Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Corpses

(Work In Progress: output at 27/07/2026 21:00:00)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. The “Corpse Problem”
     • Corpses are troublesome² for animalism³, which alleges (correctly in my view) that corpses are not animals⁴.
     • The claim is that, at death⁵, something ontologically⁶ new comes on the scene – because a corpse has different persistence⁷ conditions⁸ (those of masses of matter⁹) to those of organisms¹⁰.
     • Some philosophers – eg. Fred Feldman, in "Feldman (Fred) - The Survival of Death" – disagree. Feldman claims that we survive¹¹ death¹², but – rather disappointingly – as a corpse, which solves the “corpse problem”, but at the cost – most likely – of saying that we are bodies¹³ rather than organisms¹⁴.
     • The problem if we don’t survive death as our corpses – it is said – is to answer the question where the corpse comes from, and to answer the objection that if it was there all along – as a “corpse-to-be” – then we have a situation where we have two things of different sorts¹⁵ in the same place¹⁶ at the same time.
     • If this is taken seriously, then it can be used against the form of the animalist’s “too many thinkers¹⁷” argument.
     • I’m willing to accept that this “thinking animal” argument is unsound. However, just how the analogy would work for the “corpse-to-be” needs to be spelled out. The corpse has the persistence conditions¹⁸ of a mass of matter¹⁹. What are the persistence conditions²⁰ of the “corpse-to-be”? If they are those of an organism²¹, then the corpse-to-be cannot be the same individual²² as the corpse. The Constitution View²³ might be happy with this situation, promoting the idea that persons are constitute by bodies²⁴ (rather than organisms) but what about Animalism?
     • I think the issue is again a parallelism in argumentation (the fetus problem for the CV versus the corpse problem for Animalism). We don’t need to follow this argumentative line.
     • The problem is discussed in the following works:-
       → "Markosian (Ned) - Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity"
       → "Olson (Eric) - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman"
       → "Olson (Eric) - Animalism and the Corpse Problem"
       → "Carter (William) - Will I Be a Dead Person?"
       → "Hershenov (David) - Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity"
       → "Olson (Eric) - The Person and the Corpse"
       For now I’ll just transcribe my notes thereon …
     • "Markosian (Ned) - Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity"
       1. Proponents of the psychological view (PV) have a Fetus Problem, but animalists have an analogous Corpse Problem. While the person pops into existence after the fetus (a problem for the PV) the corpse pops into existence after the animal’s demise (a problem for the animalist).
       2. This summary is a bit quick. What Markosian actually says is that the supporter of the PV faces a dilemma. Since they have to deny that they were a fetus (as fetuses don’t have any psychological properties), they have a choice:-
          1. You replaced your fetus.
          2. Your fetus continued to exist and shares space, parts and matter with you.
       3. Markosian doesn’t like either horn, but thinks the animalist has a similar problem, as is argued in "Carter (William) - Will I Be a Dead Person?". This is the Corpse Problem, but before considering it, we must note that the CV finds no problem with the second option – cohabitation – claiming that constitution gets round this worry.
       4. The Corpse Problem arises because if your persistence conditions are those of an organism, and a corpse is not an organism, then you are not identical to your corpse. Markosian thinks this leaves the animalist with a trilemma:-
          1. When you die, a new object comes into existence.
          2. When you die, nothing is left, not even a corpse – corpses do not exist.
          3. You cohabit space with, and share matter with, a thing that is non-identical with you that will become your corpse.
       5. Markosian thinks this is a problem, because he doesn’t like any of these options, but thinks that he is a physical thing, with the persistence conditions of physical things, and that a physical thing continues after death, and that physical thing – your body – is you as long as it exists. Olson rightly objects to this view – the PCs of animals aren’t at all like the PCs of lumps of matter.
       6. Markosian thinks (rightly) that as Olson is suspicious of bodies, he’ll be suspicious of corpses too, and so will go for option (ii). He thinks other animalists will go for option (i). Again, he ignores the CV whereby option (iii) is not a problem. The dialectical position here, of course, is that considerations concerning the objectionabilty of (iii) – cohabitation – are central to Olson’s main argument for animalism. I don’t think he needs that argument, so should accept (iii).
          
