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Personal Identity

Ship of Theseus

(Text as at 14/01/2017 20:18:14)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

Plug Note₁

• There’s no Stanford entry on this topic per se, so see Wikipedia (Wikipedia: Ship of Theseus) for an introduction.
• There’s one version, recounted by Plutarch, that just considers whether (an artifact) can continue the same if its parts are gradually replaced.
• Hobbes added the further paradox of collecting up the replaced parts and assembling them into a riva claimant to bbe the original ship.
• I’m greatly attracted to David Lewis²’s solution³ to the Hobbesian version of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment⁴, but need to consider alternative solutions that don’t depend on Perdurantism⁵, and whether this case is really relevant to personal identity.
• Is there anything special about artifacts⁶ that makes identification arbitrary or a matter of convention⁷, while the continued identity of a person⁸ (from the first-person perspective⁹, whatever society may say) is not arbitrary?
• Is there a fact of the matter whether the repaired ship or the reconstructed ship is the “true” ship?
• A reading list (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
  1. "Barnett (David) - The Problem of Material Origins", Barnett, 2005
  2. "Burke (Michael) - Cohabitation, Stuff and Intermittent Existence", Burke, 1980
  3. "Carter (William) - Artifacts of Theseus: Fact and Fission", Carter, 1983
  4. "Chandler (Hugh S.) - Theseus' Clothes-Pin", Chandler, 1984
  5. "Davis (Lawrence H.) - Smart on Conditions of Identity", Davis, 1973
  6. "Fine (Kit) - A Counter-Example To Locke's Thesis", Fine, 2000
  7. "Gallois (Andre) - The Puzzle Cases", Gallois, 1998
  8. "Garrett (Brian) - Noonan, 'Best Candidate' Theories and the Ship of Theseus", Garrett, 1985
  9. "Goodman (Charles) - Vaibhāṣika Metaphoricalism", Goodman, 2005
  10. "Heller (Mark) - The best candidate approach to diachronic identity", Heller, 1987
  11. "Hershenov (David) - Can There Be Spatially Coincident Entities of the Same Kind?", Hershenov, 2003
  12. "Horvath ( Christopher D.) - Some Questions about Identifying Individuals: Failed Intuitions about Organisms and Species", Horvath, 1997
  13. "Hughes (Christopher) - Same-kind coincidence and the ship of Theseus", Hughes, 1997
  14. "Hughes (Christopher) - An Incredible Coincidence?", Hughes, 1997
  15. "Johansson (Ingvar) - Identity Puzzles and Supervenient Identities", Johansson, 2006
  16. "Lockwood (Michael) - Of Persons and Organisms: A Reply to Howsepian", Lockwood, 1997
  17. "Lowe (E.J.) - On the Identity of Artifacts", Lowe, 1983
  18. "Lowenthal ( David) - Material Preservation and Its Alternatives", Lowenthal, 1989
  19. "Morreau (Michael) - It Simply Does Not Add Up: Trouble With Overall Similarity", Morreau, 2010
  20. "Noonan (Harold) - The Necessity of Origin", Noonan, 1983
  21. "Noonan (Harold) - Wiggins, Artifact Identity and 'Best Candidate' Theories", Noonan, 1985
  22. "Noonan (Harold) - Reply to Garrett", Noonan, 1986
  23. "Over (D.E.) - On a Temporal Slippery Slope Paradox", Over, 1986₁₀
  24. "Rea (Michael) - The Problem of Material Constitution", Rea, 1995
  25. "Scaltsas (Theodore) - The Ship of Theseus", Scaltsas, 1980
  26. "Scaltsas (Theodore) - Identity, Origin and Spatiotemporal Continuity", Scaltsas, 1980
  27. "Simons (Peter) - On Being the Same Ship(s) - or Electron(s): Reply to Hughes", Simons, 1981
  28. "Smart (Brian) - How to Reidentify the Ship of Theseus", Smart, 1972
  29. "Smart (Brian) - The Ship of Theseus, the Parthenon and Disassembled Objects", Smart, 1973
  30. "Smythe (Thomas W.) - Chisholm on Personal Identity", Smythe, 1975
  31. "Symons (John) - The Individuality of Artifacts and Organisms", Symons, 2010
  32. Also, see Bob Doyle: Ship of Theseus.
• This is mostly a place-holder¹¹. Currently, just see the categorised reading-list.