Comment:
Write-up1 (as at 20/07/2026 09:31:41): Olson - The Human Animal (Precis)
Notes2
- This paper is part of a Symposium – "Olson (Eric), Etc. - Abstracta Special Issue on 'The Human Animal'" – on "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology".
- The notes that follow are my summary and review of "Olson (Eric) - Precis of 'The Human Animal'".
- Olson’s paper isn’t a formal précis of "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology" as such, but picks out a few themes that Olson thinks are most important.
- He thinks that historically the whole question of personal identity has been wrongly put. It assumes without argument that we are Persons and so expresses the “same person” relation as between persons, rather than simply between individuals who at some time in their existence are persons. So, the question has been assumed to be concerning persons A and B at two times, and trying to determine what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for them to be the same person (A = B). Olson thinks (rightly) that this prejudices the case against Animalists and others who don’t think that persons qua person are substances, and that consequently the question should rather be whether a person at time x is the same individual at time y, whether or not that individual then qualifies as a person. Otherwise, the question whether I was ever a fetus4, or might ever end up in a persistent vegetative state5 (PVS) cannot even arise.
- Olson doesn’t use the term “substance” – so, as the disclaimer6 allows – I might be distorting his thought, but it seems to me that this is the root of his disagreement with certain other philosophers (in particular Baker7, though I’m not sure whether she uses this concept either). Olson thinks there is one substance present – the Human Animal – which at certain times in its existence has the property of being a person (where – to qualify as a person – the possession if not exercise of certain psychological capacities is needed). He doesn’t consider a person to be a separate substance that can exist independently of the human animal. Other philosophers think that several substances are co-located where a human person is, and Olson finds this objectionable for metaphysical and epistemological reasons, as we will see below. I need to determine Baker’s view on this – does she think of the Person and the Animal as separate substances, one constituted by the other? Substance dualists are rare these days – though see "Van Inwagen (Peter) & Zimmerman (Dean) - Persons: Human and Divine", reviewed by Olson in "Olson (Eric) - Review of 'Persons: Human and Divine'".
- It’s interesting that Olson in fact says that assuming that we are persons means that I could not have been an embryo8 (rather than, as usual, a fetus9). Elsewhere, I think, Olson denies that I was ever a zygote10 (a fertilised ovum) – because a zygote isn’t an animal, in that it can’t maintain itself in any sense (obviously, early-term fetuses aren’t “viable” either, but with the aid of a functioning placenta do carry out a lot of animal functions).
- It seems that before we can work out our persistence conditions, we have to decide what sort of thing we are – but is this a principled decision? Olson claims that this is an open question, but not one that should be answered in the way the question is asked. I’m not sure he hasn’t done just this, but I may be being unfair. He looks at this most fundamental question in more detail in his later book – "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology".
- Olson asks whether the persistence conditions of all persons are the same? Do Gods, angels and intelligent computers all have the same persistence conditions as human persons. Olson allows that they might but still claims that this factor shouldn’t be built into how the question is asked. I’m not sure what this means. I was surprised by this admission – in "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", if I remember correctly – Olson thinks it obvious that they don’t, and consequently that there’s no such thing as the persistence conditions of persons as such. That he is less confident now stems, presumably, from his reduced confidence in being able to answer what we are11. We need to decide whether a “person” (qua person) is the sort of thing that has persistence conditions at all. I’m not sure how this decision is to be made; is the answer a matter of fact or a matter of conceptual analysis? Baker thinks persons are ontologically significant – in that they are a separate kind without which the world would be ontologically impoverished. Presumably for her the persistence conditions of persons – for which a necessary and sufficient condition for persistence is the maintenance of the same first person perspective12 (FPP13) – is a fact, though how FPPs14 are individuated is somewhat mysterious.
- Anyway, Olson thinks that the question should be what it takes for us to persist simpliciter, not what it takes for us to persist as persons.
- Olson gives a brief synopsis of the Thinking Animal argument15 for Animalism16 – what Zimmerman (in "Zimmerman (Dean) - Problems for Animalism") calls his Master Argument – split between the metaphysical “two many minds” objection and the epistemological “how would I know which I was” objection. As usual, Olson fails to even consider Baker’s Constitution View17.
- This argument – that the human animal thinks, and because there is only one thinker present, therefore I am (identical to) that animal, leads to the claim that what it takes for me to persist is what it takes for an animal to persist.
- It seems to me, though that it might still make sense to ask the “same person qua person” question, and Markosian18 raises this as an issue. We might just be talking about Personalities19 in that case, but maybe there is a third situation – where enough of the brain has been transplanted to move the “first person perspective20”, but the animal has been left behind. I might want to describe such cases as those of fission and fusion of animals.
- Olson consequently claims that psychology21 is irrelevant to our persistence conditions – neither necessary nor sufficient. Not necessary because we start off as embryos22 and may end up in a PVS23. Not sufficient because of our intuitions on brain transplants24. In fact, Olson talks of cerebrum25 transplants26, which is not the same thing as a whole brain transplant, nor a head transplant.
- It occurs to me that the term “persistent vegetative state” may hark back to the Aristotelian tri-partite soul – where plants just have nutrition and reproduction, animals have goal-direction, and human beings have rationality. So, should an individual in a PVS – or an embryo – be considered an animal27 or a plant28? This might be central to the case for Animalism. At least it might make the pill easier to swallow if Animalists could consistently deny that I was ever an embryo or could ever be in individual in a PVS – though the religious29 right might get even more annoyed.
- We are only temporarily and contingently people – at least if a person needs to have present certain psychological capacities (Olson says “mental properties”) to qualify as such.
- Olson tried to give a positive account of what it takes for a human animal to persist, along the lines of Locke and Aristotle – like other animals, it is what it takes for our biological lives to continue. "Wilson (Jack) - Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities" has much to say on the persistence conditions of animals, though the aim of the book is to complicate matters by pointing out that the persistence conditions of large mammals are the ‘easy case’. Thankfully, they are the only case that concerns this topic.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 1:
- This is the write-up as it was when this Abstract was last output, with text as at the timestamp indicated (20/07/2026 09:31:41).
- Link to Latest Write-Up Note.
Footnote 2:
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026