     • "Olson (Eric) - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman"
       1. Olson notes that many critics of "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology" have accepted that we are animals, that psychology has nothing to do with our identity-conditions, yet have balked at Olson’s account of animal identity. While he hasn’t seen a better account, he would view one as a friendly improvement on his own theory.
       2. The reason he thinks animals cease to exist when they die is that the PCs of corpses are radically different from those of animals.
       3. Olson even seems to doubt the existence of corpses. Why is this? Is that because he’s worried by the “corpse to be” problem, where we would have too many thinkers?
       4. What would the PCs of corpses be? Similar to other inanimate things – such as statues, if there are such things! He considers some possibilities. Retention of shape; the bulk of atoms; gradual change.
       5. What it takes for a living organism to persist is entirely different. There are radical changes of shape from embryo to adult. The adult can survive losses of arms and legs. It might even survive paring down to a head on life-support. It survives because its biological life continues.
       6. Consequently, because the PCs of organism and corpse are so different, he can think of no (disjunctive?) account that covers both. But if there is one, he’d welcome it.
       7. He covers these matters further in "Olson (Eric) - Animalism and the Corpse Problem".
          
     • "Olson (Eric) - Animalism and the Corpse Problem"
       1. The apparent fact that each of us coincides with a thinking animal²⁵ looks like a strong argument for our being animals (animalism). Some critics, however, claim that this sort of reasoning actually undermines animalism²⁶. According to them, the apparent fact that each human animal²⁷ coincides with a thinking body that is not an animal is an equally strong argument for our not being animals. I argue that the critics' case fails for reasons that do not affect the case for animalism.
          
     • "Carter (William) - Will I Be a Dead Person?"
       1. Eric Olson argues from the fact that we once existed as fetal individuals to the conclusion that the standard view of personal identity is mistaken.
       2. I shall establish that a similar argument focusing upon dead people opposes Olson's favored biological view of personal identity.
       3. Rejection of the identity claim that raises the fetal problem;
       4. Analysis of the Biological View and standard view of personal identity;
       5. Eliminativist position of corpses in regard to their biological and psychological activity.
          
     • "Hershenov (David) - Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity"
       1. Part of the appeal of the biological approach to personal identity is that it does not have to countenance spatially coincident entities. But if the termination thesis is correct and the organism ceases to exist at death, then it appears that the corpse is a dead body that earlier was a living body and distinct from but spatially coincident with the organism. If the organism is identified with the body, then the unwelcome spatial coincidence could perhaps be avoided. It is argued that such an identification would be a mistake. A living organism has a different part/whole relationship and persistence conditions than the alleged body. A case will be made that the concept ‘human body’ is a conceptual mess, vague in an unprincipled manner, and that an eliminativist stance towards dead bodies is the appropriate response.
          
     • "Olson (Eric) - The Person and the Corpse"
       1. What happens to us when we die, if there is no afterlife? We might cease to exist, or continue existing as corpses. The view that we become corpses is hard to defend, because it makes it hard to say what our identity over time could consist in. The view that we cease to exist is little better: it seems to imply that there are no such things as corpses. A satisfying metaphysics of death is elusive.
       2. Sections
          → The Person and the Corpse
          → Pluralism
          → Speaking of the Dead
          → The Person/Body Argument
          → The Essentialism Argument
          → The Psychological-Continuity Argument
          → The Dead-Animal Argument
          → Animals and Corpses
          → The Annihilationist’s Dilemma
          → Animal Identity
          → The Historic-Dependence Account
          → Troubles for Historic Dependence
          → Pluralism and Corpse Eliminitivism
  2. Resurrection
     • Corpses are probably also important for most Christian materialists²⁸ who hope for some form of resurrection²⁹.
     • If there is a corpse to be resurrected³⁰, it is easier to see how identity is preserved than if we have total destruction. This is obviously so in the case of resuscitation, but even where we have a real case of death³¹ – not just clinical death, or brain death³², but real death with a bit of mouldering – there is some physical thing that is responsible for preserving identity.

