THE DIACHRONIC MIND

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

VOLUME 86

Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer

Editor

Keith Lehrer, University of Arizona, Tucson

Associate Editor

Stewart Cohen, Arizona State University, Tempe

Board of Consulting Editors

Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Radu Bogdan, Tulane University, New Orleans

Marian David, University of Notre Dame

AlIan Gibbard, University of Michigan

Denise Meyerson, University ofCape Town

Fran~ois Recanati, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

Stuart Silvers, Clemson University

Nicholas D. Smith, Michigan State University

The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.

THE DIACHRONIC MIND An Essay on Personal Identity,

Psychological Continuity and the Mind-Body Problem

by

MARCSLORS Researchfellowof the Royal Dutch Academy for the Arts and Sciences

and assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

.... " SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-90-481-5706-8 ISBN 978-94-017-3276-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-3276-5

Printed on acid-free paper

AII Rights Reserved © 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2001 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or

utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without written permis sion from the copyright owner

TABLE OF CON1ENTS

PREFACE

1 ~OOUCTIONANOOVERVlliW

2 SEITING THE STAGE:

PERSONAL IDENTITY ANO THE MErAPHYSICS OFMIND

vii

1

1. Introduction 6 2. The Problem of Personal Identity over Time 7 3. The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity over Time 12 4. The Neo-Lockean Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity 16 5. The Circularity Objection 19 6. Problems of Logical Form 21 7. The Lack of a Third-Person Criterion for Reidentification 23 8. The Unity of the Mental Bundle 25 9. The Individuation ofPersons 26 10. The Neo-Lockean Criterion and Physicalism: a 'Natural' Alliance 28 11. One 'Solution' to Five Problems 35

3 PARFIT'S REDUcrIO OF A SUBSTRATUM-ORIENTEO

CONCEPfION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUlTY 1. Introduction 2. Relation R 3. Relation R and the Neo-Lockian Paradigm 4. Psychological Atomism 5. The Central Place of Q-Memory in the Neo-Lockean Paradigm 6. The Trouble with Q-memory 7. Contents and Contexts. The Other Four Problems 8. Conclusions

1. Introduction

4 A CON1ENT-ORIENTEO CONCEPTION

OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY

2. Two Kinds of Psychological Continuity 3. Levels of N-Continuity 4. The Unity of N-Continuous Sequences. The Role of the Body 5. N-Continuity and Psychological Connectedness 6. Summary

43 45 51 56 61 64 74 79

82 83 91 93

105 109

vi

5 A PSYCHOLOGICAL CRI1ERION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY:

THE AVE PROBLEMS REVISITED 1. Introduction 2. Circularity, Q-Memory, and N-Continuity 3. Narrativity and Logical Form 4. Third-Person Criteria of Reidentification: The Role of the Body 5. In Between the Ego- and the Bundle Theory 6. Contents, Substrata and the Individuation of Persons 7. Summary

6 N-CONTINUITY AS A PARTOF FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY.

111 112 119 127 131 134 138

1HE UNK BE1WEEN PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE IDEN1TI1ES OF PERSONS 1. Introduction 140 2. Lower-Level N-Continuity as a Trivial Part of Folk-Psychology 142 3. The Problem ofIdiosyncratic Practical Reasoning 146 4. A Bipartite Solution. Induction and Higher-Level N-Continuity 153 5. N-Continuity and the Identities of Persons 160 6. Conclusion 164

1. Introduction

7 NONREDUCTlVISM:

THE RELEV ANCE OF N-CONTINUITY

2. Nonreductive Physicalism as Epiphenomenalism 3. Three Interpretations of the Above Argument 4. Anomalous Monism and the Nonreductivist's Dilemma 5. Strategic Intermezzo. Presuppositions Behind the Dilemma 6. Diachronic Holism and Irreducibility 7. The Resulting Picture 8. The Mental and Its Explananda 9. Summary

8 APPENDIX:

INTERPREfA TIONISM AND MENTAL REALISM

NOIES

REFERENCES

INDEX

166 169 173 178 185 189 198 200 207

210

217

225

231

PREFACE

The ideas expressed in this book began to evolve from 1995 onwards, while 1 was writing my PhD dissertation. Chapters 1-5 stiH follow the basic structure of my thesis. After 1997 1 published a number of articles on ideas developed during the writing of my thesis. The comments of colleagues and friend, of the various anonymous referees of the respective joumals and the comments and criticism 1 received after the articles were published and/or when they were presented at conferences have helped me tremendously to modify and sharpen my view on the issues discussed. From 1998 onwards, a grant of the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) allowed me to rewrite-at the University of Nijmegen-what are now Chapters 1-5 and to widen the ideas expres sed therein through the addition of two further chapters, Chapters 6 and 7, and an appendix. 1 am grateful to NWO, the University of Nijmegen and Utrecht University for the opportunities they gave me to develop my ideas.

This book would not have existed in its present form without the help, comments, and criticism from a large number of people. l' d very much like to thank Joel Anderson, Lynne Rudder Baker, Ton van den Beld, Jan Bransen, Bert van den Brink, Stefaan Cuypers, Ton Derksen, Robert Heeger, Cynthia and Graham Mac Donald, Anthonie Meijers, Wim de Muijnck, Philip Pettit, Marya Schechtman, Maureen Sie, Michael Smith, Gertrudis van de Vijver, and Theo van Willigenburg. 1'd especially like to thank my wife Elsbeth Veldpape, to whom 1 dedicate this book, for her love, support and patience.

Abcoude, December 2000

-1-

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

This book is about the connection between two seemingly disconnected problems in Anglo-American philosophy: the problem of personal identity over time, and the so-called mind-body problem.

As an initial, crude characterisation of the first problem, consider the following case. Imagine yourself leafing through a photo­album, pointing at a slightly yellowish photograph of a young child and saying to a friend: "that kid is me." The situation seems straightforward and unproblematic at first glance. You are asserting that a person at one point in time-you at present-and a person at some previous time-the kid on the photograph-are in fact the very same; the two of you are identica!. But what is it that makes yau identic al with that kid? In what respects are you and he/she alike to such a extent that it doesn't make sense to speak of two persons? Your body looks different now. It is even made up of different atoms and molecules. Your mind has changed significantly as well. You have acquired new beliefs and new desires and dropped a large number of old ones. Still, in an important sense you are the same person. That, at least, is what our moral and legal practices presuppose. What, then, does this 'sameness' consist in, given that you have changed so dramatically in so many ways?

The second problem is of a less practical nature. It is about the relation between the mind and the brain. We know that the mind is somehow supported, constituted or realised by the brain. But does that mean that we can actually reduce the mind to the brain? Does it mean that we can somehow cast descriptions of ourselves that use phrases such as 'believes that. .. ' and 'desire that. . .' III purely

2 CHAPTER 1

neurophysiological terms? Or, less radically, can we understand the regularities between mental states as regularities that are instantiated by physical items and their physical interrelations? And if not, can we nevertheless consider the mind to be a physical 'thing'?

At first inspection, these problems seem unconnected. In fact, while looking at the literature on both issues, it is easy to get the impression that they have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. This impression is misleading. As I will argue in the next chapter, there are substantial, widely shared, though largely implicit assumptions about the fact that a theory of personal identity requires a number of claims from contemporary philosophy of mind. The dominant view in analytical philosophy has it that personal identity over time is constituted by the continuity (not identity) of a person's psychological make-up. And as it turns out, a majority of philosophers working in this are a-I shall refer to them as the neo-Lockeans-implicitly draw on the current physicalist orthodoxy in philosophy of mind in order to explain what psychological continuity consists in and why it can analyse personal identity.

The fact that a number of assumptions about the connection between philosophy of mind and philosophy of personal identity are largely implicit is not very interesting in itself. The main claim of this book, however, is that once these assumptions are articulated, a misleading and fundamentally inaccurate 'picture' of the human mind emerges that nevertheless underlies both contemporary psychological continuity theories of personal identity and current theories of mind. This 'picture,' 1 shall argue, forestalls the solution to a number of very serious problems facing a psychological continuity theory of personal identity on the one hand and a nonreductive and yet non-dualist solution to the mind-body problem on the other.

It is quite impossible, at the outset, to give a detailed description of this 'picture' and the reasons why it blocks solutions to problems facing theories of mind and personal identity. Let me give a rough indication instead. The view of the mind that I shall argue underlies contemporary psychological theories of personal identity, is one in which the contents of mental states are fully identifiable at one point in time, just like the brain states with which they are identical (either as tokens or as types). The connections between these mental

ThITRODUCTIONANDOVERVffiW 3

states that link them over time so as to produce psychological continuation are consequently conceived of in terms that abstract from these states contents. They are of ten characterised merely as 'causal connections,' even though it goes without saying that causality is insufficient for full blown psychological continuity.

A picture of the mind roughly along these lines is widely, though of ten implicitly endorsed. The reason for that, as 1 shall explain in the next chapter, is that it yields a conception of psychological continuity that is considered to solve or evade a number of objections against the claim that psychological continuity can analyse the concept of personal identity. In the chapters that follow, however, 1 shall claim that this picture is false. Or rather, I shall claim that it doesn't work.

Despite appearances to the contrary, this picture of the diachronic existence of the mind cannot solve or evade the objections against a psychological criterion of personal identity. The suggestion that it can is rooted in a failure to see that these problems alI stern from the diachronic atomism with regard to mental contents that is inherent in these neo-Lockean theories of psychological continuity. This psychological atomism-the idea that a mental state's content is not co­determined by the contents of mental states at other times-is in fact enhanced and not countered, by a conception of psychological continuity that is strongly oriented towards the causal interconnection of physically realised, synchronically identifiable mental states. The above sketched picture of the mind, I shall argue in the course of this book, is part of the problems facing psychological continuity theories of personal identity, not part of their solution.

This could mean that we have to give up on the possibility of a psychological continuity criterion of identity. But since a psychological criterion has a number of intuitive advantages over its main rival (see the next chapter), a bodily criterion, this option does not seem to be too attractive. Instead, I shall claim that the reasons why this picture of the mind fails to yield an ac curate conception of psychological continuity, point towards an alternative picture of the diachronic existence of the mind. This alternative can be characterised by contrasting it with the picture described above.

The difference between the two views is in the way they construe the existence of the mind in and through time. In the picture

4 CHAPI'ER 1

described above, the mind is diachronic, but not necessarily so; the idea of a mental state had at one point in time whose contents is independent of mental states at other times is considered perfectly intelligible. Differently put, one mental state could occur in a completely different sequence of mental states without this affecting its content. The alternative picture that I shall sketch in the course of this book, by contrast, takes the mind to be essentially diachronic. This means that the connections between temporally distinct mental states of one mind that are constitutive of psychological continuity are not merely causal connections or connections of qualitative similarity such as between an experience and its recollection, but connections of semantic interdependence between the contents of these mental states. Mental contents at one point in time are shaped and modified by a context of earlier mental states, through inferential, evidential and biographical links, of ten over larger periods of time. On the alternative psychology­based approach to personal identity, such diachronic holism co-defines psychological continuity.

A consequence of this alternative picture is that many mental states cannot be fully identified at one point in time. In fact, I shall claim that 'individual' mental states at one point in time are-useful­abstractions from a mental reality that is in itself process-like and wholly diachronic.

The main reason for favouring an essentially diachronic view of the mind over an accidentally diachronic one is that the former can solve the problems facing a psychological criterion of personal identity, whereas the IaUer cannot. The argument for this claim takes up two thirds of this book-the next four chapters. But there is another important reason, one that is connected with what is at this stage a loose end to the story. The accidentally diachronic view of the mind is derived for a large part from the current orthodoxy in the philosophy of mind. It should be replaced, 1 will argue, by an essentially diachronic view. But that replacement can only have a degree of plausibility when this essentially diachronic view can be squared with a feasible position in the philosophy of mind.

The idea of diachronic holism of mental contents appears to be alien to orthodox philosophy of mind. Alien, but as 1 shall argue in Chapter 6, not incompatible. Better still, as 1 shall argue in Chapter 7, it

ThITRODUCTIONANDOVERYrnW 5

can help to solve one of the most serious problems concerning the mind and the brain. By far the most popular view with regard to the mind-body problem is one according to which the mind is somehow physically realised but not reducible to physics. Against this so-called nonreductive physicalism, one tough, recurring objection can be levelIed: if the mind is physicalIy reali sed we can trace the explanatory power of ascribing mental states to people back to the causal efficacy of the physical realisers of these mental states. But if the mental cannot be reduced to the physical, these causal powers cannot be truly mental. The mind is in dan ger of becoming an explanatorily superfluous epiphenomenon.

This problem, 1 shall argue, can be solved by means of a non­reductive physicalism based on the fact that the diachronic holism of mental contents has no counterpart in physics (as 1 shall explain later). Such nonreductivism can hand le the epiphenomenalism threat by endowing the mind with an explanatory function of its own-the explanandum being the continued existence of persons over time, and alI that it entails such as responsibility for past actions. This explanatory function differs from the traditional function of mental state ascriptions, the rationalisation of human actions. But that is exactly what ensures its autonomy: whereas a rationalisation has the same explanandum as some physical-causal explanation-a human action­there is no such overlap of explananda in the case of mentalistic explanations based on diachronic holism.

So much for the overview. Let us now turn to a more detailed discussion of the interconnection between personal identity, psychological continuity, and physicalism in the philosophy of mind.

-2-

SETIING THE STAGE:

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE METAPHYSICS OF MIND

1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is to expose the intimate connection between contemporary psychological continuity theories of personal identity and the physicalist orthodoxy in the philosophy of mind. Let me give a quick overview of what it is 1 shall be arguing.

First 1 will explain what the problem of trans-temporal personal identity is and what it is not. Secondly, 1 will discuss the distinction between the bodily and the psychological criterion of personal identity-in an initial, crude form-and explain why it is that most philosophers are inclined to accept one version or another of the psychological criterion. Thirdly, 1 shall elaborate on the characteristics of currently fashionable versions of the psychological criterion and narrow the class of theories under consideration down to the dominant school of those who depart from and expand Locke's memory criterion. This wiII take up the next three sections.

In the five sections that follow, 1 wiII describe five traditional problems with and/or objections to the psychological criterion. After that, in Sections 10 and Il, 1 wiII describe one solution to these five problems such as it is implicitly or explicitly accepted by contemporary defenders of the neo-Lockean psychological criterion. This solution consists of putting to use some salient and generaIly accepted features of a physicalist ontology of mind.

By the end of Section Il 1 wiII have established a crucial connection between the most widely accepted criterion of personal identity and contemporary physicalist theories of mind. The goal of the rest of this book is to make a case for the c1aim that this relation of influence should be reversed.

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MIT APHYSICS OF MIND 7

2. THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IDENTITY OVER 1lME

Let me start by outlining what the problem of personal identity over time is and-just as important-what it is not. The term 'personal identity' suggests that what is at stake in the debate is what makes me now not just similar to, connected with or continuous with a previous stage of 'myself', but what makes me identical with some previous stage. Indeed this is one interpretation of the problem. But it is certainly not the only one.

Since Locke,l in Anglo-American philosophy the problem of personal identity has been conceived broadly as the problem of how to specify a set of necessary and sufficient conditions under which distinct temporally indexed 'person-stages' are determined as co-persona1.2 To this it should be added that a criterion of personal identity-as the set of necessary and sufficient conditions is alternatively referred to-is a metaphysical-cum-semantic criterion, not an evidential criterion? That is, what is at stake is what it means to say that I am the same person as a ten-year-old boy that lived in the past and what objective facts make this statement true. The question how I know this statement to be true is a separate (though obviously related) issue.

These metaphysical-cum-semantic co-personality relations may be conceived as relations of strict identity, not between person stages themselves (for obviously no two stages in a person's life are completely identical), but between certain aspects thereof. This line of thought is adopted, for example, by theorists who claim that co­personality relations between distinct person-stages consist in strict, Leibnizian4 identity of the subjects that have the mental and/or bodily states that constitute distinct person-stages.5

However, this is not the only interpretation of co-personality relations. In fact, it now seems to be something of a minority interpretation. Most philosophers of personal identity reject the existence of such things as 'subjects of experience' that have an ontologic al status distinct from mental or bodily states. Thus, for instance, relations of similarity, continuity, or causal dependence have been put forward as possible replacements of strict-identity relations.6

This makes the concept of personal identity a tricky one. For why

8 CHAPTER2

should we wish to call these non-strict-identity characterisations of co­personality, relations theories of personal identity?

One answer to this question might be to say that they are solutions to the same co-personality problem that strict-identity theories purport to be a solution to.7 This answer draws on convention: we call these theories, theories of personal identity because they are rival theories of 'real' identity theories. Another answer might be to say that there is a non-Leibnizian kind of relative identity.8 StiU another option is to bite the bullet and admit that non-strict identity simply is no identity at al1.9 This last option especially makes one wonder whether strict-identity theories and non-strict-identity theories are really theories about the same thing.

One way of claiming that they are about the same thing is by stressing, again, that both kinds of theory are trying to account for co­personality relations between person-stages. But since both theories appear to conceive co-personality in such different ways, the worry can also be formulated like this: if co-personality is the explanandum, should there not be agreement on both sides about how to describe it? In the absence of any description of co-personality that abstracts from the above mentioned conceptions of it, it may seem as though the two sides of the discussion are simply not explaining the same thing. Lack of a mutually agreed-on description of what is at stake-co-personality relations-threatens to reduce the debate to talk at cross-purposes. It threatens to reduce what appears to be a discussion to no discussion at all.

This obviously is the wrong perception of the debate. There is real discussion, and it is about the same thing. But in order to see why this is so, we need a clearer conception of what is at stake. What is required in order to conceive the opposition between both kinds of theories of co-personality as a de bate about the explanation of the same explanandum, is a description of co-personality that does not presuppose a particular conception or theory of it, whether in terms of strict or non-strict identity, or of no identity at alI. In order to arrive at such a description, we should try to be clear about what purpose a possible theory of co-personality would serve.

It is not too common in the literature on personal identity to come across lengthy accounts of the import theories of co-personality

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND iliE MET APHYSICS OF MlND 9

relations actually have. This seems to be due to quite general agreement on the issue. 1 take Schechtman (1996) to spell out this general intuitive near-consensus when she claims that the importance of our having a theory of co-personality stems from four features of human existence that articulate a what the notion of the continued existence of persons over time amounts to. Let me summarise these features.

First, there is the fact that somehow our concern for our own fu ture states is different, perhaps not in intensity but certainly in quality, from our concern for the future states of others. An anticipated pain we will be experiencing will cast a shadow over our present lives in ways that are not paraUeled by the anticipation of someone else' s suffering. 10,11 The special kind of concern we feei for aur own fu ture states is clearly a part of our pre-theoretical conception of the continued existence of ourselves over time. It seems obvious that any theoretical account of the (anticipated) co-personality of our present person-stage with a future pain stage (as a mere instance of the general kind of connection between aU our person-stages) should be able to explain this special kind of concern.

Secondly, there is the phenomenon of survival, our continuing to be the persons we are now. Surely the notion of survival draws on a strong but unarticulated intuition about our continued existence over time, an intuition that must be captured by a theoretical account of identity over time.

Thirdly, and fourthly, there are the social phenomena of compensation and responsibility. A person-stage that receives her pay cheque is not the same person-stage that has been working overtime, but it had better be a stage that is co-personal with the one that worked overtime. We cannot, or at least do not usually intend to, reward someone for what someone else did. Likewise, a person-stage committing a crime is not the same person-stage that is being punished, but the punished stage had better be co-personal with the stage committing the crime. Like the first two features, the latter two highlight a part of our pre-theoretical notion of the continued existence of persons over time.

