Descartes, in a way, set the scene for Psychological Reductionism by identifying thinking as the essential characteristic of the self. His famous I think therefore I am placed at the core out of the I the capacity to think. However, by no stretch of the imagination, could we label Descartes a Psyc... ...). Chapter 14. pp. 407-415. Palmer, D.E.. Parfit, the reductionist View, and Moral Commitment. Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (1998) http//www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/PPerPalm.htmPyle, Andrew. Key Philosophers in Conversation. Routledge.(1999). Chapter 16. pp179-195. Scruton, Roger. Modern Philosophy An Introduction and Survey. Mandarin.(1994). Chapter 22. pp.304-307. Torriani,T. Continuity without Identity. Rootless Self-Images (Recovering Ethnic Identity) (1998), member 1.3. http//www.padanialibera.net/torriani/htm/mprft3.htmWarburton, Nigel. Philosophy The Classics. Routledge.(1998). Chapter 5. pp 55-56. Westphal, Jonathan. Philosophical Propositions. Routledge.(1998). Chapter 7. pp. 89-106. Wilkes, Kathleen. The Systematic Elusiveness of I . The Philosophers Magazine 12, Autumn 2000. pp. 46-47.