• ---

  Further Remarks:
  1. This Note overlaps somewhat with the following:-
     • Death³³, and
     • Resurrection³⁴
  2. I have tried to avoid items appearing in their reading-lists from the reading lists below.

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Feldman (Fred) - The Survival of Death", 1992, Read
• For a Page of Links³⁵ to this Note, Click here.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read³⁶, include the following:-
  • Aeon:
    1. "Kaufman (Sharon) - Neither person nor cadaver", 2020, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Press (Michael) - Mummies among us", 2020, External Link, Internal PDF Link
  • General:
    1. "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Do Persons Begin and End?", 2005, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    2. "Carter (William) - Death and Bodily Transfiguration", 1984, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Carter (William) - Will I Be a Dead Person?", 1999, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    4. "Feldman (Fred) - A Materialist Conception of Death", 1992
    5. "Feldman (Fred) - The Survival of Death", 1992
    6. "Francescotti (Robert) - Fetuses, corpses and the psychological approach to personal identity", 2005, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    7. "Hershenov (David) - Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity", 2005, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    8. "Lockwood (Michael) - When Does a Life Begin?", 1987, Annotations
    9. "Mackie (David) - Personal Identity and Dead People", 1999, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    10. "Markosian (Ned) - Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity", 2008, Write-Up Note³⁷, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    11. "Olson (Eric) - Animalism and the Corpse Problem", 2004, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death", 2010, Write-Up Note³⁸, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    13. "Olson (Eric) - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman", 2008, Write-Up Note³⁹, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    14. "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology", 1997, Book
    15. "Olson (Eric) - The Person and the Corpse", 2015, Annotations, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    16. "Olson (Eric) - Thinking Animals and the Constitution View", 2001, Write-Up Note⁴⁰, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    17. "Rosenberg (Jay) - Bodies, Corpses, and Chunks of Matter: A Reply to Carter", 1984, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    18. "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern", 2009
    19. "Thomas (Janice L.) - What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection", 2000
    20. "Wilson (Jack) - Beyond Horses and Oak Trees: A New Theory of Individuation for Living Entities", 1999, Annotations
    21. "Yourgrau (Palle) - Can the Dead Really Be Buried?", 2000, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
    22. "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", 2010, Annotations, Internal PDF Link
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Bullinger (E.W.) - The Rich Man and Lazarus - the Intermediate State", 1902/1992, Book, Read = 3%
    2. "DeGrazia (David) - Human Persons: Numerical Identity and Essence", 2005, Internal PDF Link, Read = 6%
    3. "Feldman (Fred) - Death and the Disintegration of Personality", 2015, Read = 6%
    4. "Hershenov (David) - Death, Persons, and Sparse Ontologies: The Problem of Too Many Dying Thinkers", Undated, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 33%
    5. "Hershenov (David) - Organisms and their Bodies: Response to LaPorte", 2009, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 17%
    6. "Hudson (Hud) - Pre-Persons, Post-Persons, Non-Persons, and Person-Parts", 2001
    7. "Johnston (Mark) - Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To? Addendum: From Corpse Snatching To Identity Voluntarism", 2010, Read = 3%
    8. "LaPorte (Joseph) - On Two Reasons for Denying That Bodies Can Outlast Life", 2009, Internal PDF Link
    9. "Sauchelli (Andrea) - The animal, the corpse, and the remnant-person", 2016, Internal PDF Link, Read = 8%
    10. "Scheick (William J.) - The Author's Corpse and the Humean Problem of Personal Identity in Hawthorne's 'The House of the Seven Gables'", 1992, Internal PDF Link

  ---

• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.
• This is mostly a place-holder⁴¹.