These 'four features' are the touchstones by which to judge theories of personal identity. They are what a theory of personal identity should be able to account for, not necessarily formal or

10 CHAfYfER2

metaphysical oneness. Strict Leibnizian identity is not the explanandum in the personal identity issue, it is a possible explanans of the four features. 12

But it is not the only explanans around. Most philosophers tend to reject the existence of a subject of experience (or some other entity) that is ontologically separate from a person's bodily and mental states. This seems to force them to accept an account of the four features that is not based on strict identity. For no state of a person' s mind at a given time seems to be identic al with any of that person' s mental states at other times. Likewise, no person' s bodily state at a given time seems to be identical with any of that person's bodily states at other times (cells renew themselves, but even if they did not, it would be highly unlikely for there ta be two times at which all the cells of one human body would themselves be in identical states).

Without a subject who 'has' or 'owns' these states, no strict identity between (aspects of) person-stages over time is possible. 13 And to most philosophers strict identity is the only kind of identity there iS. 14 Hence these philosophers explain the co-personality underlying the four features in terms of specific relations of connectedness that hold between person-stages. What these connections are, and what exactly counts as a person-stage, will be discussed below. The main point of this section is that the four features, rather than strict identity, are the explanandum of the debate on personal identity.

This point stil! leaves us with one more question to answer. If most philosophers deny the existence of subjects that remain strictly identical across time, and if they accept that strict identity is in fact the only real kind of identity, it seems they are forced to abandon the term 'personal identity.' However, very few of them actually do this (even Parfit (1984), who denies that the term is always applicable to persons, does not do this on grounds of non-strict identity of distinct person­stages). How can this seeming irrationality be explained?

There are two ways of doing this, both of which 1 mentioned earlier in passing. Both ways are applicable to philosophers who conceive personal identity over time as the existence of temporally distinct person-stages connected by some means into a 'four­dimensional worm.' 15 There are two different ways of looking at these 'worms' that yield different explanations of why the term 'personal

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MErAPHYSICS OF MIND 11

identity' is stiU applied. The first way of looking at these four-dimensional worms is

by accepting the idea that at every single point in time the person is wholly present. In other words, every person-stage is a complete person. If this idea is combined with the absence of some truly trans­temporally identical aspect in person-stages, it implies that persons persisting over time can simply be reduced to a large set of temporally distinct person-stages. According to this reductionism (which is mainly Parfit's 1971, 1984 option) there is strict1y speaking no such thing as one person that continues to exist over time.

The only way of justifying talk about 'personal identity' here is by drawing on convention. Series of non-identic al temporally distinct person-stages (as complete persons), connected over time by some means, explain the same thing that was traditionally explained by strict­identity theories (ii they do: Parfit in fact explains away all four features, and hence c1aims to be a revisionist). Therefore the term 'personal identity', if applicable, is applied merely to indicate that one is talking about the substitute for what once was supposed to be real identity.

There is another way of looking at these four-dimensional worms, however. This is to deny that at every distinct point in time a person is wholly present. 16 Instead, it might be thought that the whole person is nothing other than the complete aggregate of aU person­stages throughout a life. Hence, in Lewis' terms, persons do not endure but perdure over timeY Person-stages are connected to each other in ways that differ significantly from the ways in which they are connected to other states. Thus, if Quinean relativism about the connections between different temporal stages of objects-or rather kinds-is put aside/ 8 persons are four-dimensional objects.

This four-dimensionalism warrants the use of the term 'identity.' But the term is used here in another way than it is used by strict-identity theorists or reductionists. 19 For co-personality relations themselves are not relations of strict identity. Rather, ali the co­personality relations that connect ali the person-stages of one life constitute one person as an object that bears the Leibnizian identity relation to itself as a whole. Two things can never be identical. An object that is completely present at one time and an object that is

12 CHAPlER2

completely present at another time are, in fact, two things, however much the same they are in every respect but their temporal indexes. Hence, there is no such thing as identity of temporally distinct stages of an object. According to this option, the notion of 'identity over time' makes sense only in the case of four-dimensional objects.20

There are other ways of conceiving personal identity over time without c1aiming that person-stages or aspects thereof are strictly identic al, ways that are not four-dimensionalist in the sense outlined above and are non-reductionist. 1 will not pursue this point here, since the development of one such view will be the substance of the discussion in Chapters 2, 3 and 4.

For now it is important to note that strict-identity theories, reductionism and four-dimensionalism all are solutions to the same problem: to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the co­personality of temporally distinct person-stages in order ta account for the four features. All three options can be said to be about personal identity in one sense or another of that term.

3. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CRlTERION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY OVER TIME

Strict-identity theories are quite generally considered to be problematic. Since no two mental or physical states at two times can really be identical, strict identity is supposed to be constituted by some entity that is neither truly physical nor truly mental. It is 'the subject of experience', 'the agent' or 'the ego' that exists distinct from mental and bodily states, over but not in time.

The metaphysical problems rai sed by the assumption that such an entity exists are widely considered to be insurmountable. No such entity can be observed or introspected, as Hume famously noted. What exactly, then, is such an entity (as opposed to what it does; unite distinct person-stages into the life of a person)? How can something that does not have temporal stages interact with temporally indexed mental and bodily states? What accounts for the unity of this entity itself? To these questions, 1 agree, there are no satisfactory answers. 1 will therefore join the contemporary near21 -consensus and reject this kind of strict­identity theory as a feasible theoretical option.

That leaves us with accounts of personal identity in terms of

PERSONALIDENTITY ANDTHEMErAPHYSICSOFM!ND 13

specific kinds of direct connections between distinct temporally indexed person-stages, rather than indirect connections, constituted by two or more stages being 'had' by the same ego or subject. If we disregard for the moment the question whether these accounts are or should be reductionist, four-dimensionalist or otherwise, two more questions present themselves.

First of aU, what aspects of person-stages are relevant to personal identity? It is obviously irrelevant that two person-stages wear the same clothes in an account of their co-personality, even though the fact that these c10thes are worn is part of both stages. Two distinct persons may wear the same clothes at different times, and one person may have worn different c10thes without being someone else. Not every aspect of a person-stage is relevant, then. So the first question is what are the crucial aspects of person-stages between which these direct relations constituting personal identity must hold?

The second question is the obvious counterpart of the first: what kinds of connection between these aspects of person-stages are there supposed to be in order for them to constitute continued personal existence? The second question is a really difficult one with more answers to it than is generally recognised. It will be one of the topics of discussion in the chapters that follow, so I will not go into it too deeply here. Instead I will concentrate mainly on the first question, which is much more straightforward.

Basically, the first question has two possible answers. According to the first option, the bodily state of a person-stage is the relevant aspect. Hence, according to this option, a person-stage at time t2 is co-personal with a person-stage at time ti iff the bodily state of the stage at t2 is a state of the same body as the state of the stage at ti.

Strictly speaking this leaves us with the question of what makes two bodily states states of the same body. For the moment, however, 1 will rely on the fact that we have fairly solid intuitions about this.22 Thus, according to the first option, personal identity is constituted by bodily 'identity' (in an obviously non-strict sense). This option is called 'the bodily criterion of personal identity.' 23 To put it informally, by this criterion 1 am the same person as some ten-year-old boy because we share the same body.

The second option is to say that the relevant aspects of person-

14 CHAPTER2

stages are their mental states. Hence, according to this option, a person­stage at time t2 is co-personal with a person-stage at time t lo iff the respective mental states of these stages are connected and continuous with each other in a sense to be explained later. This option is called 'the psychological criterion of personal identity.' 24

The psychological criterion of personal identity is the one that is preferred by a majority of philosophers, despite the apparent intuitive appeal of the bodily criterion. The main reason for this is that the former seems to capture what is involved in the four features much better than the latter.

First of an take our concern for our own future states. This is a concern first and foremost for our future experiences. Surely we do care for our future bodily states as well, we care for our health, we care for the absence of pain. But we care for our health in the first place because a healthy body is a prerequisite for our doing the things we want to do, for our being able to lead the life we want to lead and have the experiences we want to have. Likewise, we prefer the absence of future pain because in general such absence yields more pleasurable experiences. Thus, in general we are concerned for our future psychological states-whether we are going to be content, stable, satisfied persons-and we care for our future bodily states precisely because certain bodily states are required in order for us to have the kinds of psychological states we prefer.

More or less the same goes for the notion of survival. Bodily survival is surely among our primary concerns when we think of our own survival. But it does not seem to be a sufficient condition for personal survival. If I live to be an amnesiac with no hope of ever retrieving any memories of my present life, and if on top of this my character traits change significantly, my body will surely survive, but will 1, will this person survive? There is certainly a strong intuition according to which the appropriate answer would be: "no, this person will not survive." When pushed, many of us appear inclined to say that persons and bodies are coextensive under normal circumstances, while they are nevertheless different things.

The support for the psychological criterion in the cases of responsibility and compensation is even stronger. We do not intend to punish a body for a crime committed, we intend to punish the person

PERSONAL IDENTfIY AND TIm MET APHYSICS OF MIND 15

whose motives for doing what she did-which are psychological states-we find reprehensible. Likewise, we do not intend to compensate bodies for actions performed, we intend to compensate persons for the discomfort they had to endure-which may have been caused by the body, but which consists of psychological states nevertheless.

Another reason for supposing that psychology is more relevant to responsibility than bodily 'identity' is that in cases of radical personality change, we may decide not to punish a person or to punish less severely. Even less radical psychological changes may be taken into account. A person who committed a crime but shows sincere remorse may receive a less severe punishment. This cannot be explained by the bodily criterion (no significant bodily changes can warrant a more lenient attitude towards a criminal), but it can be explained by a psychological criterion (the psychology of the person­stage to be punished differs in significant respects from the psychology of the person-stage who committed the crime).

In general, our intuitions in support of the bodily criterion can be taken into account by the psychological criterion, since the co­personality of psychological states coincides under normal circumstances with the co-personality of bodily states. But we should bear in mind that the debate over personal identity is a debate over a metaphysical-cum-semantic criterion, not over an epistemic or evidential criterion. Thus, defenders of the psychological criterion plausibly argue, precisely because bodily 'identity' usually coincides with psychological 'identity', bodily identity may in normal circumstances be the perfect epistemic or evidential criterion of personal identity. Hence, defenders of the psychological criterion seem able to account for at least our initial intuitions in support of the bodily criterion.

These reasons for favouring the psychological criterion over the bodily criterion are by no means intended as a defence of the psychological criterion. They are meant to show that it would be worthwhile to see whether such a defence is in fact possible. For they show that the psychological criterion is endowed with some initial intuitive plausibility by the fact that it seems to fit in perfectly with the four features.

16 CHAPTER2

4. THE NEO-LOCKEAN PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITERION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY

There is no such thing as the psychological criterion of personal identity to be found in the debate. There are almost as many version as there are proponents of the psychological approach. Nevertheless, the vast majority of these are of a kind. They share a number of core inttIitions-I shall mention three of them here-and differ in the nature and amount of additional assumptions and principles added to these in order to accommodate or revise (as the case may be) the ways in which we think about persons in everyday life. 1 shaU be concemed mainly with what these criteria have in common, not with what sets them apart.

The first feature that virtuaUy aU contemporary psychological theories of personal identity have in common is the fact that they aU assign a cruciaUy important role to memory in their characterisation of psychological continuity. This is due to the fact that these theories depart from Locke's (1690) original memory criterion of personal identity. According to this first version of the psychological criterion, what makes me the same person as some ten-year-old boy who lived a couple of decades ago is the fact that 1 am able to remember experiences had by that boy. Memory, according to Locke, is the sole constituent of personal identity over time.

Nowadays it is generaUy recognised that memory alone is not enough. For instance the fact that 1 can have intentions at one time and carry them out later is also considered to yield a kind of psychological connection that is co-constitutive of personal identity. After aU, no on but me can act on my intention, regardless of how far apart in time the intention and the act are. Similarly, the continued holding of beliefs, values, preferences, character traits, desires, etc. is viewed as constituting the right kind of connection between temporaUy distinct psychological states to underlie personal identity.

Nevertheless, memory still plays a crucially important part, even in contemporary versions of the psychological criterion; Locke's criterion is found incomplete, but correct in spirit. Moreover, the kinds of psychological connection that are added to Locke's criterion are similar in relevant respects to memory. Just like a memory resembles (e.g.) an experience that is remembered, so an action is qualitatively

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE METAPHYSICS OF MIND 17

similar to an intention. Likewise, the retention of beliefs, character traits, values, etc. consists in there being relations of qualitative similarity between mental states at different times.

Such relation of qualitative similarity are sometimes referred to as relations of 'psychological connectedness.' A second feature of the theories under consideration is their construing a transitive relation of psychological continuity out of psychological connectedness. Connectedness in itself is not a transitive relation. Take memory: I can remember being a ten-year-old boy, and I may be able to remember writing this sentence when I am eighty, yet I may not remember anything of my tenth year when I am eighty. Personal identity-even when this is not understood as strict identity-is a transitive relation. When I am the same person as a ten year old boy, and when some eighty-year-old person is me, then the eighty-year-old is the same person as the ten-year-old.

There is thus a need for a transitive relation other than connectedness, as both Reid (1785) and Butler (1736) were eager to note in the case of Locke. Contemporary neo-Lockeans fulfil this demand without drawing on other kinds of psychological relation than connectedness. Connectedness secures sameness of psychological make-up. But two person-stages need not be psychologically identical in order to be co-personally related. It is enough for two consecutive stages to be very similar in psychological respects. Psychological change is inevitable. But when this change is gradual instead of sudden, and when it does not involve too much of a person' s psychology at once, enough psychological connectedness can be retained to secure personal identity. If this insight is combined with the insight that not an stages of a person need to be interconnected by the same relations of psychological connectedness, there is room for a transitive relation of psychological continuity based on psychological connectedness:

In order to define psychological continuity, we should first distinguish between strong and weak psychological connectedness. Parfit defines strong psychological connectedness in terms of the amount of psychological connections that hold between distinct person-stages (1984, p. 206; Parfit is not normally considered representative of most psychological continuity theorists. However in this case he is-more on this below). One stage is strongly connected to

18 CHAPTER2

another if the number of psychological connections between them is at least half as much as the number of psychological connections that normally hold between distinct person-stages over a day.25

Psychological continuity is now defined as 'overlapping chains of strong connectedness' (see also Noonan 1989, pp. 12-3). If chains of connected psychological states overlap temporally-the way individual fibres overlap spatially in a rope-and if together these chains constitute one 'four dimensional worm' of which every time slice is strongly connected to their direct predecessors and successors, every time-slice of this 'worm' will be continuous with every other time-slice of the same 'worm', even if there are few or no psychological connections between them (just as two pieces of rope can belong to the same rope even when they do not share a single fibre). Psychological continuity is supposed to constitute personal identity. For unlike psychological connectedness, psychological continuity is a transitive relation. If A is continuous with B, and B is continuous with C, then A is continuous with C.

A third feature of the psychological continuity theories under consideration is the fact that, like Locke's, bodily continuity or (non­strict) identity is not considered a necessary condition for psychological continuity, and hence for personal identity. In fact, this feature is of ten considered defining for a psychological criterion as such. Locke illustrated this by a thought experiment in which Prince and a Cobbler changed bodies, arguing that where the psychology goes, there goes the person. Keeping the four features of Section 2 in mind, we should for instance hold the Prince's body with the Cobbler's mind responsible for the former Cobbler' s deeds, precisely because it is now the prince' s body that harbours the psychological make-up that caused the Cobbler' s actions. In contemporary discussions, such 'body-swaps' still figure extensively (more on this in the next chapter).

Theories of psychological continuity that answer to the above three features dominate the contemporary debate. I will refer to such theories as 'neo-Lockean theories of psychological continuity,' even though many of them contain typically un-Lockean elements. They are the subject of this chapter and the next. The fact that the vast majority of psychological continuity theories is neo-Lockean does not mean that there are no substantial differences between these theories. As I already

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MEr APHYSICS OF MIND 19

said, though, these differences stern from assumptions and principles that are added to these three features without being implied by any of them. Thus, a very atypical defender of the psychological criterion such as Parfit (an extreme reductionist) can be representative of a majority of philosophers of personal identity in that his exposition and defence of the above three features is thorough and in itsel! uncontroversial (what is controversial is the lack of additional assumptions and principles, and the extremely meagre picture of personal existence this yields; see the next chapter).

Let us now turn to five traditional objections levelled against the neo-Lockean criterion of personal identity. Ali of these concern the picture of psychological continuity drawn by the three features described above.

5. THE CIRCULARITY OBJECTION

Originally the circularity objection was formulated by Bishop Butler to re fute Locke' s (purported26) memory criterion of personal identity. Although it is likely that Butler's point was merely to argue against the conflation of epistemic criteria for personal identity with ontologic al or metaphysical criteria,27 the objection has been interpreted far more sophisticatedly since. Parfit (1984, p. 220), for instance, takes it to say that "[i]t is part of our concept of memory that we can remember our own experiences. The continuity of memory therefore presupposes personal identity." Shoemaker (1970, p. 281) puts the objection as follows:

"( ... ) while someone's remembering a past event is a sufficient condition of his being a witness to that event, we cannot use the former as a criterion for the latter, since in order to establish that a person really does remember a given past event we have to establish that he, that very person, was a witness to the event. And, if that is so, the formula 'If S remembers E, S is identical with someone who witnessed E' will be circular if offered as a partial analysis of the concept of personal identity."

1 favour a formulation of the objection in terms of a distinction between veridical and non-veridical memory, a distinction that is implicit in Shoemaker' s version. It is possible for us to have non­veridical memories as a consequence of, say, delusion, hypnosis or

20 CHAPTER2

having our brains tampered with. We are capable of seemingly remembering events we never really witnessed. Hence, in order for a memory to count as evidence of personal identity, we have to establish that that memory is veridical. However, establishing whether or not a memory is veridical means establishing whether the person who remembers really witnessed the seemingly remembered event. And that just means establishing whether the rememberer and the witness are identical-or, better, whether the witnessing stage and the remembering stage are co-personal. Personal identity, then, is presupposed by veridical memory so that the latter cannot be a criterion for the former on pain of vicious circularity.

The circularity objection in the general form that I will discuss, then, says that the definition of my having a veridical memory IS:

(1) I am present1y in a state as if remembering having a specific experience,28

(2) The content of that state is qualitatively identic al with or very similar to a past experience,

(3) I had that experience.

If this definition is correct, memory cannot analyse personal identity or the co-personality of the original experience person-stage and the remembering person-stage, since (3) already mentions the term '1.' That term is simply meant to refer to the co-personality of the two stages, which is precisely what veridical memory is supposed to be analysing.

There are two major differences between Locke's criterion of personal identity and contemporary versions of it, neither of which are sufficient for neo-Lockeans to ignore the circularity objection. First of alI, the contemporary vers ion of psychological continuity is much richer than Locke's mere memory-based version. Still, memory plays a substantial, even crucial role in contemporary theories. If memory presupposes personal identity, so does psychological continuity in general, since according to neo-Lockeans it cannot do without

PERSONAL IDENTlTY AND THE MET APHYSICS OF MIND 21

memory. Secondly, Locke seeks to analyse personal identity in terms of

memory, while some contemporary theories (e.g. Parfit' s) seek to replace personal identity by psychological continuity. This difference apparently makes the objection against these contemporary theorists even stronger. If it holds, their deflationary attitude towards personal identity will not even be consistent, for the conception of psychological continuity that backs up this attitude will then itself presuppose what it denies importance.

