Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Philosophers Index Abstract

Some say that some commissurotomy¹ patients are two persons in one body. Some say they are never more than one per body. An intermediate position is that each has two "minds" or "consciousnesses," but is only one person. I sketch and defend a version of this intermediate position, interpreting "having two consciousnesses" as "being a union of two conscious beings," neither of which has the explicit self-consciousness² needed for personhood. In the process I make and apply various claims about the reference of 'I' in thought and speech.