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Table of the Previous 10 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
06/07/2023 00:43:12	5035	Corpses
20/09/2022 11:24:00	4809	Corpses
16/05/2022 21:18:43	4362	Corpses
09/02/2021 21:59:02	3972	Corpses
18/09/2020 21:24:29	3159	Corpses
07/02/2018 19:42:14	3841	Corpses
05/04/2016 23:19:41	1523	Corpses
27/06/2011 18:57:36	526	Corpses
26/11/2007 23:25:26	505	Corpses
12/08/2007 10:17:46	80	Corpses

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/09/2026 04:16:16	Corpses	Death

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Animalism	Animalism - Objections	Animals	Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Body
Brain Death	Christian Materialism	Coincidence	Constitution View	Death
Human Animals	Individual	Markosian - The Human Animal: Three Problems for Olson	Matter	Note Links Explanation
Olson - Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Olson - Persons and Bodies - Response	Olson - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman	Ontology	Organisms
Persistence	Persistence Criteria	Plug Note Apologia	Resurrection	Sortals
Survival	Thinking Animal Argument	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Animalism	Animalism - Objections, 2, 3, 4	Baker - Materialism with a Human Face, 2	Bodily Continuity	Body Criterion
Clones	Connectedness vs Continuity	Death	DeGrazia - Are We Essentially Persons?	Immortality
Matter	Metamorphosis	Olson	Olson - Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Olson - What Are We? Animals
Organisms	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3	Resurrection, 2	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2	Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues), 2
Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It), 2, 3	Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism), 2, 3, 4	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)	Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)	Thesis - Current Stance	Thesis - Personal Identity, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18	Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Ayers (Michael R.)	Locke on Living Things	Paper		Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	When Do Persons Begin and End?	Paper		Yes
Blatti (Stephan)	We Are Animals	Paper	2	Yes
Bloom (Paul)	Free Will Does Not Exist. So What?	Paper
Burstein (Norman)	Strawson on the Concept of a Person	Paper
Carter (William)	Death and Bodily Transfiguration	Paper		Yes
Carter (William)	Will I Be a Dead Person?	Paper		Yes
Cooper (John)	Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Preface to the Second Printing	Paper	2	Yes
Corcoran (Kevin)	Dualism, Materialism and the Problem of Post Mortem Survival	Paper
Corcoran (Kevin)	I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body and the Life of the World to Come	Paper
DeGrazia (David)	Are we essentially persons? Olson, Baker, and a reply	Paper		Yes
DeGrazia (David)	Human Persons: Numerical Identity and Essence	Paper
Dennett (Daniel)	Where Am I?	Paper		Yes
Donnelly (John)	Suicide and Rationality	Paper	2
Feldman (Fred)	A Materialist Conception of Death	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Feldman (Fred)	Death and the Disintegration of Personality	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5
Feldman (Fred)	Life-Functional Theories of Life	Paper		Yes
Feldman (Fred)	The Survival of Death	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10	Yes
Feldman (Fred)	The Termination Thesis	Paper		Yes
Feldman (Fred)	Vitalist Theories of Life	Paper	2	Yes
Gasser (Georg)	Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7	Yes
Graziano (Michael)	Endless fun	Paper		Yes
Green (James W.)	Beyond the Good Death: The Anthropology of Modern Dying	Book	2
Guerrini (Anita)	The rights of the dead	Paper		Yes
Hanley (Richard)	The Metaphysics of Star Trek: To Beam or Not to Beam?	Paper		Yes
Hershenov (David)	Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity	Paper		Yes
Hershenov (David)	Organisms and their Bodies: Response to LaPorte	Paper	2
Hershenov (David)	Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the Materialist Conception of Resurrection	Paper
Hudson (Hud)	A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person	Book
Hudson (Hud)	Pre-Persons, Post-Persons, Non-Persons, and Person-Parts	Paper
Johnston (Mark)	Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To? Addendum: From Corpse Snatching To Identity Voluntarism	Paper
Kaufman (Sharon)	Neither person nor cadaver	Paper		Yes
Kotak (Aakash)	The Hybrid Theory of Personal Identity	Paper
LaPorte (Joseph)	On Two Reasons for Denying That Bodies Can Outlast Life	Paper
Larkin (William S.)	Persons, Animals, and Bodies	Paper	2, 3, 4
Levy (Steven)	Artificial Life: The Quest for a New Creation	Paper
Liao (S. Matthew)	The Organism View Defended	Paper		Yes
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper		Yes
Mackie (David)	Personal Identity and Dead People	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Markosian (Ned)	Identifying the Problem of Personal Identity	Paper
Moore (Adrian W.)	Is the quest for immortality worse than death?	Paper		Yes
Olding (A.)	Resurrection Bodies and Resurrection Worlds	Paper
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Is there a Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity	Paper
Olson (Eric)	Psychology and Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Olson (Eric)	The Person and the Corpse	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Thinking Animals and the Constitution View	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	What Are We? Animals	Paper		Yes
Olson (Eric)	Why We Need Not Accept the Psychological Approach	Paper		Yes
Price (Marjorie)	Identity Through Time	Paper
Puccetti (Roland)	The Conquest of Death	Paper	2, 3
Rosenberg (Jay)	Bodies, Corpses, and Chunks of Matter: A Reply to Carter	Paper	2	Yes
Rosenberg (Jay)	Death and Personhood: Conceptual Preliminaries	Paper
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Immortality	Paper		Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12	Yes
Shoemaker (Sydney)	Thinking Animals Without Animalism	Paper
Thomas (Janice L.)	What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Animalism	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Animalism - Objections	Paper	2, 3, 4	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Bodily Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Body Criterion	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)	Paper	2, 3	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism)	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Clones	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Connectedness vs Continuity	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Death	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Immortality	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Matter	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Metamorphosis	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Olson	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Organisms	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Resurrection	Paper	2	Yes
Tzinman (Rina)	Memory, Organisms and the Circle of Life	Paper	2
Wiles (Maurice)	God's Action in Christ	Paper		Yes
Wiles (Maurice)	Where Does God Act?	Paper		Yes
Williamson (Colwyn)	Attitudes towards the body: Philosophy and common sense	Paper
Wilson (Jack)	Beyond Horses and Oak Trees: A New Theory of Individuation for Living Entities	Paper		Yes
Zimmerman (Dean)	Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5	Yes