6. PROBLEMS OF LOGICAL FORM

A second objection against the psychological criterion of personal identity is that it cannot solve what may be called 'problems of logical form. 29 These problems-there are two of them-follow from the fact that the psychological criterion of personal identity quite obviously is no criterion for strict identity.

Whereas we have some strong intuitions about the oneness of the body' s existence over time-even though there is no strict identity here either-our mental states of ten seem much more loosely connected than temporally distinct bodily states. We forget most of what we experience, we change our minds every now and then, we reject old values and ideals and adopt new ones, etc. In other words, there seems to be much less of a unity of mind over time than a unity of body.

The problem with this fact is that it does not seem to square with the four features. We care for our own fu ture states, not for some states that are loosely or even not at all connected to our present ones. Survival, secondly, is not just the fu ture existence of mental states that are loosely connected with our present ones; it is the future existence of something that is present now. Thirdly, we do not hold person-stages responsible for what loosely connected person-stages did; we want to hold the same person responsible that committed the crime. Finally, the same goes for compensation.

There are two characteristics of strict identity that make it, at first glance, a better candidate for underlying the four features than any criterion based on psychological connectedness. The first characteristic

22 CHAPTER2

is transitivity. The second is its aU-or-nothingness. Transitivity is required for the four features to hold. Take

concern for future states and survival. If b is going to be a future state of mine and c is going to be a future state of b, then c is going to be a fu ture state of mine as weU. If b is the survivor of me now and c is the survivor of b, then c will be the survivor of me as weU. Hence, if I care in a specific kind of way for b, I will care in that kind of way for c.30

Likewise, transitivity is required for responsibility and compensation. If b is a different person-stage of the same person that has committed a crime or worked overtime at stage a, and if c is a different (later) person-stage of the same person b was a stage of, then c can be held responsible or be compensated for what a did.

In a similar vein, all-or-nothingness fits in perfectly with the four features. I do not have a special kind of concern for some future state that is only connected to my present state to a certain degree, I am concerned for future states that will be all mine. AIso, survival seems to be more than just the holding of a specific kind of relation to a certain degree; it seems to be aU or nothing: either I survive, or I do not. Likewise, we want to hold person-stages responsible for crimes they committed, not only part of them. And finally, we want to compensate the very person and the whole person who worked overtime. In short, the co-personality relations underlying the four features seem to be aU or nothing.

Psychological connectedness is not a transitive relation, nor is it all-or-nothing. Psychological continuity, however is transitive (see Section 4). Moreover, continuity instead of connectedness shows why the issue of degree is of less importance. Strong connectedness obviously still holds in degrees (ranging from half the connections that hold over a day to the totality of such connections). However, since it defines a minimum level of connectedness, since continuity is defined in terms of overlapping chains of strong connectedness (which, given this minimum level, is guaranteed to be there), and since overlapping itself does not admit of degree (either chains of connected states overlap or they do not), it simply doesn't make sense to think of continuity holding to a certain degree only.

Much hinges on the move from psychological connectedness to psychological contionuity, then. The one thing that this move

PERSONAL IDENfITY AND THE MEI APHYSICS OF MIND 23

depends on is an intelligible concept of 'overlapping' of various strands of psychological connectedness, one with clear criteria of application. And that is where things start to become difficult. In order to have an intelligible definition of 'overlapping' we need an intelligible conception of the unity of mind at one point in time. For if we have such a conception, we could explain 'overlapping' by asserting that it is the co-occurrence of distinct stages of connected chains of mental states in one (numerically) unified mind at at least one moment in time.

Parfit, one of the main inventors of the 'continuity-instead-of­connectedness' move, does virtually nothing to explain the unity of mind, other than to stress that certain contents just co-occur in a single state of awareness (Parfit 1984, pp. 250-1). This does not seem much like an explanation of the unity of mind, for one thing. For another, it does nothing to account for the unity of the vast amount of unconscious memories, beliefs and desires we harbour at one moment. In the absence of an intelligible conception of the unity of mind at one moment, however, psychological continuity is a concept without clear criteria of application.

Hence, the proposed solution to both problems of logical form turns on the availability of an intelligible conception of the (numerical) unity of mind at one point in time. 1 will therefore propose to narrow the problems of logical form down to the problem of how to define the unity of mind-conscious and unconscious states-at one moment in time. In the absence of an explicit definition proposed by neo-Lockeans, the problems of logical form appear very much alive. 31

7. THE LACK OF A THIRD-PERSON CRlTERION FOR REIDENTIFICA TION·

The third problem facing the psychological continuity theory, is a consequence of the fact that it does not seem able to account for precisely that what gives the bodily criterion its intuitive plausibility.

Among the most important things that the bodily criterion of personal identity has going for it is the fact that it implies a perfectly straightforward third-personal criterion for the reidentification of persons. We normally (and probably always) reidentify persons other than ourselves by their bodies. We recognise our friends, colleagues

24 CHAPTER2

and acquaintances first and foremost by recoglllsmg their bodies (mainly their faces). We trace criminals by looking for fingerprints or bits of body tissue containing their DNA, by taking descriptions of their looks into account, etc. In general, we take sameness of body to represent sameness of person.

It is needless to argue for the extreme importance of our ability to reidentify other persons. Our social lives, our legal systems, and in fact the whole of our society would simply fall apart if we were not able to reidentify persons from a third-person perspective. We wouldn't know what to say to whom, we would have to believe every criminal who c1aims to be someone else, etc.

Still, it doesn't seem that a strict psychological criterion of personal identity is able to provide us with a third-person criterion for reidentification.32 A psychological criterion will of course enable us to reidentify ourselves from an 'inside' point of view (even though Williams (1970) may be interpreted as arguing that we reidentify ourselves by our bodies as well). For we are the ones that know our own memories, intentions, beliefs, values and preferences. But this yields a third-person criterion only in the form of our identifying ourselves to others, in about the same way we introduce and describe ourselves to strangers. And c1early this is not enough.

It does help to argue here that normally psychological continuity is tied to bodily continuity, as 1 pointed out in Section 3. But in fact, that only gets us halfway. Even if the body is causally involved in a person' s psychology, the point of the psychological criterion is that the same psychology might have been dependent upon a numerically different body. There seems to be a necessary but contingent connection between a person's body and a person's psychology. That is what certain thought experiments purport to demonstrate (see the next chapter for details): one body may sustain mental states that are connected and continuous with mental states that were supported by another body.

In view of this possibility, and in view of the fact that we may regard the reidentification a person' s psychology after a body swap practically infeasible, public1y accessible criteria that are conceptually or at least non-contingently connected with personal identity appear not to be provided for by the psychological criterion, for all that has

PERSONAL IDENTlTY AND TIIE MErAPHYSICS OF MIND 25

been said so far.

8. THEUNITYOFTHEMENTALBUNDiE

The fourth problem fac ing the psychological continuity theory is a consequence of the fact that it does not immediately seem to be able to take into account what a strict-identity theory has going for it: a clear conception of what holds together ali mental states had by one person. An ego or a subject of experience is a unifying agent precisely because aU the mental states that constitute one person' s life are supposed to be 'had' by one and the same ego or subject. In the absence of one unifying agent, do psychological continuity theorists have to conceive of the mental life of persons more or less as a contingent bundle of mental states (which would not be surprising, given the fact that this theory has its roots in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British empiricism)?

There is rather widespread unease among philosophers about the bundle theory. This unease is hard to articulate fully, but let me at least describe one important aspect of it here.

Unlike the ego theory, the bundle theory's explanation of the (synchronic and diachronic) unity of the mind or the co-personality of our mental states (which is, in terms of the psychological criterion, the unity of the person) turns on the direct relations that exist between distinct mental states, either at a time or over time. As we have seen, these relations mainly consist of memory, intention, and the retention of beliefs, values, preferences and character traits. Such relations are relations of qualitative similarity or identity between the contents of mental states (and, sometimes, actions). Memories resemble experiences once had, actions resemble the intentions that caused them. As for the retention of beliefs, etc., the relations of qualitative identity, resemblance or similarity will be clear. As I will explain in Section 10, such relations are also considered to be causal relations.

One of the main worries concerning a putative bundle theory is that these two characterisations of the relations that allegedly constitute the co-personality of mental states~ualitative similarity and causality-fail to include quite a large number of mental states we nevertheless usually ascribe to ourselves. There simply are lots of

26 CHAPIER2

mental states that are, by these criteria, unrelated to other states of what we normalIy consider to be the same mind.

In fact, most of our perceptual contents falI under this category. Most of our perceptions are not remembered. We usualIy only remember perceptions that make a particular impression on us. Neither can it be said that most of our perceptions are causally related to other mental states or perceptions. As Noonan (Noonan 1989, p. 96) puts it: "At present 1 have an impression of a desk top covered with sheets of writing paper. If 1 turn my head to the left 1 have the impression of a bookcase filled with books. The impression of the desk top neither resembles nor is a cause of the impression of the bookcase (nor is the desk top itself a cause of the bookcase); yet 1 regard both impressions as mine."

Whether or not other kinds of mental states can be likewise unrelated to other mental states, by resemblance and/or causation, may be a matter of dispute. But this is a dispute that is unimportant to settle, since (unremembered) perceptions make up quite a large portion of the minds of persons. And if it cannot be explained how these mental states are co-personal with other mental states, then the neo-Lockean psychological criterion of personal identity just doesn't seem to account for the co-personality of alI (psychological) person-stages, even though it may account for some co-personality relations.

9. THE INDIVIDUATION OF PERSONS

The fifth and last problem for the psychological continuity theory is that of the individuation of persons. This problem is of a kind with the problem of third-person reidentification. Both problems follow from the fact that the neo-Lockean psychological criterion only leaves space for a contingent co-existence relation between a person and a body.

In the case of the problem of third-person reidentification, this contingency either undermines the possibility of (universally) applicable epistemic criteria for third-person reidentification or is it self undermined by the fact that it is hard to reidentify persons other than by reidentifying their bodies.

In the case of the problem of individuation this contingency undermines our normal way of counting persons by counting bodies.

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND TIm MErAPHYSICS OF MIND 27

Once the body is supposed to be connected to the mind only contingently-while only mental states are supposed to be constitutive of persons-the assumption that there are as many persons as there are bodies will become less than obvious. It seems to open up the possibility of one body being connected to two persons, and one person to two bodies. Both possibilities seem absurd. Still, they appear to be consequences of the neo-Lockean criterion of personal identity. Let me explain this.

How do we count minds? Could it be possible that one body delivers the causal inputs for numerically distinct minds? There certainly are philosophers who think so. Faced with the theoretical possibility of one 'stream of consciousness' being fissioned or split up into two such 'streams' (1 will discuss these supposed possibilities in the next chapter), some philosophers33 have argued that the stream of consciousness before fis sion in fact consisted of two such streams connected to one body and with identic al contents. 1ndeed, this possibility does not seem to be ruled out in advance by the psychological criterion.

The question following from this supposition is simple: when we as sume that there are two streams of consciousness before splitting, and when we take into account the possibility that this fis sion might not have happened, would there only have been one stream had the fission never occurred? It seems plausible to assume this. But the problem here is of course that we seem to have to know in advance whether fis sion will take place in order to count persons now (hence there is a connection with four-dimensionalism here). And tbat implies the absurd assumption that we can never be sure at one moment in time how many persons there are. Hence, if we allow for the possibility of one body being contingent1y connected to two (or more) persons, we can never be sure how many persons there really are unt ii they have lived their lives.

The same problem also holds the other way round. If persons are defined in terms of their psychology, and if two bodies happen to sustain identical psychological lives, should we not say, by the psychological criterion, that there is only one person that is instanced in two bodies? To most people this may seem like an obviously false suggestion. Still, it is not clear how one could object to it other than by

28 CHAPTER2

invoking a numeric al distinction between qualitatively identical mental lives. And how does one invoke a numeric al distinction other than by invoking a substance such as a body?

As wilI perhaps have been the case during my description of the other four problems, a fairly obvious answer presents itself here: the numeric al distinction between two qualitatively identic al lives is derived from the numerical (and possibly even qualitative) distinction not between bodies, but between brains, the substrata of our psychology. lndeed, this will be the solution that 1 will explore in the next two sections.

10. THE NEO-LOCKEAN CRITERION ANO PHYSICALISM:

A 'NATURAL' ALLIANCE

My claim will be that the five problems confronting the neo-Lockean criterion of personal identity outlined above are alI supposed-by virtually all influential contemporary defenders of this criterion-to have a solution that follows from or is closely linked to the acceptance of a physicalist ontology of mind. As a preliminary to explaining what such solutions look like, in the next section, 1 will describe the more or less 'natural' alliance between the neo-Lockean conception of psychological connectedness and physicalism.

The physicalism involved in this alliance is of a relatively unspecified kind. Rather than a specific detailed physicalist theory of mind, aH that is implied by contemporary neo-Lockean conceptions of psychological connectedness and continuity is the acceptance of three doctrines that are alI present in a wide range of currently accepted theories of mind. These three doctrines fit in extremely well with two salient features of neo-Lockean theories. 1 will labeI the alliance between these features and doctrines the neo-Lockean paradigm.34

The two features of neo-Lockean theories seem to follow directly from the way the problem of personal identity is conceived. To repeat, the problem is how to specify a set of necessary and sufficient conditions under which distinct temporally indexed 'person-stages' are determined as co-personal. Given that we are looking for a psychological criterion, this characterisation of the problem is naturally interpreted as presupposing the existence and intelligibility of 'distinct

PERSONAL IDENTlTY AND THE MET APHYSICS OF MIND 29

temporally indexed psychological states,' a description of which does not already presuppose co-personality with any other such state. The very starting point of the neo-Lockean paradigm, then, is a somewhat atomistic approach to psychological states. Let me elaborate both on the term 'atomism' and on the qualification 'somewhat.'

The atomism is mainly of a diachronic nature. That is, the psychological state of a person at one moment in time is supposed to be self-contained with respect to psychological states at other times. It is not required that the various beliefs, desires, etc. that make up the total psychological state of a person at one time are atomistically conceived with respect to each other as well. A certain degree of synchronic holism is perfect1y compatible with diachronic atomism. However, many defenders of the psychological criterion appear favorably inclined towards synchronic atomism as well (see the next chapter).3S

If diachronic atomism holds, reference to distinct but co­personally related psychological states is not required in order to individuate the content of a specific time-indexed psychological state that constitutes a person stage. The lack of need for such reference is precisely what allows the personal identity problem to exist and be intelligible from the prespective of those who favour a non-trivial psychological solution to it. For if such reference were required, a given psychological person stage could not be identified without mentioning psychological states with which it is co-personally related. And in that case it cannot be an open question whether the states at issue are or are not co-personalliy related. It must, in other words, be possible in principle for one time-indexed psychological state to be co­personally related to states other than the ones it is actually co­personally related to.

This function of diachronic atomism-making the problem of personal identity over time intelligible from the perspective of a possible psychology-based solution to it-accounts for the 'somewhat,' when 1 said that a somewhat atomistic approach is implied. What is clear from the neo-Lockean approach to the personal identity question, is that the co-personality of distinct psychological states cannot be constituted or co-constituted by holistic relations between the contents of these states, stemming from inferential, evidential, or biographical connections between them. Hence, the claim is not the neo-Lockeans

30 CHAPIER2

do not or cannot allow for a fair degree of holism between various mental states. Rather, the claim is that whatever degree of holism is allowed for, on a neo-Lockean criterion this cannot account for the co­personality of various person stages.36

On a neo-Lockean account, then, holism is optional and not constitutive of psychological continuity. This does not imply that coherence of mental contents is largely ignored. For one thing, relations of qualitative similarity (see Secion 4) stiH play an essential role. But it does mean that whatever coherence is granted, it is conceived as being contingently dependent upon relations other than coherence of contents that are supposed to constitute the co-personality of (psychological) person stages. If the contents supported by psychological states cohere, the 'result' is a rational personality with coherent memories. If they do not cohere, this affects the rationality and coherence of a person's psychology, but not the co-personality of the psychological states. No psychological states comprising a person's psychological life, atomistically conceived, belong essentially together. 1 may ask myself 'What is the product of 3 and 4?' at t), and you may think 'Ah yes .... the product of 3 and 4 is 12' at t2' If 1 think 'Let's see ..... the product of 2 and 3 is ... mmm ... 6' at t2' this is evidence of my having a somewhat incoherent, chaotic mind, not of the fact that the third thought is in fact not co-personal with the first.

If holistic relations between the contents of mental states are insufficient to underlie the numeric al unity of the various differently time-indexed states comprising one 'stream' of psychological continuity, some other relation must do the job. These other relations have to be external to the mental states they connect in the sense that they abstract from their contents. The kind of relation sought for in a psychological criterion of personal identity-within the framework of the neo-Lockean paradigm-must be such that if state a is in fact so related to bit could have been so related to c, d, etc.

Given that a criterion for personal identity is a metaphysical criterion, co-personality relations are conceived of as having an objective, third-person accessible character. As a corollary of psychological atomism (in the restricted sense indicated above), then, the neo-Lockean paradigm contains a notion of objective relations that hold between individual co-personal psychological states that are

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MEI' APHYSICS OF MIND 31

extern al to these states' contents. In itself, diachronic atomism does not point towards one specific type of relation. It is, for instance, perfectly compatible with a Cartesian ego theory, according to which individual psychological states are co-personalIy related in virtue of their 'being had' by one and the same ego. But it is also compatible with a Humean bundle theory, according to which co-personal psychological states form a unity in virtue of direct objective relations of one kind or another that hold between them, without mediation of an overarching principle.

One way of conceiving such relations, to be found in Locke's and Hume's works, is to stress the first-person observation of the co­occurrence of psychological states and of the consecutive occurrence of such states. But this way of conceiving these relations is purely epistemic. It does not tell us what this co-personality consists in objectively speaking or from a third person point of view.

One major difference between the way the personal identity question is treated in Locke' s days and in our days, is that while there is a tendency in Locke to conflate epistemic and ontologic al issues, nowadays the personal identity issue is, as noted, an ontologic al or metaphysical one. Given this restriction, it seems that there is realIy only one option here of conceiving direct external connections. This is to conceive the relations between individual co-personal psychological states as causal relations. And in fact alI contemporary neo-Lockeans accept the idea that the objective, external connections between individual psychological states comprising the life of one person are causal connections.37 Following Elliot (1991) 1 will refer to this way of conceiving the objective relations between psychological states as the 'causal continuity requirement' of psychological continuity (CCR in what folIows).38

Psychological connectedness, then, is viewed by philosophers in the neo-Lockean tradition as involving atomistically conceived (in the restricted sense outlines above) psychological states whose causal interconnectedness is a necessary condition for their being co­personally repated. The same goes for psychological continuity, since this relation is constituted by overlapping chains of strong connectedness. Psychological atomism and CCR are, 1 c1aim, largely responsible for the fact that contemporary theorists of personal identity

32 CHAPIER2

almost unanimously accept and have recourse to physicalist philosophy of mind. Let me explain this.

There is no conceptual connection between atomism and CCR on the one hand and physicalism on the other. Nevertheless, there is a very strong connection between them, fuelled by considerations of conceivability. The need for a substratum, given atomism, can best be explained by posing a rhetorical question. Diachronic atomism allows for the possibility of there being various person-stages at the same time with identical psychological make-ups (in Chapter 4 and 5 1 shall develop a diachronic holism that casts doubt on this theoretical possibility). How can we distinguish numerically between these person­stages, when we focus strictly on their psychology?

