Personal Identity and Psychological Reductionism Essay -- Psychology P

Personal Identity and Psychological Reductionism When we tackle the question of What makes us the individual persons that we are?, one approach that we can take is to look to an answer to the question of what it is that is required for a person to continue to embody everyplace time. If we could agree on what is required for it to be true that you go along to exist, then we would have good grounds to believe that we had discovered what makes soulfulness 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 necessary and sufficient conditions for personal individualism over time. In this essay we will focus on the direct that it is in fact, only the psychological characteristics of a person that are intrinsic to personal identity over time. These characteristics include memory, beliefs, intentions and personality. It might also be the case that persons require some kind of body, or at least a ph ysical means of sustaining thought, but it is the thought, not the physical background of it, which matters. This stance, known as Psychological Reductionism, argues that all other features, be it physical or otherwise, are neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity over time. Looking at the history of Psychological Reductionism may be utilizable in helping us understand 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 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 introduction Congress of Philosophy. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (1998) http//www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/PPerPalm.h tmPyle, Andrew. Key Philosophers in Conversation. Routledge.(1999). Chapter 16. pp179-195. Scruton, Roger. Modern Philosophy An ingress and Survey. Mandarin.(1994). Chapter 22. pp.304-307. Torriani,T. Continuity without Identity. Rootless Self-Images (Recovering Ethnic Identity) (1998), Section 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 domineering Elusiveness of I . The Philosophers Magazine 12, Autumn 2000. pp. 46-47.