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	When Do Persons Begin and End?	Paper - Cited	Distinguished Faculty Lecture, December 5, 2005	Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder), Etc.	E-Symposium on 'Persons & Bodies: A Constitution View'	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens)	The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	7%
Bullinger (E.W.)	The Rich Man and Lazarus - the Intermediate State	Book - Cited	Bullinger (E.W.) - The Rich Man and Lazarus - the Intermediate State	3%
Bullinger (E.W.)	The Rich Man and Lazarus - the Intermediate State	Paper - By Subtopic	Bullinger - The Rich Man and Lazarus - the Intermediate State	12%
Carter (William)	Death and Bodily Transfiguration	Paper - Cited	Mind, 1984, 412-418	Yes
Carter (William)	Will I Be a Dead Person?	Paper - Cited	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Mar99, Vol. 59 Issue 1, p167, 5p;	Yes
DeGrazia (David)	Human Identity and Bioethics	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	7%
DeGrazia (David)	Human Persons: Numerical Identity and Essence	Paper - Cited	DeGrazia - Human Identity and Bioethics, 2005, Chapter 2	6%
Feldman (Fred)	A Materialist Conception of Death	Paper - Cited	Feldman - Confrontations with the Reaper, Chapter 7	Yes
Feldman (Fred)	Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Feldman (Fred)	Death and the Disintegration of Personality	Paper - Cited	Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death	6%
Feldman (Fred)	The Survival of Death	Paper - Cited	Feldman - Confrontations with the Reaper, Chapter 6	Yes
Francescotti (Robert)	Fetuses, corpses and the psychological approach to personal identity	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Explorations, Mar2005, Vol. 8 Issue 1, p69-81, 13p	Yes
Gasser (Georg), Ed.	Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	96%
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: G-K	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	31%
Hershenov (David)	Death, Persons, and Sparse Ontologies: The Problem of Too Many Dying Thinkers	Paper - Cited	American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. Forthcoming.	33%
Hershenov (David)	Do Dead Bodies Pose a Problem for Biological Approaches to Personal Identity	Paper - Cited	Mind, 114, Number 453, 1 January 2005, pp. 31-59(29).	Yes
Hershenov (David)	Organisms and their Bodies: Response to LaPorte	Paper - Cited	Mind, Vol. 118, No. 471 (Jul., 2009), pp. 803-809	17%
Hudson (Hud)	A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	2%
Hudson (Hud)	Pre-Persons, Post-Persons, Non-Persons, and Person-Parts	Paper - Cited	Hudson (Hud) - A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, 2001, Chapter 6, pp. 149-166	No
Johnston (Mark)	Is Heaven a Place We Can Get To? Addendum: From Corpse Snatching To Identity Voluntarism	Paper - Cited	Johnston (Mark) - Surviving Death, 2010	3%
Johnston (Mark)	Surviving Death	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	13%
Kaufman (Sharon)	Neither person nor cadaver	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 06 February, 2020	Yes
LaPorte (Joseph)	On Two Reasons for Denying That Bodies Can Outlast Life	Paper - Cited	Mind, Vol. 118, No. 471 (Jul., 2009), pp. 795-801	No
Lockwood (Michael)	When Does a Life Begin?	Paper - Cited	Lockwood - Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, 1987	Yes
Lockwood (Michael), Ed.	Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	29%
Luper (Steven)	Mortal Harm	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 227 (Apr., 2007), pp. 239-251	17%
Luper (Steven)	Past Desires and the Dead	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophical Studies; Dec. 2005, Vol. 126 Issue 3, p331-345, 15p	17%