It seems that this question can only be answered by assuming that psychological states are constituted by a substratum that allows two tokens of the same type to be distinguished in precisely the same way two qualitatively identic al billiard balls are told apart. By accepting the view that psychological states are somehow constituted by physical states, Le. states of the brain, and by accepting that this allows for the individuation of psychological states in terms of material states, atomism becomes eminently conceivable and intelligible. For physical states are perfect subjects of atomistic indi viduation. Their individuation does not, in principle, require reference to other states, either at other places or at other times CI will say more about this in Chapter 5). They are self-contained, or are at least individuated as such. If psychological states are constituted by physical states, then it seems they are self-contained as well in the way diachronic atomism requires.

. The connection between physicalism and CCR is even stronger. For causal connections between individual psychological states to be conceivable, one must in principle be able to specify a mechanism by which one state causes another-or, if one adopts a Humean view on causality, one must accept the existence of, and be able to specify the strict laws connecting these states. Brain states provide such a mechanism. Their interconnection constitutes a mechanism specifiable in terms of the laws of nature.

(It may seem as though this implies that the causal interconnections between psychological states is exhausted entirely by the causal connections between their (physical) substrata. In other

PERSONALIDENTITY ANDTHEME'fAPHYSICSOFMlND 33

words, it may seem as though this implies that psychological states as such play no causal role. Whether or not this is in fact the case remains to be seen. In any case, it is not an a priori truth that causal interconnections between the substrata of psychological states leave no causal or explanatory work to do for psychological states as such. Moreover, mental causation is quite generally held to require the causal efficacy of mental substrata. Token identity theories might help here (as in e.g. Davidson, 1970). So may notions of epiphenomenal or supervenient causation (as in Kim, 1984), as well as the program model which assigns causal relevance, though not efficacy, to psychological states (Jackson & Pettit, 1988, 1990a). This issue will be discussed at length in Chapter 7.)

The strength of the connection between atomismlCCR and physicalism can be brought forward as follows. In order for both atomism and CCR to be intelligible, psychological states cannot but be conceived of as being 'made of', 'constituted by' or 'realised by' some kind of causally efficacious stuff. Stuff of one kind or another allows for atomistic individuation and causal eficacy, Le. mechanistic, nomological connections. Psychological states, mental contents, must have substantial substrata if atomism and CCR are accepted. And the only substrata present1y available are brain states.

The connection between physicalism and atomismlCCR is not conceptual, though; psychological states could have been realised by non-material substrata. Given that the assumption of non-material substrata is generally regarded as theoretically infeasible, the connection between atomismlCCR and materialism or physicalism is as strong as can be.

Although psychological atomism is certainly older than physicalism (it is present in Descartes, Locke and Hume, to name a few), CCR and physicalism evolved more or less together. Which one of the two inspired the other is probably as sensible a question as whether the chicken preceded the egg or vice versa. In any case, the psychological criterion of personal identity in analytical philosophy, conceived along the lines of the neo-Lockean paradigm (note: not the Lockean paradigm) as I have sketched it so far, stands in need of a physicalist philosophy of mind. There is certainly no agreement over what this philosophy of mind must be like. But at least three doctrines

34 CHAPTER2

are implicitly agreed ono First of aU, obviously, there is agreement over the idea that

mental states are physicaUy realised. Mental states depend for their existence, according to this near-consensus, on brain states. The term 'physical realisation' may have functionalist overtones, but these are not specifically implied by my use of the term. I take physical realisation simply to mean the supervenience of mental states on physical states. Thus, duplication of a physical state that realises a mental state implies duplication of the mental state that is being reali sed. (There is no need to decide between strong and weak supervenience. Strong supervenience, i.e. supervenience accross possible worlds would be relevant when there is such a thing as the existence of persons accross possible world. There isn't.) There can be no change in mental states without change in the physical states that reali se them. Exactly how physical states realise mental ones is a matter of dispute. The fact that this dispute is one of the most fundamental ones in the philosophy of mind demonstrates the wide acceptance of the idea of physical realisation. For it is the common ground from which this dispute starts.

Secondly, it seems that most neo-Lockeans accept some version of internalism with respect to the diachronic connections between psychological contents. Internalism with respect to a person's state X is the doctrine according to which X can be individuated without having to refer to states that exist outside the person who has X. 39 In this case, the claim is that the connectedness between mental states that is co-constitutive of one stream of psychologically continuous mental states is a relation whose existence can be assessed without drawing on knowledge of states of affairs outside the person of whom these mental states are a part. At the implementation level, it is a relation between causally connected brain states.

This is not to say that most philosophers in the field reject the otherwise widely accepted thesis that psychological contents, or 'meanings,' require reference to the outside (physical) world for their individuation.40 What it means is that psychological contents broadly concei ved are not considered to be the proper causal relata of psychological connectedness and/or continuity. These relata, rather, are what is known as 'mental states narrowly conceived,' states whose

PERSONAL IDENTTIY AND 1HE MErAPHYSICS OF MIND 35

individuation does not require reference to items 'outside' the subject. As far as psychological connectedness (and hence continuity) is concemed, virtualIy41 alI philosophers working in the field suppose that whether or not two psychological states are co-personaUy related is determined by what goes on causalIy between the brain states upon whîch these mental states supervene. Once these causal relations are assessed, no facts about the world outside the subject can change the verdict of co-personality or the absence thereof (Noonan, 1989 caUs this the 'only x-and-y principle').

Thirdly, the multiple realisability of mental contents plays an important role in the writings on psychological connectedness and continuity. This thesis involves at least the idea that two numerically distinct physical states can reali se two qualitatively identic al mental states. But it usually also involves the claim that these physical states can themselves differ qualitatively and yet realise qualitatively identic al mental states. In any case, there is supposed to be no essential connection between a person' s psychology and the actual physical state tokens underlying it. This alIows for a number of thought experiments that will prove crucial in the next chapter. It also serves to underline the psychological character of the criterion undre consideration despite its orientation towards physical substrata.

Together 1 will labeI diachronic psychological atomism, CCR, physical realisation, intemalism about psychological connectedness and multiple realisability the neo-Lockean paradigm. These five theses comprise a nowadays widely accepted conception of psychological connectedness and continuity involving crucially the causal connectedness of brain states that realise the various psychological states between which psychoiogicai connections such as memory and the retention of beliefs hold. 1 will cali this conception the substratum­oriented conception of psychological continuity.

11. ONE 'SOLUTION' TOFIVEPROBLEMS

The connection between physicalism and the neo-Lockean psychological criterion of personal identity will hopefully already be clear from the previous section. Nevertheless, the real strength of this connection will become apparent only once it is recognised how the

36 CHAPTER2

substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity helps to solve the five problems outlined in Sections 5 to 9.

Before discussing these solutions, let me stress that most of them-in fact all but the solution to the circularity problem-are present only implicitly in writings on the psychological criterion. Still, the acceptance of these solutions is of ten very clear from the fact that consent to physicalism simply prevents these problems from arising. Let me indicate how physicalism deals with the five problems one by one.

Shoemaker (1970) is famous for being the first to solve the circularity problem. Ris solution depends on physicalism in so far as it presupposes a fair degree of diachronic atomism and puts to use CCR. To recall, our ordinary conception of memory has it that in order for me to have a veridical memory,

(1) 1 am presently in a state as if remembering having a specific experience,

(2) The content of that state is qualitatively identical with or very similar to a past experience,

(3) 1 had that experience.

This notion of memory is of no use as an analysis of personal identity precisely because (3) already contains the word '1.' Conveniently, there is something fishy about (3). This is not something Shoemaker discusses, but it helps to illustrate his point.

Suppose 1 had experience E but completely forgot about it. Later 1 am told by a friend about an event identic al to the one that caused me to have E. My friend did not witness any event of the sort; his story is made up. By telling me his fiction, he unintentionally supplied me with every conceivable detail of an event 1 witnessed but forgot about. The story triggers my imagination, endowing me with vivid images of the event. 1 slowly begin to identify with these images and start to internalise them. 'Mistakenly,' 1 begin to fit them into the narrative of my life. The distinction between these images and my 'real' memories begins to fade, until 1 am finally under the impression

PERSONALIDENTITY ANDTHEMErAPHYSICSOFMIND 37

that 1 truly remember myself having experience E. In the above case (1), (2), and (3) are satisfied. Yet we are not

normally inclined to caII this a case of experience memory. The point, of course, is that the connection between the original experience and the state of 'recollection' is completely coincidental. The mechanism by means of which 1 acquired knowledge of my past is completely unreliable, to put it mildly. For, by the same mechanism 1 could have had a 'memory' of an event 1 never witnessed (in fact that would have been much more likely).

The reason why the above mechanism is unreliable is that my state of 'recollection' is in no way dependent upon my actually having had the 'recollected' experience. Our ordinary concept of experience memory assigns an explanatory role to an original experience in the coming about of a state of recollection thereof. In other words, in order for me to really remember E, E should have been causally active in the 'production' of my state of recollection. Thus, it seems we must add a fourth requirement to the definition of veridical memory:

(4) My memory is causally dependent, in the right kind of way, on the past experience that is qualitatively identical or similar to my memory.

Importantly, (4) does not mention '1.' Shoemaker's insight was that (4) safeguards what (3) was called in for to secure. That is, normally the fact that 1 had experience E is a necessary condition for my veridically remembering E, because in normal circumstances this guarantees a causal-explanatory connection between E and its recollection. In other words, (3) normally secures (4), while of these two (4) really matters. The point of the above example is that in abnormal circumstances (3) does not secure (4). Shoemaker's (and Parfit's 1984, pp. 219-22) proposal, therefore, was to simply drop (3) in favour of (4). (1), (2), and (4) yield a satisfactory definition of veridical memory that does not mention 'I' and hence does not presuppose personal identity.

It is unnecessary to elaborate on the crucial role CCR plays in this c\ever way of handling the circularity problem; conceiving memory, being one of the most prominent kinds of psychological connectedness, in causal terms simply is the solution to it. But it may,

38 CHAPTER2

perhaps, need reminding that not only is CCR an integral part of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, it also requires that conception, not in every possible world perhaps, but certainly in ours.

For one thing, since causal connections between psychological states are required, and since causal connections are by their nature contingent, non-conceptual or non-analytic, the connected psychological states should be conceivable in abstraction from one another. This implies atomism (diachronic atomism, to be precise, when it is granted that causal relations extend over time), which is provided for by a substratum-oriented individuation of them. (See for a more elaborate discussion of the connection between Q-memory and atomism, Chapter 2, Section 5).

AIso, causality requires either or both strict laws and specifiable mechanisms, depending on one's allegiances. Both are guaranteed by a physical conception of causality, by a conception of the interrelations between experiences and states of their recollection in terms of the causal connections between the brain states that reali se them.

This solution to the circularity problem, then, draws heavily on a physicalistic conception of psychological connectedness. This is entirely in line with the suppositions of Shoemaker, Parfit and other defenders of this solution: the dependence of this solution on a physicalist theory of mind, i.e. on the neo-Lockean paradigm, is always made explicit.

The consequence of a causal conception of memory is that ii there are ways of causally connecting an experience had by person a to a recollection of that experience had by person b, then b can be said to 'remember' a's experience. Since this is not in line with our normal use of the term, Shoemaker has introduced the notion of Q(uasi)­memory. b Q-remembers a' s experience. The important theoretical move is that ordinary memory can be considered a subspecies of Q­memory. Since Q-memory does not require reference to persons in its definition, neither does ordinary memory.

The way in which the Q-memory solution makes use of the causal connectedness of appropriate brain states as the necessary and sufficient condition for psychological connectedness can be used as a

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MEI' APHYSICS OF MIND 39

model for the solutions to the other four problems. Take the problem of logical form. This problem, after being

subdivided into a problem about transitivity and one about degree, was partly solved by introducing the notion of psychological continuity (see Sections 4 and 6 above). Psychological continuity consists of overlapping chains of strong psychological connectedness. What makes this solution partial is the fact that it stands in need of a clear conception of 'overlapping.' Or, to put it differentIy, it stands in need of an account of the unity of mind at one point in time.

Obviously we're talking about numerical unity here. What is at issue is what makes various mental states at one time belong to one mind-token. This seems to rule out an account of the unity of mind in terms of coherence, rationality or synchronic holism. For the various mental states of one mind-at-a-time-token bear the same relations of coherence and/or rationality to each other as they bear to the mental states of a numericaUy distinct mind-at-a-time-token of the exact same type (see, however, Chapter 5, Sections 3 and 6). AIso, the relations at stake need to be third-person accessible (in principle, not necessarily in practice) and objective, since we are investigating the possibility of a metaphysical, not an evidential criterion for personal identity. This rules out an account of the unity of mind in terms of the introspected co-occurrence of mental states.

The option that is left open to us is to concentrate on the objective relations between the substrata of the various mental states comprising one mind. The contemporary physicalist vers ion of this approach would look something like this. The unity of mind at one point in time is explained by the physical (causal) interdependence of the brain states that realise alI mental contents that comprise a mind at one point in time. In normal circumstances the brain states that are interdependent in this way are the states of one brain. Being a complex physical system whose states are mutually interlocking and interdependent, the brain' s states at one point in time constitute an organic, physically describable and explainable unity. The (physical) unity of the brain as a necessary (and possibly sufficient) condition for the unity of the mind, then, amounts to a perfectly straightforward explanation of the unity of mind in the sense required, one that explains not just the unity of consciousness but also the unity of the

40 CHAPTER2

unconscious mind. Of course, this explanation will work only once the five theses

of the neo-Lockean paradigm are accepted. But once these theses are accepted it is such a clear and obvious explanation that most neo­Lockeans do not even feeI the need to expound it. Their acceptance of this solution is evident merely from the fact that given their acceptance of the neo-Lockean paradigm, the problem of the (numerical) unity of the mind at one point in time does not even seem to arise.

This explanation of the (numerical) unity of the mind yie1ds a satisfactory conception of the overlapping of chains of strongly connected mental states. Two chains overlap iff mental states ('propositional attitudes' might be a better term when applied to unconscious states) that are part of both chains are instantiated in the same brain at the same time.

A combination of this physicalist view on the unity of mind at one point in time and a causal view of the mind's existence over time helps to address the issue of third-person reidentification. The existence of a physically unified brain and the existence of causal relations between temporally distinct brain states are perfectly objective phenomena, phenomena that can be observed in principle from a third­person point of view. This is not to say that we normally reidentify persons by their brains or the causal history of their present brain states: we reidentify persons by their bodies. In normal circumstances, though, this can be explained by noting that sameness of the body involves sameness of the brain. However, it is precisely under abnormal circumstances that the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity starts to be interesting.

From Locke onwards, the literature on personal identity is swamped with thought experiments in which two persons swap bodies. This can be simply because the contents of one mind, including memories, suddenly appear in a different body; it can be because two souls changed bodies; it can be because brains were transplanted; or it can be because the states of one brain were recorded and instantiated in a different brain.

What distinguishes the IaUer two kinds of body swap (the substratum-oriented ones) from the former two is that in the latter case we do have third-person criteria of determin ing whether a body swap

PERSONAL IDENTITY AND THE MEI'APHYSICS OF MIND 41

really has taken place. Transplantation of brains or brain traces is an objective event. Thus, even in abnorrnal cases, the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity has third-person criteria of personal reidentification.

Of course, these criteria are now not as publicly accessible as the reidentification of bodies. But this seems to be perfectly in line with common-sense intuitions. After learning that a criminal has swapped bodies, the police will very probably not go looking for the 'original' body. On the basis of objective evidence they might find out what the 'new' body is like and trace it. Hence, it seems that the substratum­oriented conception of psychological continuity can deal even better with our intuitions about third-person reidentification than the bodily criterion.

It will hardly be necessary to explain how the substratum­oriented conception of psychological continuity solves the problems of the unity of the mental bundle and the problem of individuation. Just in case, though: the unity of the mental bundle can be explained by the unity of the brain criterion for the unity of mind at one point in time in conjunction with a Q-memory-like conception of psychological connectedness. Causally connected time slices of (a) temporally unified brain(s)-that reali se psychological states that form overlapping chains of strong connectedness in virtue of the causal interconnection of the brain states by which they are reali sed-are necessary and sufficient for the unity of a mental bundle in and over time, according to the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity.

The same criterion can be used to distinguish between qualitatively identical but numerically distinct persons/mental bundles. What distinguishes two qualitati vely identic al 'streams of consciousness,' so to speak, are the numerically distinct (and distinguishable) brain states that realise them.

Thus, it appears as if the five problems can be solved by accepting a substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. This makes the connection between a neo-Lockean conception of psychological continuity and physicalism even stronger. The latter is required to solve a number of serious problems facing the former.

This concludes the stage-setting part of this book. I have not

42 CHAP1ER2

described the substratum-oriented solution to the five problems in order to defend it. Rather, my aim was to show that this conception is not optional for neo-Lockeans, given the contemporary understanding of the problem of personal identity over time as a metaphysical-cum­semantic problem; without the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, the five problems remain unsolved within the neo-Lockean framework. In the next chapter, however, 1 shall argue that the substratum-oriented approach discloses the fundamental untenability of the neo-Lockean understanding of psychological continuity.

-3-

PARFIT'S REDUCTIO OF A SUBSTRATUM-ORIENTED

CONCEPTION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY

1. IN1RODUCI10N

In the previous chapter I explained the alliance between a conception of psychological continuity based on a (diachronic) mental atomistism and the concurring idea that causal connections between psychological states co-analyse psychological continuity on the one hand and a physicalist ontology of mind on the other. I labelled this alliance 'the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity.' The main purpose of the present chapter is to argue that the substratum­oriented conception does not suffice as an analysis of psychological continuity and hence (according to the position I am investigating) personal identity.

Although I will not attack the physicalist ontology of mental states that supports atomism and CCR, this physicalism will prove to be crucial for the staging of the reductia ad absurdum upon which I will base the rejection of the substratum-oriented conception. Physicalism allows us to conceive abnormal cases of purported psychological connectedness/continuity in relative detail. In these abnormal cases the problems with atomism and CCR can much more easily be demonstrated than in normal circumstances.

The purpose of my argument in this chapter is to demonstrate that causal connections between specific brain states that realise e.g. the connection between an experience and a recollection thereof, or between an intention and a motivating reason for action are not the self­contained constituents of psychological continuity the substratum­oriented conceptions makes them out to be.' Causally connected brain states that realise qualitatively similar mental contents simply cannot

44 CHAPTER3

capture the richness of semantical connections required for psychological continuity. It is precisely this point that can be demonstrated in the abnormal cases of purported psychological connectedness/continuity made conceivable by physicalism.

I will argue for these c1aims by reconstructing and criticising Derek Parfit' s arguments on personal identity and psychological continuity put forward in Part III of his much discussed Reasons and Persons (1984). Parfit is a reductionist. Re rejects strict identity theories as well as four-dimensionalism (see Chapter 2, Section 2). Ris claim, as I will interpret it, is that psychological continuity does not just analyse personal identity. Rather, it replaces personal identity. It captures all that matters in personal identity, but is applicable to situation where the concept of personal identity stops making sense.

I will not be interested primarily in Parfit' s conclusions. I will be interested in the way he reaches them, which is by making use of a number of thought experiments that are common among adherents of the substratum-oriented conception. Parfit presupposes the correctness of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. Re argues for his reductionism by demonstrating that the substratum­oriented conception allows for a number of seemingly farfetched thought experiments to be intelligible. It is this part of Parfit's theory that I will concentrate ono For, since I contend it is basically correct, it enables us to examine the substratum-oriented conception a Httle further by analysing these thought-experiments.

After presenting Parfit's theory (Section 2) and demonstrating this theory's intimate connection with the neo-Lockean paradigm (Section 3), this is what I will do in Section 4. By analysing so-called fission and fusion thought-experiments, we can get a clear picture in particular of the nature and extent of the psychological atomism involved in the substratum-oriented conception. As I wiII argue, this atomism does not just concern psychological state tokens, but also psychological states as types. This will prove to be vital for our rejection of the substratum-oriented conception.

Type atomism places a heavy explanatory burden on the causal continuity requirement that co-constitutes the substratum oriented concept ion (see also Chapter 2, Section 9). Besides relations of qualitative similarity between, e.g. experiences and recollections, it is

PARAT'S REDUCTIO 45

mainly causality that is supposed to tie a multitude of psychological states together into a unified, continuous 'stream of consciousness', so to speak. The second half of this chapter is aimed at showing that causality cannot carry an explanatory burden as heavy as this.

In Section 5 I will discuss Q-memory (see Section 10 of the previous chapter) and demonstrate that this notion is central to the substratum-oriented conception. It requires every aspect of the neo­Lockean paradigm. To be more precise, in light of what I will discuss in the foregoing sections, it exemplifies the substratum-oriented conception's reliance on what I will call type-atomism as well as on the explanatory burden this places on the causal continuity requirement. In Section 6, however, I will argue that it is precisely this reliance that prevents Q-memory from yielding a complete analysis of memory. Memory, I will claim, partly draws on a commonsense holism of the mental-not merely holism as a controversial philosophical doctrine­that simply cannot be accounted for from a Q-memory perspective.

In Section 7 1 will connect my criticism of Q-memory to the substratum-oriented solutions to the other four problems facing a psychological criterion of personal identity. In each case, it can be shown that atomism and CCR ignore vital conceptual or semantic connections between psychological contents in favour of concentrating on the causal connections of their substrata. In each case, 1 will claim, this prevents the real problems from being addressed. 1 will take the failure of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity to solve any of the five problems to amount to its bankruptcy.

Parfit argued that the plasticity of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity obviates the use of the concept of personal identity. My aim is to show that his arguments in fact highlight the unfeasibility of the substratum-oriented conception. Parfit unintentionally provides us with a reductio ad absurdum of it.

2. RELATION R

In the past two decennia, the debate over the psychological criterion has centred for a large part around the arguments put forward in Part III of Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984).2 Defending what appears

46 CHAPTER3

to be a vers ion of the psychological criterion, he has developed an unprecedented challenge to that criterion as a criterion of personal identity. Briefly put his claim is that although (substratum-oriented) psychological continuity is a criterion for all that really matters to personal existence, it is a criterion of personal identity only contingently, that is, only under normal circumstances. In (imaginary) unusual circumstances psychological connectedness and/or continuity may hold without personal identity. In this section 1 will outline Parfit' s conception of psychological continuity and its partial dissociation from personal identity.

Parfit labels his conception of psychological continuity 'relation R.' Relation R is defined as "psychological connectedness and/or continuity with the right kind of cause," to which Parfit adds that any cause will qualify as the right kind of cause (p. 215 ff., see Section 6 of the previous chapter for the distinction between psychological connectedness and psychological continuity). The fact that any cause will do is crucial to Parfit' s position. This will be clear when 1 discuss the arguments that purport to dissociate psychological continuity from personal identity.

Relation R is invoked in order to explain the unity of experiences-and mental states in general-that comprise the temporally continuous psychological life of a person. According to Parfit,

[this unity] cannot be explained by claiming that different experiences are had by the same person. [This unity] must be explained by describing the relations between these many experiences, and their relation to this person's brain. And we can refer to these experiences, and fully describe the relations between them, without c1aiming that these experiences are had by a person. (p. 217).

The descriptive and explanatory role of the notion of 'a person' is taken over by the notion of relation R. The unity of the facts comprising an individual's life can best be described, according to Parfit, without invoking other entities than these facts and their causal interrelations. R describes the relevant interrelations. Parfit's starting point, then, is that

P ARFIT' S REDUCTIO 47

We are not separately existing entities, apart from our brains and bodies, and various interrelated physical and mental events. Our existence just involves the existence of our brains and bodies, and the doing of our deeds, and the thinking of our thoughts, and the occurrence of certain other physical and mental events. Our identity over time just involves (a) [relation] R-psychological connectedness and/or continuity, with the right kind of cause, provided (b) that there is no different person who is R­related to us as we once were. (p. 216).

The overall purpose of Parfit' s intricate argumentation (pp. 199-306) is to show on the one hand that relation R is what matters­i.e. what we should be concemed about in matters conceming the four features discussed in Section 2 of the previous chapter-while on the other hand relation R is not necessarily coextensive with personal identity (this is why (b) is added, which will be explained below). In normal circumstances, relation R and personal identity coincide. But in unusual circumstances, Parfit argues, relation R may hold in specifiable ways while the concept of personal identity has no coherent criteria of application. Let me indicate how this claim is argued for.

Parfit takes for granted the generally accepted assumption that mental contents are constituted or realised by brain states. This is evident, among other things, from the thought experiments he stages, which will be discussed below, and his rejection of dualism in favour of physicalism (pp. 227-8). Psychological connectedness, then, consists de iaeta of causally connected brain states of the kind that reali se appropriate mental contents (where appropriateness is determined by what counts as relations of psychological connectedness from a content point of view: relations of qualitative similarity between psychological contents).

The number of ways in which such brain states can be causally connected may be limited in our actual world by our biological make­up and by the technical skills (or lack thereof) of our neurologists. However, according to Parfit, it is limited in principle only by the laws of nature (p. 219; remember that any cause will do for relation R). It is generally assumed that the laws of nature are not violated in fictional cases of brain (and body) duplication, the fusion of states of different brains into the states of one brain, or the splitting up of one brain into two self-contained hemispheres. Brains may in principle be tampered with so as to construct new and different streams of R-related mental

48 CHAPlER3

states-'streams of consciousness', so to speak-than the ones they would produce if left alone.

If streams of consciousness are conceivable that split up into two or more streams or that fuse with other streams into one, Parfit argues, relation R can be shown not to be coextensive with personal identity in some cases. His way of showing these abnormal streams to be conceivable is by means of thought experiments. Let me mention three of these. 1 will not discuss them in too much detail since they are more than well known by now.

The first experiment is called 'the psychological spectrum.'3 It would in principle be possible for future neurologists to erase and replace character traits, beliefs, desires, values and memories operationally. Hence, we can conceive a spectrum on the one end of which we are left wholly intact while at the other all our original character traits, memories, etc. have been replaced by different ones. We can imagine this spectrum on a timescale by imagining a neurologist who replaces small sets of memories and traits one at a time. At each stage in this process, except at the very beginning and the very end, our brains would contain some of our original traits and memories and some new ones. At the one end of the spectrum I (in an indexical sense) would be me (in a non-indexical sense), at the other end, I would be someone else.

Granted that relation R is accepted as a possible analysis of personal identity, we must now ask: "Where on the spectrum did I stop being me and start being someone else?" Parfit' s point is that any place on the spectrum pointed at in order to answer this question would be arbitrary. If we say that the change happens at the 50%-50% point, this would mean that the incredibly slight shift from 49.9%-50.1 % to 50.1 %-49.9% would make much more difference than can plausibly be attributed to it: it would completely change one person into another. If we agree that this is farfetched or worse, we must conc1ude that the question really has no (non-arbitrary) answer.

Still, Parfit argues, there is nothing about the whole situation we don't know. There is nothing hidden from us about the situation that would settle the matter of identity. Personal identity, then, may be arbitrary. A description of person a whose mental life has partly been changed into b's and a description of person b whose mental life has

PARflT'S REDUCTIO 49

partly been changed into a's may both describe the same grey middle area on the spectrum.

While the spectrum experiment is a case of fusion of the psychological lives of persons, the second thought experiment is about fissfon. If the duplication of bodies and brains is conceivable, this allows for the teletransportation experiment and the branch-line case (pp. 199-201). In the science fiction of teletransportation, a blueprint of me is made here on earth, and then transmitted by radio to Mars where it will be used to reassemble 'my' body and brain out of new matter, while my body and brain on earth are destroyed. The person on Mars will consequent1y be endowed with my memories, my character traits, etc. His brain states will be causally dependent upon my brain states before I entered the teletransporter. Hence, according to Parfit and according to the substratum-oriented conception, he will be psychologically connected and continuous with me. So far so good.

But now consider a case in which the machine on earth fails to destroy the original brain and body. In that case there will be two persons who, at first, are qualitatively identic al, but numerically distinct. Both are psychologically continuous with me before I entered the teletransporter. Which one is me? Which one owns my things? Which one is married to my wife?

Again, there may be nothing factual we do not know about this situation, while the issue of identity-which of the two is the real me­simply cannot be settled in a non-arbitrary fashion. Personal identity is the wrong concept for a situation like this. Both resulting persons are psychologically continuous with me. But they cannot both be identic al with me. Identity is a transitive relation. So if the person on Mars would be identic al with me before I entered the teletransporter, and if the person whose body and brain are not destroyed would also be identic al with me before I entered the teletransporter, then the person on Mars would be identical with the person who steps out of the teletransporter on earth. Keeping in mind that we are talking about numerical identity, this is clearly absurd. The person on Mars and the person on earth are two distinct beings. The concept of personal identity, then, has no application in this situation. The concept of psychological continuity, though, does.

As a last example, consider a case of fission in which the brain

50 CHAPTER3

of one person is separated into two qualitatively similar, autonomous halves,4 each of which is psychologically continuous with the original person (pp. 245-8). Although the case is derived from actual cases of 'commisurotonomy' or brain bisection,5 it is fictional in that it allows for separate hemispheres of the brain to be self-contained (whereas both real hemispheres are connected to only one lower brain). The idea is that it would in principle be possible to separate the brain of a person with two qualitatively identic al hemispheres, thus creating two 'brains,' both of which are causally and 'hence' psychologically continuous with the original brain. Both hemispheres could then be transplanted into different bodies.

Again, the question may be asked which resulting person can rightly be said to be identical with the original person. Again the point is that both have an equal claim to 'identity', for both are psychologically continuous with the pre-fission person, while obviously neither is identical with the other. And again identity is indeterminate to the extent of being no longer an applicable concept while there may be nothing that we do not know.

Now suppose that in a case of fission-duplication or brain bisection-one of the two resulting persons is about to die. What should such a person' s feelings be regarding this prospect? Parfit argues that it is irrational to regard this prospect as bad as ordinary death. For the dying person's life plans are stiU going to be carried out by her 'other half, , her duplicate or other-hemisphere-twin. Her other half will finish the painting she has begun. Her other half will remain married to the person she was married to. Her other half will continue her friendships the way she would have, and so ono The prospect of physical death is not too appealing, but the knowledge of her life actually being carried on after her body's death is some comfort. While her body is going to die, it is not straightforwardly determinable whether she is going to die. Thus, according to Parfit,

It is not true that our identity is always determinate. 1 can always ask, 'Am 1 about to die?' But it is not true that, in every case, this question must have an answer, which must be either Yes or No. In some cases this would be an empty question. (p. 216)

While matters of identity may be left unsettled in some circumstances,

PARFIT'S REDUCTIO 51

there is nothing we do not know, precisely because facts about relation R-between which 'person-stages' it holds and to what extent-are always determinate.

Now, a further claim of Parfit's is that in cases where personal identity seems determinate, this is due to the fact that relation R and personal identity coincide. Personal identity is simply the holding of relation R between the stages of a person in cases where there is no fission or fusion. It is non-branching psychological continuity (p. 263). But the non-branching of an R-related stream of mental states is a contingent property of this stream. Non-branching secures personal identity. But personal identity is merely a subspecies of what really matters to personal persistence over time: the holding of relation R. Hence, according to Parfit,

Personal identity is not what matters. What fundamentally matters is Relation R, with any cause. This relation is what matters, even when as in the case where one person is R-related to two other people, Relation R does not provide personal identity." (p. 217).6

The crucial difference between Parfit and psychological-continuity theorists such as Shoemaker, Lewis, Nozick, Noonan and Perry, then, is that while the latter regard a description of psychological continuity as an analysis of the concept of personal identity, Parfit constructs his relation R so that it is a replacement for personal identity. It is a larger concept that subsumes the concept of personal identity. It covers not only the traditional cases in which personal identity is an applicable notion, but also cases in which personal identity is indeterminate. My contention is that this is because Parfit is more true to the neo-Lockean paradigm than any of these other philosophers.

3. RELATION R AND THE NEO-LOCKEAN PARADIGM

Parfit' s adherence to the physical realisation of mental contents, intemalism, multiple realisability, psychological atomism and CCR is intuitively c1ear from the thought experiments just described. Psychological continuity, relation R, is taken in these experiments as the causal continuity of brain states that realises overlapping chains of strongly connected psychological states. In this section 1 will describe

52 CHAPIER3

the intimate connection between R and the neo-Lockean paradigm. Thus, I will be able, first, to give this connection a more than intuitive status. Secondly, and more important1y, I will be able to claim that Parfit shows that without additional suppositions the neo-Lockean paradigm amounts to his relation R.

A description of what relation R consists in must specify the relations that hold between individual mental states that comprise one (branching or non-branching) stream of consciousness. It must also specify the conditions under which these relations hold and fail to hold. Parfit specifies these relations simply as 'causal,' and argues that as long as the causal relations between individual mental states guarantee at least psychological connectedness they can just be of any possible kind. It is this liberal attitude towards the causal relations constituting relation R that alIows Parfit to sketch his thought experiments and draw his conclusions from them. The question is whether this combination of atomism and CCR alIows Parfit to be neutral with regard to the ontology of mental states.

In order to think of bizarre cases such as those of fission and fusion one must already have a conception of the ontology of mental states in terms of which the mechanisms of fission and fusion can be specified. Brain states as substrata of mental states are the only ones in terms of which this can be done (barring the possibility of conscious computers). Only by conceiving mental states as being realised by brain states (physical realisation) and nothing but brain states (intemalism), and only by assuming that a mental state of one type can be realised by different brain states (multiple realisability) does it become possible to spell out mechanisms that underlie fission and fusion-evil neuroscientists who 'record' brain states and re-instantiate them in other brains, teletransportation, brain bisection, etc.

Physical realisation, intemalism and multiple realisability alIow aH connections between mental states to be conceived of in terms of the causal connections between brain states. By conceiving psychological continuity in terms of causaHy connected brain states, the number of ways in which mental states can be connected is limited by the laws of nature only. Hence, it becomes conceivable that abnormal connections between mental states are in principle possible because we can reasonably assume that brain states can be causalIy related in different

PARAT'S REDUCTIO 53

ways than they norrnally are. Precisely because we know something about the laws of nature

and the ways in which brains are subjected to them, it becomes possible to specify the conditions under which these abnormal causal links hold (at least to a certain extent, Parfit's thought experiments are quite impossible and he doesn't go into technical details). They may hold because brain states are 'recorded' while these 'recorded' states are being instantiated in new matter. They may hold because different brains may be connected by bits of electric al wiring so that one brain causes another to be in a certain state. They may hold because states of one brain cause states of completely separate hemispheres when severed, and so on.

lt is not too speculative, 1 think, to hold that the whole idea of fission and fusion suggested itself through physicalist philosophy of mind. Thought experiments such as body swapping are to be found in Locke and other pre-physicalist writers. But fission is not, nor is fusion. Fission and fusion, 1 submit, present themselves as intelligible options only from a third-person perspective, Le. only from the point of view of the substrata of the mental. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible to imagine oneself being fused with someone else or being split up into two. Note, for instance, that perceiving strange thoughts in your head is not the only right description of fusion. Y our thoughts might as well be described as the alien ones. But then how is it possible to imagine yourself experiencing this? What would this mean?

A similar imagination problem occurs with fission. Suppose you are going to be split up into two persons, one of which will be tortured while the other will lead a pleasant life. lt is extremely hard, while imagining this prospect, not to think "1 hope 1 will be the one having a pleasant life". You are going to be both. Try to imagine that. I can't. Only after the possibility of fusion and fission was conceived from a third-person point of view, simply because one pervasive ontology of mind allows for their mechanisms, philosophers began using these thought experiments in their arguments.

One further boost to these arguments are the real split-brain operations that have been performed from the ninteensixties onwards. Although there is nothing close to consensus about whether split-brain patients really have two separate streams of consciousness/ if only

54 CHAPIER3

because evidence of separateness can only be detected under highly artificial circumstances, Parfit uses these cases to set aside imagination problems with fission (p. 251).

In short, my point is that there is an essential connection, conceptual and qua imagination, between fission and fusion cases and the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. So much will be granted, perhaps. But one further question is whether Parfit is right in suggesting, conspicuously though implicitly, that there are no reasons within the framework of what 1 called the substratum­oriented conception that might inhibit either the conceivability of the thought-experiments, or the conclusions he wishes to draw from them. 1 think he is right in this. 1 think Parfit simply grants relation R all the freedom that the neo-Lockean paradigm allows for.

This is also c1ear from the extensive literature on personal identity. As 1 said in the previous chapter, the neo-Lockean paradigm is most certainly not accepted only by Parfit. Why then is it that only Parfit takes these thought-experiments (which are not even all of his own making; they stern largely from earlier work by Shoemaker and Williams) to be conceivable and to yield counterintuitive consequences? The answer is simply that most theorists accept additional assumptions on top of the neo-Lockean paradigm. The important point is that these assumtions are not part of nor implied by the neo-Lockean paradigm. Let me give two examples to iIIustrate this point.

A first example is Noonan's and Nozick's opposition to Parfit. 8 They introduce the notion of caring for ones future states as something whose rational content and nature is independent of the neo­Lockean paradigm and its consequences. Compare a case of simple (i.e. non-branching) teletransportation and the branch-line case of teletransportation in which the original person is not destroyed. Try to imagine how one would care for the future person on Mars when entering the teletransporter in these two cases, when one knows whether ones original body and brain are destroyed or not. Intuitively, we are inclined to say that in the branch-line case one would care less for the person on Mars (since one continues to exist here on earth) than in the case of simple teletrasportation. And this shows that what we care about or what matters in personal survival is apparently something other than psychological continuity, since continuity with the future person on

PARAT'S REDUCTIO 55

Mars is equal in both cases. Intuitively, 1 think, Nozick and Noonan are right. And we may

draw several non-Parfitian conclusions from their argument (though Nozick's 'closest continuer view' is actually close to Parfit in spirit). Parfit however rejects the argument, suggesting that other thought experiments do show that the degree to which we care for future states depends on the degree of psychological connectedness and/or continuity (pp. 417-9). Noonan, in turn, claims that Parfit misses the point, due to Nozick' s uncareful statement of his objection (the above version is Noonan's).

Noonan, in turn, misses the Parfitian point, which is that whether or not we ought to care for future states, whether or not it is rational to care for certain future states, should be determined by contemplating these though-experiments. Parfits whole point is to argue that in view of aU these thought-experiments, in view of the neo­Lockean paradigm and all it allows for, it is rational to let the degree to which ones care for specific future states depend on the degree to which it will be continuous with one's present 'self.'

To be sure, 1 am not saying that Noonan is wrong aud Parfit is right. What 1 am saying is that they seem to be talking at cross­purposes: where Noonan takes our care for future states as we intuitively conceive of it as a point of departure, a principle that is additional to the neo-Lockean paradigm, Parfit derives the rational content of such care from what the neo-Lockean paradigm offers. And this just serves to illustrate that Parfit' s relation R is in fact the neo-Lockean paradigm or the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity stripped of additional assumptions.