Mackie (David)	Personal Identity and Dead People	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Studies 95, Number 3, September 1999, pp. 219-242(24).	Yes
Markosian (Ned)	Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity	Paper - Cited	Abstracta Special Issue I – 2008 (Brazil)	Yes
Martin (Michael G.F.), Ed.	Mind - 114/453 (January 2005)	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	11%
Olson (Eric)	Animalism and the Corpse Problem	Paper - Cited	Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 82, No. 2, pp. 265-274; June 2004	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Immanent Causation and Life After Death	Paper - Cited	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Papers on Identity Boxes: Vol 13 (Olson)	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	16%
Olson (Eric)	Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman	Paper - Cited	Abstracta Special Issue I – 2008 (Brazil)	Yes
Olson (Eric)	The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology	Book - Cited	Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology	Yes
Olson (Eric)	The Person and the Corpse	Paper - Cited	Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death; ed. Ben Bradley, Fred Feldman, and Jens Johansson (OUP, 2015), pp. 80-96	Yes
Olson (Eric)	Thinking Animals and the Constitution View	Paper - Cited	Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, e-Symposium on "Persons & Bodies: A Constitution View"	Yes
Olson (Eric), Etc.	Abstracta Special Issue on 'The Human Animal'	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Press (Michael)	Mummies among us	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 2020	Yes
Quinn (Philip L.)	Review of Antony Flew's 'The Logic of Mortality'	Paper - By Subtopic	Nous, Vol. 26, No. 1, Mar., 1992, pp. 102-104	Yes
Rosenberg (Jay)	Bodies, Corpses, and Chunks of Matter: A Reply to Carter	Paper - Cited	Mind, 1984, 419-422	Yes
Sauchelli (Andrea)	The animal, the corpse, and the remnant-person	Paper - Cited	Philosophical Studies: Published online on 20 April 2016	8%
Scheick (William J.)	The Author's Corpse and the Humean Problem of Personal Identity in Hawthorne's 'The House of the Seven Gables'	Paper - Cited	Studies in the Novel, Summer92, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p131, 23p;	No
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Shoemaker (David)	Personal Identity, Rational Anticipation, and Self-Concern	Paper - Cited	Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, 2009, Chapter 2	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Thomas (Janice L.)	What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection	Paper - Cited	Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Corpses	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Vorobej (Mark)	Past Desires	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophical Studies; Vol. 90, No. 3 (Jun., 1998) (pp. 305-318)	No
Wilson (Jack)	Beyond Horses and Oak Trees: A New Theory of Individuation for Living Entities	Paper - Cited	Wilson, Jack - Biological Individuality: The identity and Persistence of Living Entities; 1999, Chap. 1, pp. 1-21	Yes
Wilson (Jack)	Biological Individuality - The identity and Persistence of Living Entities	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	Yes
Yourgrau (Palle)	Can the Dead Really Be Buried?	Paper - Cited	Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 2000, Vol. XXIV Issue 1, p46, 23p	Yes
Zimmerman (Dean)	Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited	Paper - Cited	Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? 2010	Yes

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026
2. Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)

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