A second example to the same effect is opposition to the claim that fission implies the reducibility or non-applicability of the concept of personal identity by means of the so-called multiple-occupancy- or cohabitation thesis.9 According to this thesis, there can be no such thing as real fission. Cases such as duplication or brain-bisection are indeed conceivable according to adherents of this thesis (for they are indeed adherents of the neo-Lockean paradigm as well). But these cases do not amount to real fission, because we may assume that before what appears as fission, a person in fact consisted of two (or more) distinct but qualitatively identical parallel streams of continuous psychological

56 CHAPTER3

states. There are different ways of arguing for this not too appealing

thesis. One way (that may diminish the impression that it is completely ad hoc) is by means of four-dimensionalism (see Chapter 2, Section 2). This theory allows us to determine co-personality (or psychological continuity) relations in retrospect. Be that as it may, the fact remains that this way of attempting to dodge Parfit's conclusions while adhering to the neo-Lockean paradigm proceeds by introducing assumptions that are not themselves part of that paradigm. There is nothing in the ne 0-

Lockean paradigm or the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity that hints at the existence of parallel qualitatively identic al streams of consciousness in pre-fission persons. And that, precisely, is why Parfit doesn't even take this objection seriously. Ris point of departure, again, is the neo-Lockean paradigm stripped of additional assumptions.

In sum, it is precisely because Parfit allows R ali the freedom the neo-Lockean paradigm allows for, unhindered by additional principles or assumptions, that his theory can simply be taken as the neo-Lockean paradigm spelled out to its last consequence. R is the relation that holds between individual mental states, a relation that is reali sed by the causal connections between individual brain states. The number and nature of possible causal relations between brain states is restricted, according to the neo-Lockean paradigm, in principle only by the laws of nature. And it is this liberty, connected with the neo­Lockean paradigm and only with that paradigm, that renders conceivable cases of fission and fusion as cases that set R apart from personal identity.

4. PSYCHOLOGICAL ATOMISM

Since relation R is in fact the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity without additional assumptions, and since the thought-experiments Parfit stages are suggested by the very freedom the neo-Lockean paradigm allows for, we may now proceed to investigate the substratum-oriented conception by analysing the thought-experiments. My aim in doing this is to explore the nature of the psychological atomism that-as I argued in section 9 of the

PARFlT'S REDUCTIO 57

previous chapter-underlies the substratum-oriented conception. This will be of significance while developing my criticism of this conception.

Psychological atomism is the thesis according to which mental states are particulars that can be individuated without reference to mental states at other times, or with other contents, or, for that matter to non-mental states. Parfit relies on this thesis as a matter of necessity, albeit unwittingly, in order to conceive relation R such that it allows for teletransportation, fis sion and fusion cases, the cases that set R apart from personal identity. In this section I will chart this reliance.

Let's start with duplication. Crucial to the possibility of fis sion by means of duplication, teletransportation and the transplantation of mental states from one brain to another (which happens in Parfit's later thought experiments) is the idea that there is no necessary connection between a mental state token and its actual successor state token, even though there may well be necessary connections between these states as types (an experience of a painting produces a memory of that painting and not of my wallpaper or your washing machine). Let's take teletransportation as a first example, because it is the easiest experiment with which to illustrate my point.

Imagine an advanced teletransporter that allows you to be transported to a number of different locations, ranging from the other end of this earth to Mars, Venus, etc. Suppose I enter this machine and press the button which says 'Mars.' At that moment, my blueprints are recorded and transmitted to Mars, while my body is being decomposed. A few minutes later, my replica steps out of a similar machine on Mars. This replica has mental states that are R-related to my states.

Now consider my mental states just before I pushed the button. If at the last moment I suddenly got cold feet, I would have refrained from pushing the button. In that case, these mental states would have had successor states that were tokened in my brain, the one that is now destroyed. I did push the button, though, so my mental states actually got successor states that are tokened in the brain of my Martian replica. I might also have pushed the button which says 'North Pole.' In that case, my mental states would have had their successor states tokened in the brain of an Arctic replica.

The point is that although each of these possible successor states would have been of the same type, they certainly are different

58 CHAPTER3

tokens of that type. Moreover, and this is the important thing, there is nothing inherent in my mental states before teletransportation that determines which tokens are going to be their successors. (One may object here that there is something inherent in my psychological states that determines which successor state tokens there are going to be, namely my intention to get teletransported to Mars. In order to block such a move, we may simply assume that someone else decides where 1 go and pushes the buttons for me. Apart from this, the example can remain identical.)

The same kind of indeterminacy holds the other way round, though in a qualified sense. A replica just 'arriving' on Mars might be the replica of some person who lived on Earth, or Venus, or on Twin­Earth, or any other place in the universe. Provided that the experiences remembered by the replica can at different places-say on Earth or on Twin-Earth-there is nothing inherent in the mental states of this replica that determines which mental state tokens were its actual predecessors.

Now, accepting this indeterminacy is accepting a kind of psychological atomism. For if the predecessor and successor state tokens of a particular mental state are not completely determined by that mental state, that means that this mental state can be individuated without reference to its predecessor and successor state tokens. These states are, as tokens, psychoiogicai atoms that can in principle be related to various other mental state tokens (provided that they are of the right type).

It is easy to make the same point about the transplantation of mental states from one brain to another. It is a little more difficult to show that at least token atomism is implied by Parfit's use of brain­bisection cases. Instead of arguing this point 1 will confine myself to the remark that insofar as token atomism is not being drawn on in these cases, this does not refute R's dependence on it. In ordinary cases of non-branching psychological continuity, the possibility of teletransportation is always there, if the neo-Lockean paradigm is correct. And this means that token atomism must hold in ordinary psychological continuity as well. Obviously the same goes for psychological continuity in cases of brain bisection.

So fission implies what we may call 'token atomism.' It implies that tokens of mental states can as such be individuated in

P ARFIT' S REDUCTIO 59

abstraction from its actual predecessor and successor mental state tokens. Token atomism-which is in it self harmless; it will not as such underlie my criticism of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity-yields a second kind of atomism.

If we consider the mental states that will direct1y succeed my present ones while 1 am on the verge of pushing the button of a teletransportation device, we should assume that at least the bulk of these successor states are going to be qualitatively identical to the states of my mind right now. And this should be true irrespective of whether 1 will transport myself to Mars, to Venus or to Twin Earth. This means that the successor states as types are independent of the objective context-Le. a person's or a brain's social and physical environment­of the (newly produced) brain they are tokened in. In other words, mental states such as e.g. beliefs and memories can survive extreme and sudden changes in physical and social environment. This is tantamount to what we might call 'objective context type atomism.'

Objective context type atomism is congruent with the internalism about mental content that is part of the neo-Lockean paradigm. Again, there is at least a possibility that this internalism doesn't clash wish externalism about meaning-the contention that meanings, as Putnam has put it 'ain't in the head.' For it need not be the case that the externally determined (if e.g. Putnam and Burge are correct) meanings of e.g. our beliefs are constitutive of psychological continuity as such. Relation R may weB be constituted by so-called narrow contents. The intelligibility of the notion of 'narrow content' is, indeed, contested .. But at this point my interest is with the views implied by the neo-Lockean paradigm. And if adherence to a degree of internalism about mental contents and the intelligibility of narrow contents is among them, then we should simply take notice of this fact.

So much for duplication and fission. What about fusion? Cases of fusion, Le. cases in which mental states of one person are mixed or blended into the psychological life of another person, are even more c1early dependent upon the idea of psychological atomism. These cases draw on the conceivability of what may be called 'psychological context type atomism', the thesis according to which mental state types require no reference to their psychological context for their individuation. This can be demonstrated by rehearsing the thought

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experiment of the psychological spectrum. In the spectrum experiment, the psychological life of one

person is gradually replaced by that of another person. The original character traits, memories, beliefs, values, life plans, and so on are gradually removed and replaced by other such states. The crucial point here is that in order for there to be enough intermediate stages to conceive of this case as a real spectrum, particular states have to be erased and other states put in their place in small sets, i.e. a few at a time. We may grant that the neurosurgeon who performs these operations takes care not to instantiate e.g. flatly contradictory beliefs in one brain. But apart from logical consistency, it seems that given the relatively small sets of mental states that are replaced per operation, it is impossible for the surgeon also to keep an eye on coherence. It is overwhelmingly likely that with each replacement states are implemented whose contents have nothing whatsoever to do with the states that were instantiated in the brain before the whole series of operations started.

We need to keep in mind here that the thought experiment hinges on the idea that it makes sense to say of an intermediate stage somewhere on the spectrum that it consists of, say, 40% of one original person and 60% of the another. This requires mental states to re ta in their type-identity conditions independently of the states they are co­instantiated with. If mental states 'interact' so as to establish an equilibrium of coherence, thereby changing their types, rather than 40% of one person and 60% of another, there would be a 'new' person altogether. The co-instantiation of a given mental state type with other types, in other words, must be regarded as a more or less contingent matter. The transplanted, 'colonising' states must have type-identity and type-individuation conditions that abstract from the original complete mind (type) from which they carne as weB as from the new mind (type) they settle into. Likewise, the original 'native' states must have type-identity and type-individuation criteria that abstract from the original states that are removed (which are, in the end, ali the states comprising the original mind) as well as from the new 'settlers.' Hence, the spectrum argument presupposes psychological context type­atomism.

As in the case of token atomism (and objective context type

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atomism) it should be clear that Parfit's psychological context type atomism holds also in cases in which no fusion takes place. For in Parfit's theory the fact that fusion does not take place is always a contingent matter. It is in principle possible in every case" of normal psychological continuity, according to Parfit, to transplant one mental state into another brain, or to erase one, or to add an alien one. Psychological context type atomism, then, holds for all cases of psychological continuity.

Thus, the picture of psychological connectedness and/or continuity Parfit requires in order to stage his thought experiments, a pic ture that the neo-Lockean paradigm provides for, not only implies the atomistic individuation of psychological state tokens. More importantly, it implies that psychological states types may retain their individuation- and identity conditions independently of the physical and social environment of the brain they happen to be tokened in, and independently of the psychological context realised by that particular brain.

Type atomism is a rather strong kind of atomism. Psychological connectedness and/or continuity is taken, by Parfit, quite literally in terms of a bundle of psychological atoms that have factual but contingent links with each other. IO This obviously puts a heavy explanatory burden on the causal connections between R-related psychological states. For in the absence of connections between contents, these causal relations are all that tie the psychological bundle together. This is especially clear in the case of Q-memory.

5. THE CENTRAL PLACE OF Q-MEMORY IN THE NEO-LOCKEAN PARADIGM

So far 1 have elaborated on the plasticity the concept of psychological continuity acquires when interpreted in terms of the substratum oriented conception and on the kinds of psychological atomism required for this. The next thing to do is exploit this plasticity in an argument showing that the substratum oriented conception does not capture what is involved in real-life psychological continuity at alI. This argument will focus on the Q-memory solution to the circularity problem (see Chapter 2, Section 10) first, and be applied to the substratum-oriented solutions to the other problems later.

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There are two connected reasons for this order. First, the Q­memory solution to the circularity problem was used as a 'model' for the solutions to the other four problems. Secondly, Q-memory as a concept is more or less like a representative of the neo-Lockean paradigm and the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. It highlights the explanatory burden put on causal relations between mental states in view of the various kinds of atomism discussed in the previous section. 1 will briefly defend this second reason in the present section.

Q-memory is supposed to provide us with access to past experiences, irrespective of who 'had' them, in ways that do not affect the contents and epistemic entitlements of our states of awareness of this access, states of (Q-)recollection. Provided that there are reliable causal links between experience and recollection, independent of the 'subjects' (bodies) of these experiences and recollections, my Q­recollection of your experience is qualitatively like your recollection, so that Q-memory is no less a means of acquiring knowledge of the past than ordinary memory.

Quite obviously Q-memory satisfies CCR. It is causality that guarantees the veridicality or epistemic entitlements of ordinary and Q­recollections alike. This is connected with the heavy dependence on psychological atomism. First of alI, token atomism is presupposed by the fact that one person's original experience does not in itself designate its successor state token; an experience had by person a may well be remembered by herself or Q-remembered by person b. If b' s Q-recollection is to be qualitatively like a's memory, then individual tokens of experiences and recollections do not require reference to specific successor- and/or predecessor-state tokens for their individuation and identity conditions.

Secondly, psychological context type atomism is presupposed by the fact that it is deemed conceivable to isolate one mental state from its original context and place it into the new context of a 'receiving' mind, without loss or change of content. Memories and experiences on the one hand, and the mental states comprising the psychological context within which they occur on the other, need to be thought of as separate self-contained items that can in principle be fitted into many different chains of mental states, many 'streams of consciousness.'

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As to objective context type atomism, if one person's memory is to survive as such in the brain and mind of another, then that memory must have individuation criteria that abstract not only from its respective psychological contexts, but also from the respective social and physical environments of these brains/minds. This corresponds with the internalism that is part neo-Lockean paradigm. There are stronger and weaker versions of this internalism, though. 1'11 keep to a weak version of internalism which states that transplantation of mental states from one mind to another doesn't imply a change of (narrow) content due to a change in the environment of the respective minds. Clearly such internalism is required by Q-memory.

Much the same goes for the multiple realisability thesis. There is no need here to discuss the possibility of conscious computers or the realisability of human mental states in non-human systems. All that is required for Q-memory is the thesis that one human mental state type can have different token realisations in different human brains. And this weak form of multiple realisability is obviously required for Q-memory to be intelligible.

Finally, there is the thesis of physical realisation. This thesis is not logically required by Q-memory. But it does seem to be factually required. Q-memory requires experiences and recollections to be reali sed by a substratum that allows for appropriate causal links between them. As far as we presently know, only physical realisers satisfy this description.

Does the fact that Q-memory requires all five theses of the neo-Lockean paradigm mean that rejecting Q-memory is tantamount to rejecting that paradigm and the concurring substratum oriented conception of psychological continuity? The answer to this question should be negative when Q-memory is rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with these five theses. The argument against Q-memory that 1 will put forward in the next section, though, rejects Q-memory for its reliance on atomism and CCR. The neo-Lockean paradigm will be rejected, then, insofar as rejecting atomism and CCR are deemed false.

What about the other three theses, i.e. what about physicalism? Physicalism was introduced in the neo-Lockean paradigm because atomism and CCR required it (see Section 9 of Chapter 2). But that doesn't mean that physicalism is rejected once atomism and CCR are.

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What it does mean, though-and this will become important in Chapter 7-is that once atomism and CCR are rejected as means to describe psychological continuity, there is no need to invoke physicalism in such a description unless an appropriate description-one that can replace the description based on atomism and CCR-requires physicalism as well. In the next two chapters, 1 will argue that the best description of psychological continuity that can replace the one based on atomism and CCR doesn't require reference to the physical realisers of mental states. Hence, there simply is no explanatory role to play for these realisers as far as psychological continuity is concemed (no conclusions are drawn yet as to the explanatory role of physicalism in there simply being mental states or their purported causal efficacy in producing actions).

6. TIIE lROUBLE WITH Q-MEMORY

No judgement has been passed, up till now, on the various kinds of psychological atomism the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity is committed to. My claim in this chapter is that these kinds of atomism are incompatible with a proper understanding of psychological continuity; they put much more explanatory weight on the causal connections between the mental states comprising a psychologically continuous 'stream of consciousness' than can possibly be attributed to them. The point is that the atomism of the substratum-oriented conception is of such a thoroughgoing kind that it contradicts every from of mental holism, including an uncontroversial kind of holism that is an indispensable part of our everyday psychology.

In this section 1 will defend a part of this claim. 1 will argue that since Q-memory ignores a degree of holism that is an implicit but pervasive ingredient of our everyday concept of memory, it cannot be said to analyse memory. The Q-memory solution to the circularity problem, then, does not work.

Parfit's example of a case of Q-memory is that of Paul and Jane. Paul had an experience of seeing San Giorgo in Venice. The 'brain traces' of this experience are surgically 'transplanted' (e.g. recorded and re-instantiated) into the brain of Jane, who has never visited Venice. After Jane recovers from the operation, she has vivid

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'recol1ections' of seeing the Pal1adian Church. She Q-remembers seeing the church from the point of view of Paul at the time he had the original experience. She even thinks of the subject of this experience as '1,' although she knows, perhaps, that it wasn't her but Paul who once stood there.

Puzzling though such a state of seeming recollection may be, Parfit' s claim is that it is not inconceivable. The subject of experience in this case, is nothing but the 'empty space' of some onlooker. This 'space' is given with any experience, but it does not have a name tag attached. There really is no one subject of experience here. Jane has not suddenly become Paul.

Examples such as these are highly artificial in their simplicity.lI They concentrate on recollections that seem to be describable in abstraction from other mental contents and the 'rememberer's' environment. In other words, examples such as these are tailor-made to fit a thoroughly atomistic conception of psychological continuity. By concentrating merely on such examples-as Parfit does-however, one obscures serious difficulties with Q-remembering other persons' experiences that stern from the fact that most experiences and memories require an of ten rather elaborate context to make sense. Let me construe another example to give an initial feeI of the problems 1 have in mind.

Suppose you have just taken your children to school. You have clear memories of walking the familiar (to you) route in your neighbourhood to their school. You remember what your children looked like this day. You remember thinking things such as "it' s time to buy a new coat for Mary," and "1 hope she will pass her test today, she's been preparing it so weB." And you remember the familiar sight of the school building. Now suppose these memories are instilled, by surgical means, say, in my brain. 1 don't know your children and have never visited your neighbourhood. What would my Q-memories of your experiences be like?

1 might have a picture in my head of your children walking the route they walked and entering their school. But the route and the school won' t evoke feelings of familiarity, the children may seem strangers, and 1 can't quite place the thoughts about the new coat and the well prepared test. Schechtman argues 12 that if 1 do not change my

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beliefs about the neighbourhood and the children not being mine, my Q-recollection would be significant1y different from yours, so that the required similarity between experience and recollection is violated (see conditions (1) and (2) of Q-memory in Chapter 2, Section 10). If on the other hand, I somehow get the belief instilled that the imagined neighbourhood and the children are mine, etc. the memory might resemble the original experience, but only at the cost of endowing me with a false belief about myself, my life and my neighbourhood. I will claim that the second of these possibilities is in fact no option. Furthermore, I will claim that the first possibility presents the Q­memory theorist with a more serious problem than the absence of qualitative similarity between experience and recollection might suggest.

Lets start with the second possibility. ArtificialIy endowing a person with the required background beliefs meets with a problem similar to the one it is supposed to solve. Just like we cannot endow someone with an isolated memory and expect its entire content to fit into any new psychological context, so we cannot endow a person with a belief just like that.

Suppose that along with the Q-memory I get the belief instilled that the children I Q-remember taking to school are my children. The fact that this single belief contradicts an immense number of memories and beliefs I have about myself would be more than sufficient for me to reject it as a delusion. 13 We might try to remedy this by endowing me with a large number of other background beliefs, and possibly even erase a few of my actual beliefs. However, beliefs have a mind-to-world direction of fit. Hence my social and physical environment-my family, work, neighbourhood, in short 'my life'-will put rather severe constraints on what is rationally admissible for me to believe. It would be highly coincidental, then, when the background beliefs 1 am required to have would not clash with my environment or with the mental states that represent this environment (think only of the belief that the school 1 Q-remember is near to where 1 live). Similarly, it would be extremely unlikely that the actual beliefs of mine that should be erased because they contradict the belief that the Q-remembered children are mine or the background beliefs it requires can indeed alI be erased without severely impairing my rationality.

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In very many Q-memory cases, then, endowing a person with a Q-memory of someone else's experience will result in a clash between either this Q-memory or its required background beliefs with part of their new psychological context. The problem with Schechtman's second possibility is not only that the Q- 'rememberer' will be endowed with false beliefs. The problem is also and, I would say, mainly that the incoherence of a Q-memory with its psychological context cannot be remedied by adding background beliefs: there will always be incoherence.

This does not yet contradict token-atomism, objective context type atomism or psychological context type atomism. But it does leave us with Schechtman's first possibility: the experienced Q-recollection (with or without added background beliefs) will differ substantialIy from the original experience, relative to the degree to which it clashes with its new psychological and objective context. Once this possibility is spelled out in a little more detail, however, the untenability of psychological atomism will become clear.

If alI a clash between a Q-memory and its new psychological context results in is the fact that the Q-memory will not be qualitatively similar to the original experience it is causalIy connected with, this need not deter the Q-memory theorist. The qualitative similarity of the complete experience and recollection is not sacrosanct. 14 It may easily be admitted that only part of a Q-recollection resembles the original experience due to the difference in psychological context of the two mental states. In fact, if what seems like a memory does not entirely fit its psychological context, so to speak, this may be taken as an indication that one is Q-remembering someone else' s experience, provided one knows such a thing to be possible. 15

The presupposition behind this kind of reasoning is that an that a clash between a Q-memory and its new context amounts to is an incoherence or at most a contradiction between some of its aspects and the new context. Consider, however, a scenario in which I (a Western European) Q-remember the initiation ritual of a warrior of some very exotic tribe. By stipulation, I completely lack the appropriate concepts to make sense of this ritual. Obviously a single Q-memory cannot contain alI the relevant concepts, concepts whose meaning derive e.g. from various other cultural institutions that are not in themselves part of

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my Q-memory. The c1ash between most of such a Q-memory-i.e. aH but the sensory perceptions involved-and the contents of my mind is not so much a c1ash that results in incoherence or contradiction, but a c1ash that results in part of the Q-memory jai/ing to have intelligible content at alt.

Here the limits of psychological atomism come within sight. Unlike-perhaps I6-isolated perceptual contents such as Paul's visual impression of San Giorgio, many memories have to draw on their psychological context for their complete content. Of course there is a degree of arbitrariness here in the delineation of a remembered content as one memory. But in any event, it is quite preposterous to suppose that only complexes of contents that cohere to such an extent that no reference to 'external' contents is required should count as proper memories. For in that case states such as recalling what my first bicyc1e looked like, or recalling that Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon in 1969 would not count as proper memories; both recoUections require a rather elaborate context of other contents to make sense. If states such as these count as memories, displacement of them in an 'alien' psychological context--e.g. a context which lacks the concepts of 'bicyc1e' or in which there is no conception of our Christian chronology or of the moon as an object on which one can walk-is likely to result in a loss of content, and hence epistemic merits. Psychological context type atomism is simply false in such cases.

The same goes for objective context type atomism. In my Q­memory of the exotic warrior' s initiation, for instance, aU reference to natural objects-trees, animals, landscape features-and their cultural significance will be lost upon me given what my physical and social environment is like. They are not merely incoherent or inconsistent with my environment. For that would require these references to be intelligible to me, and it is precisely intelligibility to me that these references lack due to my being brought up in my specific Western European environment.

What examples such as these show, is that a degree of inescapable mental holism is necessarily violated by Q-memory. Two questions are crucial here. First, what degree or kind of holism really is inescapable and to what extent does a choice in degree or kind affect the verdict on Q-memory? Secondly, is holism violated only in some Q-

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memory cases, as consideration of Parfit' s example might suggest, or in virtually all cases? An elaborate answer to the first question allows a brief answer to the second.

As to the possible degrees of holism, the worst case scenario for the Q-memory theorist follows from the kind of holism with regard to mental content that is pervasive in most versions of what may well count as the best established theory of mind by now, functionalism, but also in e.g. interpretationism (e.g. Dennett 1987) or anomalous monism (Davidson 1970). According to this holism, inferential and evidential interconnections between propositional attitudes, among which the beliefs that memories give rise to, are ca-constitutive of their contents. If inferential and evidential connections constitute content, then the notion of a displacement of a memory in an alien context does not make sense. On the one hand, the isolation of a mental state from its original mental, social and physical context will simply deprive that state of the content it had in its original context. On the other hand, the insertion of a new mental state in a given context, should this be possible, will endow the inserted state with a content it didn't have before.

The idea of such insertion, however, is highly problematic. To insert a Q-memory in a brain will be to tamper with the structure of its causal network. And since according to the theories under consideration propositional attitudes such as beliefs and memories are global states of such a network, to tamper with this network is distort not just the content of the inserted memory but also the contents of a whole host of other global states. If 'constitutive holism' (as we may caB it) is true, individual memories are not linked to their original experience by a separate causal connection. Rather, the whole frame of mind by which a recollection is a co-constituted is linked to the whole frame of mind by which the original experience was co-constituted, without it being possible to separate the causal connections that link individual mental states. If constitutive holism is true, then, Q-memory is a myth.

But constitutive holism is not uncontroversial. 17 Theories of mind such as substance dualism, type-identity theory (e.g.Smart 1962) or versions of computationalism (e.g. Fodor 1990), are more inclined towards some kind of psychological atomism. Thus, it seems they may allow for cases of Q-memory.

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However, there is a much less strict mental holism that is not part of a theory of mental content but rather part of our common sense notion of how mental states interrelate; its part of the explanandum rather than explanans so to speak. This is the holism according to which a person can only hold so may incompatible beliefs before she can no Ion ger be said to posses the rationality that is required to ascribe beliefs to this person at aU. More importantly it is the common sense holism that says that 1 can only believe that X if 1 have the background knowledge required to make sense of 'X' and to tell under what circumstances 'X' is true or false. The difference between common sense holism and constitutive holism is that according to the former the idea of displacements of mental states in alien contexts is intelligible while it isn't according to the latter. Common sense holism is in no way precluded by dualism, type identity theory or computationalism. Crucially, even though it allows for displacements of memories, it stiU contradicts the contention that Q-memory analyses the concept of memory.

Common sense holism does not oppose Q-memory the way constitutive holism does. But it does undermine the epistemic potential of Q-memory. Just like a Q-memory is likely to clash with part of its new psychological context, so it is likely that the new psychological context does not contain alI the resources that are required for the Q­memory to retain its full content and epistemic entitlements. The richness of your experience of taking your children to school, for instance, is lost on me. Moreover, the information this Q-memory gives me access to is very much limited compared to your own recollection of the experience due to the absence of relevant background knowledge.

For example, while you remember, say, Jim and Mary entering their regular school (with its history in their lives, etc.) alI 1 Q-remember is some kids entering a school-like building they might as well see for the first time. Similarly, you may remember your daughter to be uncharacteristically sad that day. AII 1 Q-remember is that there was a sad gir\. So, even if 1 recognise my Q-memory of your experience as a Q-memory and do not discard it as an ilIusion, it will not have aII the epistemic entitlements it has to you. Importantly, this is due simply to the new psychological context; no causal connection can make up for

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the loss in epistemic value. To this, the Q-memory theorist may reply that even if Q­

memory is unlikely to carry as much information as ordinary memory, this does not mean that it carries no information at alI. While Q­remembering your experience of walking your children to school, 1 may conc1ude that there were children who looked so and so, who were walking towards a building that looked like a school while being accompanied by someone whose perspective 1 re-live, etc. etc. Surely my drawing these conc1usion requires me to know that Q-memory is possible, but that is not specifically problematic.

Though correct, this reply misses a crucial point. The informat ion carried by the Q-memory that is not lost upon me is accessible in virtue of the contingent fact that my mental make up is such that it allows me to access it. There is nothing in the causal connection between your experience and my Q-recollection that secures there being an appropriate context to access the information that is transmitted by it. If a Q-memory of your experience were instantiated in the brain of a member of some exotic tribe that has not had conscious contact with westem civilisation, virtually all information contained in the memory will be lost on that person. The person is simply not equipped to know what she is Q-remembering, even when she knows that she is Q-remembering.

It follows from common sense holism, then, that the contents and hence the epistemic merits of a (Q-)memory are just as much dependent upon the memory's psychological context as they are on the causes that produce the brain state upon which they supervene. Accarding to the Q-memory theorist, memory can be defined in terms of:

(1) 1 am presently in a state as if remembering having a specific experience,

(2) The content of that state is qualitatively identical with ar very similar to a past experience,

(4) My memory is causally dependent, in the right kind of way, on the past experience that is qualitatively identical or similar

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to nay naenaory.

Conanaon sense holisna contradicts this. A definition of naenaory in ternas of (1), (2), and (4) does not naake for a conaplete definition of naenaory. Apart frona a causal connection between an experience and a recollection, an appropriate context for the recollection needs to be secured that allows the naenaory to retain sonae or naost of its content and hence epistenaic naerits. Part of such a context naight be expected to exist in naany cases of Q-naenaory, sinaply because in general people share a large portion of their background beliefs, if only because they inhabit the sanae world. But this is a contingent fact-frona the point of view of the substratuna-oriented conception-that is not in it self secured by the presence of the required causal connection between experience and Q-recollection.

Constitutive holisna yields a sinailar, though stronger conclusion. On this theory, a causal connection between an individual experience and an individual recollection also is not sufficient for naenaory. Since neither the experience nor the recollection can be individuated in abstraction frona their respective psychological contexts, a definition of experience naenaory requires a principle that secures the presence of the recollection-context given what the experience-context was like. Such a 'context-continuity requirenaent,' as we naay call it, is a necessary addition to a causal characterisation of naenaory; one that is absent in Parfit' s conception of Q-naenaory for the very sinaple reason that it is inconapatible with the possibility of Q-naenaory.

Regardless of what type of holisna we favour, then, the conclusion renaains that Q-naenaory does not fully capture what is involved in ordinary naenaory; in the best case Q-naemory simply fails to have the sanae epistenaic naerits as ordinary naenaory, and in the worst case Q-naemory is not even intelligible.

Do these conclusions go only for some Q-naemories? Parfit's Jane-and-Paul example might suggest so. 1 started this section by noting that this exanaple appears to be tailor-naade to fit a thoroughly atomistic conception of psychological continuity. Paul' s experience and Jane's Q-naenaory are described in phenonaenal or experiential Le. completely non-conceptual terms, and hence appear to be intelligible in abstraction frona whatever context. They are conceived as naere naental

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images. Mental imagery is quite hard to make sense of philosophically,

to put it mildly.18 Nevertheless, we may grant Parfit that memories and other mental states, indeed, have an aspect to them that at least provokes description in terms of mental images. What is important here, is that images, or quasi-images, do not exhaust most memories; that most (or, according to some, alI) of our memories have a conceptual aspect to them as well. It is this conceptual aspect to which holism, of whatever kind, is relevant.

If an experience of seeing San Giorgio is merely a 'picture' in one's head, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that it cannot retain its identity conditions when it is 'transplanted' into another person's head. But if the content of such an experience is partly conceptual, involving e.g. that one knows oneself to be in Venice admiring the architectural innovations typically brought to the Italian Renaissance by the great Palladio of whom one has been an admirer for a long time, etc. etc., transplantation of a mental image would not suffice to transplant the full experience. Transplantation of the experience-memory in alI its conceptual aspects requires a 'receiving' context that would have to resemble the original context in quite some detail.

The argument against Q-memory focuses on the fact that as soon as experiences and recollections involve conceptual content, they become context dependent for their content, the intelligibility of their occurrence and their epistemic entitlements. This reduces the class of memories that can be transplanted to another mental, physical and social context without loss of content to a relatively empty and uninteresting one. Even in Parfit's own Paul and Jane case, conceptual contents are hard to avoid. The arguments against Q-memory, then, applies to virtualIy alI memories.

What both kinds of holism imply is that a definition of memory in terms of (l), (2), and (4) needs to be supplemented by a context-continuity requirement: a principle that explains and secures­rather than presupposes-the presence of a psychological context of a recolIection that is related to the context of the original experience such that it allows the recollection to retain a sufficient portion of the original experience' s content and hence have sufficiently much

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epistemic merit to count as memory. Even without an answer to the difficult question of what counts as sufficient and sufficiently much, the incompleteness of Q-memory is plain.

One way of rendering this conclusion is by saying that atomism puts too much explanatory weight on CCR. The causal continuity of qualitatively similar mental contents only appears to explain memory since the qualitative similarity of contents is not in itself recognised as an explanandum. As soon as this explanandum is recognised, though, it is clear that it cannot be accounted for in purely causal terms. To suppose that CCR explains the causal continuity of qualitatively similar mental contents, then, is to put more explanatory weight on causality than it can carry.

7. CONTENTS AND CONTEXTS. THE OTHER FOUR PROBLEMS

The Q-memory solution to the circularity problem was the example on which the solutions to the other four problems with psychological continuity theories of personal identity-the 'logical form' of identity over time, the lack of third person criteria for reidentification, the unity of the mental bundle, the individuation of persons-were modelled (see the previous chapter). The troubles with Q-memory are therefore likely to have effects on these solutions as well. At any rate, 1 will c1aim they do.

What the argument of the previous section focuses on is the fact that (i) coherence of our mental states crucially determines the full meaning or content of mental states and the epistemic entitlements of beliefs and memories, while (ii) this coherence cannot be accounted for merely by the causal connections between mental states that are constitutive of psychological continuity according to the substratum­oriented conception thereof. The crucial role played by Parfit in this argument is his deducing and developing the thought-experiments that allow us to infer point (ii).

Parfit' s disregard of the import of coherence of mental contents is, of course, congruent with his implicit assumption that the causal interconnection of otherwise atomistically conceived psychological states suffices for relation R. But if the import of coherence so blatantly contradicts this assumption, how does Parfit

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manage to avoid it altogether in his discussion of R? My suggestion was that he does this by focussing exclusively on the phenomenal or experiential aspect of psychological states comprising relation R while disregarding their conceptual aspects.

Taking the conceptual aspects of our psychological states into account, and hen ce taking the coherence of mental states seriously, has two important consequences. The first consequence concems the conception of 'a self' or subject of experience. When a mind is a set of psychological states that can be randomly changed individually without this having much effect on other psychological states (i.e. if atomism in its various guises is true) , it is plausible to conceive the '1,' the subject of experience, or the illusion thereof as appearing 'just over the edge of experience', as eine Grenze der Welt as Wittgenstein has put it (Tractatus, 5.632). In such a case it might well be what Parfit takes it to be: the empty space of someonlooker.

But when atomism is rejected because the import of the conceptual aspects of psychological states and the concurring coherence is recognised, the subject is present by his or her psychologically represented characteristics as well. When, for example, Paul remembers his Venetian experience, he, the subject of experience, is not just some onlooker, but for instance a person who has spent a lifetime reading about Palladio and now finally seeing for the first time the famous San Giorgio. The whole concept of a subject of experience or 'self' changes from what Taylor (1989) caUs the 'punctual self,' or what Nagel (1982) describes as 'an extensionless point,' into a rich and more commonsensical biographical concept.

The second consequence, already alluded to in the previous section, is of even more significance to the present discussion. If atomism is rejected in favour of recognition of the importance of coherence, if the Parfitian Q-memory though-experiment does not exemplify veridical memory, this implies that causal connections between the substrata of psychological states are not sufficient for the kind of connection between psychological states required for psychological connectedness and/or continuity. The connections between psychological states of a temporally continuous mind cannot be characterised in terms of causal relations only. The actual conceptual or semantic relations between the contents of psychological states-

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whether or not these are considered constitutive of these contents-have to be taken into account as weB. Psychological states as constituents of psychological continuity need to be conceived in terms of their context (psychological, social and objective)-dependent content properties over and above their substratum-dependent causal properties.

With these consequences in mind, we can see why the substratum-oriented solutions to the four remaining problems for psychological continuity theories faii. Let me discuss them one at a time, starting with the problem of the unity of the mental bundle.

The problem of the unity of the mental bundle was how to conceive of the co-personality of psychological states comprising one trans-temporally continuous mind. This problem is particularly acute when the co-personality is concerned of psychological states that are connected neither by relations of qualitative similarity, nor by direct causal relations.

The substratum-oriented concept ion of psychological continuity 'solves' this problem by drawing on the physical unity, both synchronic and diachronic, of the substrata of co-personally related psychological states. Causally related states of synchronously physically unified brains provide a concept ion of the unity of the mental bundle according to which even psychological states that are neither qualitatively similar, nor directly causally related can belong to the same 'stream of consciousness', and hence the same person (according to the psychological criterion), nevertheless.

The criticism of Q-memory shows on the one hand that synchronous and diachronic coherence and consistency between mental states is necessary for psychologically continuity. The contents of the psychologically continuous mental states must show a large degree of coherence and consistency, both over time and at one point in time. However, the Q-memory critique also shows that the physical unity of the brain at one moment in time and the causal connection between physically unified temporally indexed states of one (or more) brains is not sufficient for the coherence of the psychological contents realised by this brain. Think, for instance, of a physically unified brain in which one 'alien' Q-memories is inserted. The unity of the mental bundle at one point in time and over time, then, cannot be accounted for in terms of causally connected physically unified brain states. To think that it

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can is to ignore the role of mental coherence and consequently to put too much explanatory value on the physical and causal unity of the brain.

This criticism can also be cast in terms of the very conception of 'unity' that underlies the substratum-oriented solution. The unity required for psychological continuity is one that doesn't just secure the numerical unity of atomistic psychological states into one mind, but also the coherence of the contents of these states in and through time, into one 'biographical self.' (This criticism is very vague and un specific at this point; 1 will go into much more detail in the next chapter). The substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity provides for the former, not the latter, and hence doesn't provide the sufficient conditions for the kind of unity of the mental bundle required for psychological continuity as a possible analysans (or replacement) of personal identity.

This critique of the substratum-oriented solution to the problem of unity can be applied without additional argument to the substratum-oriented solution to the problems of logical form. These problems-how to account for the transitivity that is characteristic of identity in terms of psychological connections, and how to explain or explain away that identity does not allow of degree while psychological connectedness does-can partly be solved by introducing the idea of overlapping chains of strongly connected psychological states (see Chapter 2, Section 5). And the idea of overlapping could be explained by the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity in terms of a physical unity of the brain at one moment in time. If, as argued above, the unity of the brain cannot explain the unity of the mind or mental bundle at one point in time in the sense required, then what exactly counts as overlapping and what not cannot be explained in terms of the physical substrata of psychological states and their interconnections.

The point here is, again, that the substratum-oriented solution takes an easy psychological atomism as its point of departure so that physical or causal connections might do the required unifying job. But, again, since atomism tums out to be wrong-headed, causal or physical connections are not sufficient for the unity of mind, neither at one point in time nor over time.

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Just like the consequences of the argument against Q-memory for the substratum-oriented solutions to the problems of unity and logical form are linked, so are the consequences for the substratum­oriented solutions to the problems of third-person reidentification and individuation. Both problems follow from the contingent connection between persons and bodies that follows from any psychological theory of personal identity (or whatever we should replace that notion with ii we need to replace it). If persons are not identical with bodies, then how do we identify and reidentify persons, why is the day-to-day reidentification by means of bodies accurate under normal circumstances, and how do we count persons?

The substratum-oriented answer to these questions was straightforward. The persistence of persons through time, according to this conception, is the persistence of causally interconnected states of temporally unified brains (realising or sustaining overlapping chains of strongly connected psychological states). Thus, determin ing whether a person-stage at I[ is in fact a stage of the same person who was present at 1[, is determining whether the brain states of the person-stage at 12 are indeed the causal descendants of the brain states of the stage at 1[. In normal circumstances, this is guaranteed if the body of the person at 12

is identic al (in a non-strict sense) with the body of the person at 1[, since brain transplants etc. do not ordinarily occur. Counting persons at one moment in time, by the same token, is counting brains, since at each point in time the brain of a person must by physically unified.

What the argument against Q-memory says is that veridical memory cannot be defined in terms of the causal origins of seeming memories; a veridical memory is not merely a seeming memory whose causal origins lie in some experience that is qualitatively like that memory. Rather, a veridical memory is one whose coherence with a co­occurring psychological, social and objective context is sufficient ground for believing a qualitatively similar experience to have fitted in with and contributed to an ongoing biography of which the seeming memory is a part (in the next two chapters 1 will elaborate on this, for the moment this brief formula suffices).

Under the assumption-shared by defenders of the psychological criterion of personal identity-that veridical memory is indicative of psychological continuity, i.e. that where there is memory

PARFIT'S REDUCTIO 79

there is psychological continuity, and where there is psychological continuity there is memory, the argument against Q-memory implies that psychological continuity cannot consist merely of physically unified brain states, causally connected through time. And this means that if psychological continuity either analyses or replaces personal identity, it is not true that reidentification of a person at t2 as the being the same person as one that existed at ti can be equalled, conceptually, to determining that the persons brain states at t2 are the causal descendants of the states of a person at ti'

The same goes for the matter of the individuation of persons: counting persons doesn't equal counting brains, conceptually. What unifies a person into one person at one time is not just the physical relations between the substrata of the psychological states that make up her mind. It is at least also the coherence of the contents of these states into one stage of an ongoing biography.

Having said this, though, I should also stress that since the criteria for the reidentification and individuation of persons may well be taken in a purely epistemic and not in an ontological or conceptual sense, the verdict on the substratum-oriented solutions should not be as severe in these cases as in the cases of the other three 'solutions.' What is wrong with the substratum oriented solutions to the problems of reidentification and individuation is the underlying picture of what constitutes psychological continuity. But it may turn out that a different picture implies the usefulness of the substratum-oriented criteria as epistemic criteria. Thus, Parfit c.s. might be right in holding that we can count persons by counting brains and that the non-branching causal continuity of brain states may serve as a(n impracticable) third-person criterion for reidentification of persons. The point is, if so, they are right for the wrong reasons.

8. CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter I argued for the following conclusions:

(i) Parfit's relation R is in fact the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity without additional assumptions or restrictions.

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(ii) Relation R allows for fission- and fusion-based thought experiments.

(iii) Fission or duplication experiments imply psychological token atomism and objective context type atomism. Fusion experiments imply psychological context type atomism. In other words, relation R requires that the individuation of the contents of a mental state is not dependent upon that state's mental, social and physical context.

(iv) The Q-memory thought experiment is representative of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. It presupposes the three kinds of psychological atomism.

(v) Q-memory does not analyse memory. The psychological atomism on which it depends is demonstrably false. This results in the fact that the causal continuity requirement in the Q­memory definition of memory should be supplemented with a context-continuity requirement. In order for a memory to retain its content and epistemic entitlements, the psychological, social and physical context of an experience should be continuous with the respective contexts of its recollection.

(vi) Just like the substratum-oriented solutions to the other four problems presented in the previous chapter are modelled on the Q-memory solution to the circularity objection, they fail for reasons similar to the ones that block the Q-memory solution.

The points (i)-(vi) lead to the overall conclusion of this chapter:

(vii) The substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity cannot solve the five problems that confront a psychological criterion of personal identity. It cannot be said to provide us with a proper understanding of the kind of psychological continuity purported to analyse personal identity.

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The thought experiments Parfit uses for his own purpose of partially dissociating psychological continuity from personal identity, then, in the end turn against his very conception of psychological continuity. Unintentionally he has presented a reductio ad absurdum, rather than a defence of the substratum oriented conception of psychological continuity.

-4-

A CONTENT -ORIENTED CONCEPTION

OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY

1. IN1RODUCI10N

A substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity fails to solve the five problems of Chapter 2, despite initial appearances to the contrary. It does not take into account the important role played by psychological, social and physical contexts in co-constituting the fun contents of mental states and hence the epistemic merits of beliefs and memories. A conception of psychological continuity is called for that does take these contexts, their interrelation and the way they interrelate mental states into account. Such a conception is what I intend to develop in this chapter.

My main claim will be that one particular type of relation between psychological states is crucially ignored by the neo-Lockean conception of psychological continuity: the narrative, process-like or intelligible succes sion of qualitatively non-identical contents. Taking this kind of continuity into account and tying it to the well-known neo­Lockean kinds of psychological connectedness-memory, intention, the retention of beliefs, and so on-will allow us to fit the objective and psychological contexts mentioned in the previous chapter into our conception of psychological continuity. This conception will be content-oriented and does not presuppose any particular ontology of the mind.

The structure of this chapter is as follows. In the next section, I will introduce a distinction between two kinds-rather than theories-of psychological continuity: one based on the qualitative similarity of psychological contents, the other based on intelligible succes sion of qualitatively dissimilar contents. This 'narrative continuity,' as I will

CON1ENT-ORIEN1ED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONfINUITY 83

labeI the second kind, is overlooked by Parfit and a host of other philosophers. Nevertheless, it is precisely this kind of continuity that allows explanatory room for the psychological, social and physical contexts touched upon in the previous chapter.

In the third section 1 will briefly discuss the various levels of narrative continuity and their interrelation. The fourth section shall deal with the relation between narrative continuity and bodily continuity. I will argue that psychological continuity in actual persons requires bodily continuity. But since it is at least possible that in some science fiction cases bodily continuity is not a prerequisite for psychological continuity-under a number of strict conditions that, like narrative continuity, are normally ignored-the dependence of psychological continuity on bodily continuity is a contingent one. In the fifth section the mutual dependence of narrative continuity and 'classic' (i.e. Parfitian) psychological connectedness shall be out1ined.

2. TWO KINDS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY

The concept of 'psychological continuity' is of ten used in a rather unspecified sense. Parfit' s analysis of the concept in terms of psychological connectedness is a rare case of clarity in this area. The analysis is hardly ever questioned (some exceptions will be mentioned below), but not because there is consensus on it. It is not uncommon to encounter characterisations of continuity that faU outside Parfit' s definition. 1 This indicates that Parfit' s analysis is not exhaustive. In fact, in this section I will argue that Parfit fails to take into account the most important features of psychological continuity: the intelligible, process­like or 'narrative' succession of psychological contents.

Let's start with Parfit's account. To repeat, according to him psychological continuity consists of overlapping chains of strong psychological connectedness. Examples of connectedness are memory, intention and the continuous holding of beliefs, desires and character traits. Connectedness is not transitive. If at time t2 I have memories of tJ,

and if at time t3 I have memories of t2. this does not imply that at t 3 I remember ti' Likewise, if at time t2 I hold beliefs that are similar to beliefs I held at tJ, and if at time t3 I hold beliefs that are similar to some beliefs I held at t2, this does not necessarily imply that at t3 I share any

84 CHAPTER4

belief with tI. The non-transitivity of connectedness is important. It partly

stems from the fact that connectedness is essentially a relation of qualitative similarity of psychological contents. The contents of experience memory match the contents of an original experience; the contents of an intention match the resulting action; and the continuous holding of a belief consists merely in the qualitative identity or similarity of certain beliefs held at different times. The non-transitivity of connectedness follows from this property together with the fact that a mind at one time contains not one but a large number of contents (most of which are not conscious; for the past thirty years or so 1 have believed that Paris is the capital of France, but 1 haven't done a lot of conscious thinking on this subject). The qualitative similarity between different person-stages at tI and at t2 need simply not in voi ve the same contents as the similarity between t3 and t4.

Thus, it is only by invoking the idea that chains of connected contents overlap that connectedness conceived in terms of qualitative similarity constitutes the transitive relation of psychological continuity. Still, Parfit' s concept ion of psychological continuity is that of "discrete and independent moments of consciousness2 linked by modified relations of qualitative similarity" (Schechtman 1994a, p. 203).

This conception of psychological continuity, 1 contend, is not wrong but it is too narrow. One problem with it is that chains of connected (qualitatively similar) contents themselves are, by the criterion of qualitative similarity, not connected. For the interconnection between chains of psychological connectedness, Parfit uses the physicalism-based criterion of the unity of the mental bundle outlined in Section 10 of Chapter 2, and rejected in Section 7 of the previous chapter.

The problem 1 want to focus on here, however, is that an account of psychological continuity in terms of qualitative similarity of contents cannot deal with certain kinds of continuity that consist of the temporal succes sion of qualitatively dissimilar contents. (I will contend in the next chapter that the two problems are related in that they have the same solution). Consider Sydney Shoemaker's characterisation of psychological continuity:

CONTENT-ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUlTY 85

To the extent that [psychological continuity] consists in psychological similarity between different person-stages, this is due to the fact that in many cases what is required as the successor state of a mental state is just another token of the same state. To the extent that it consists in 'memory­continuity', this is because it belongs to the nature of certain states (sense experiences and intentional actions) that they give rise to successor states of the sort 1 have called memories from the inside, and because it belongs to the nature of these to perpetuate themselves, Le. to produce successor states having the same or closely related contents. But psychological continuity is constituted no more by these than it is by evolution and execution of plans of action, by deliberation and reasoning, and by countless other mental processes. (Shoemaker 1984, pp. 95-6)

Shoemaker does not just include relations of qualitative similarity in the class of relations that constitute psychological continuity. The evolution of plans of action, deliberation and reasoning are examples of psychological continuity that consist of chains of temporally successive qualitatively dis similar contents. They are processes.

It is impossible or at least patently absurd to explain such processes in terms of overlapping chains of qualitatively similar contents, for such an explanation would lack precisely what is essential to such processes: the fact that dis similar contents themselves are related meaningfully, so that we can speak of one content foUowing a chain of others as 'progress in thought', 'a further development of plans', 'a logic al consequence', 'a potential solution to a problem one is dealing with', but also as 'a confusing thought' or 'an absurd idea.' Such qualifications of contents are possible only in virtue of their place in a chain of intelligibly related but qualitatively dissimilar contents.

In this section, I will mainly expand the notion of continuous dis similar states to demonstrate its importance. For aU but the last part of this chapter, I will treat this continuity of dissimilar contents as a kind of psychological continuity that differs from the kind of continuity that is constituted by connections between qualitatively similar contents (e.g. memory). That is, I will not talk about these kinds of continuity as different, mutually exclusive theories of psychological continuity. At the end of Section 5, however, I shall claim that the Parfitian definition of psychological continuity can only be understood properly against the background of the alternative kind of psychological continuity that I will oudine in this section. Insofar as this will be contested, I will argue against the view that Parfitian continuity can stand on its own and for

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the view according to which it should be complemented. My main claim here is that continuity between qualitatively

dissimilar contents, process-like continuity or continuity in virtue of intelligible succession, has not been given its philosophical due by some, or even most philosophers. Parfit, for instance, does not seem to deny the existence of deliberations, thought processes, etc. Nor does he seem to deny that these processes are instances of psychological connectedness and/or continuity. He does not, however, ascribe much import to this kind of connectedness/continuity. And therein lies, as 1 will explain, an important mistake. To see this, we must first explore some varieties of this second kind of continuity.

Although Shoemaker' s inclusion of psychological processes in psychological continuity certainly marks an enrichment in comparison with Parfit' s 'flat' model, other kinds of process-like related chains of dissimilar states are at least as important as the examples Shoemaker presents. His examples are restricted to purely internal processes, that is, to processes in which the occurrence of a content at a given time is caused by previous contents. This is due, perhaps, to Shoemaker' s adherence to functionalism, the thesis according to which mental states acquire content in virtue of their causal interconnections. 1 should like to mention-briefly-here one important kind of connection between qualitatively dissimilar contents that is not intemally caused. 1 will discuss the details in the next section.

What 1 have in mind is the continuity of perceptual contents. Sequences of consecutive perceptual contents cohere in virtue of the intelligibility of the world we perceive. Each perception at a certain moment is connected to preceding and consecutive ones through the total intelligible picture of the surroundings of the perceiving body they draw. Each movement of the body evokes a change of perception in accordance with the new position the body acquires in its surroundings. Our thorough acquaintance with the basic laws of the three-dimensional world of medium-sized objects (including our body) allows us to connect consecutive impressions into meaningful sequences that teU two complementary, interlocking stories: one about the body's movements through a certain piece of space, and one about the perceptual features of this piece of space.

. Continuity of perceptual contents is certainly not the only

CON1ENT-ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY 87

example of extemally caused, intelligibly related qualitatively dissimilar contents. Another case in point is the connectedness of contents consisting of representations of situations in the social realm. Social interactions-arguments, agreements, friendly talks, formal discussions, rituals, protocols, 'body-Ianguage,' etc.-produce sequences of conscious mental states representing the different stages in the process of such interactions.

What I should like to draw attention to is that (awareness of) sequences of thoughts, perceptions or representations of social interactions all involve relations between qualitatively dissimilar contents in virtue of which preceding contents render the occurrence of consecutive ones intelligible. The main difference between the processes that Shoemaker mentions and the sequences I added is that Shoemaker's processes are 'active' while e.g. sequences of perceptions are at least partly passive. I should like to concentrate on what they have in common, though, which is that the occurrence and content of each mental state in the process/sequence is intelligible only given previous mental states. My contention is that this is a kind of psychological continuity of which the importance is underestimated in the debate on personal identity.

How should we characterise this kind of continuity? It is not causal continuity between qualitatively dissimilar contents. For one thing, it is highly questionable that the interconnection of the different stages of e.g. a though process can be reduced to the causal connections between these stages, conceived either in terms of substrata or in terms of mental contents. More importantly-and this is where I diverge from functionalists such as Shoemaker, who may like to hold on at least to the extensional identity between a meaningful sequence and a direct1y causally interrelated sequence of brain states-there can be meaningful sequences of mental contents that are not direct1y causally interrelated. Each stage of a perceptual sequence, for instance, is not caused by its mental predecessor but by the states of affairs in a person's physical environment. Even though a perceptual sequence is certainly causally underpinned, the relevant causes and effects are not one 'serial' process but a scattered bunch of 'parallel' (but not co­temporal) causal processes that are themsel ves not causally interconnected; they just happen to occur consecutively.

88 CHAPTER4

What makes these states continuous, then, is not the existence of direct causal relations between them. Rather than causality, what binds together the mental states of such sequences are relations of mutual dependence between the contents of these states. These are relations in virtue of which the consecutive occurrences of mental states with the contents they have make sense relative to each other, not relations by which these consecutive occurrences are scientifically explained. This is not to say that causality does not play a part in the constitution of this kind of psychological continuity. It is merely to say that citing the causal connection between e.g. two or more mental states does not fully capture what connects these states in the sense relevant to psychological continuity or personal identity.

To refer to the kind of psychological continuity 1 am after, 1 will use the term 'narrative continuity.' 'Narrativity' is a concept with rich connotations, however, of which there is only one that 1 will make use of here. There are two connotations that 1 explicitly would like to avoid in my use of the notion. First of ali, narrativity has a literary connotation or a connotation of constructivism. Whenever 1 speak of narrativity 1 do not mean processes that can be regarded as narrative necessarily only after a literary construction is given. True, in a number of cases a certain level of interpretat ion may be required in order to perceive a sequence of mental contents as a narrative. However, 1 would like to think of the interpretati ve skills involved here in cognitive terms and avoid characterising them in terms of (literary) reconstruction.

Secondly, narrativity has a hint of teleology in it. 1 am not hostile to this notion, but it is a controversial one. Hence, 1 do not intend to make much use of it here. Moreover, 1 tend to think that the kind of teleology involved in narrativity is not teleology in a robust sense. For whereas in cases of robust teleology we can explain a system' s present state by referring to the future purpose this state serves, in the case of psychological connectedness of the kind 1 am describing mental states of ten can only be rendered intelligible by later mental states in retrospect.

The sense in which 1 do want to use the term 'narrativity' is similar to the one Nicolas Rescher is after when he writes that "[t]he unity of process is a narrative unity that deals not in fixed things but rather in materials that ( ... ) cry out to be "brought to life" by accounts

CONTENT-ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY 89

that portray a coherent story" (Rescher 1996, p. 108). The connections 1 am after, are such that psychological contents cannot really be considered self-contained items. They are essentially part of series or sequences of contents. They are essentially part of a psychological process. Individual thoughts acquire their full meaning only as part of a process of deliberation, individual sense perceptions acquire their full sense only as part of a sequence of perceptions portraying a body's movements through space, individual feelings acquire their full sense only in connection with what evoked them and what they produce, etc. It is the whole of such processes that endow their 'parts' with their full meaning. Narrativity refers to relations that hold between events in virtue of which these events can be considered particulars only by abstracting them from the whole of a diachronic process of which they are a part, a process that portrays a 'story,' in the broadest sense of that term.

Strictly speaking, this precludes a reductive analysis of narrativity-as I will use the notion-in terms of particular relations between particular mental states comprising a narrative sequence. Nevertheless, a characterisation of narrativity in terms of particular relations between particular mental states can certainly be informative as long as it is kept in mind that such states and their contents are in fact abstractions, and as long as this characterisation is not taken to be a reductive analysis. As a 'network analysis'3 -an analysis that admittedly requires some prior grasp of the typical distinctive features of narrative sequences, conveyed e.g. by means of examples-I propose the following characterisation: narrative continuity between 'particular' psychological states is a relation between these states such that one or more preced ing states are a necessary prerequisite for another state' s full content and the intelligibility or 'logic' of its occurrence.

Let me give an example to explain what is meant by 'full content' and by 'the intelligibility or 'logic' of a psychological state's occurrence.' Think of two qualitatively identic al perceptions of the Eifel Tower, one caused by, say, a picture projected on a screen in a movie theatre, another caused by the Eifel Tower itself (let' s as sume for the sake of the argument that the projected picture is of such quality that the sense impressions it causes are identical with those caused by

90 CHAPTER4

the real Eifel Tower). Suppose the picture on the screen is viewed by someone in London. That person would not form the belief that she is in Paris, even though she knows she has a perceptual impression that is 'normally' caused by an object in Paris, even though she knows her impression might be qualitatively identic al with some Parisian's non­illusory impression.

The full content, the full meaning of the impression had by the person in London is that she is 'looking at a picture of Paris being projected onto a screen in London.' This full meaning is not derived from the impression alone. It is derived from this impression's being embedded in a context, e.g. walking through London, entering a cinema, watching a movie, and then suddenly seeing a picture of the Eifel Tower. Likewise, an impression of the Eifel Tower had by some person in Paris, an impression that is actually caused by the Eifel Tower itself, leads that person to form the belief 'that she is actually seeing the real Eifel Tower in Paris' not just in virtue of the content of that impression, but because this impression is embedded in the narrative of her visiting Paris.

The same example can be used to illustrate 'the intelligibility or 'logic' of a psychological state's occurrence.' Given the contexts of a person being in Paris, or of a person watching a movie situated in Paris, the impression of seeing the Eifel Tower is completely intelligible if we assume that these persons already knew the Eifel Tower to be in Paris even before they went to Paris or saw a movie about Paris.

The occurrence of the same impression of the Eifel Tower would be completely unintelligible in different circumstances. Suppose someone is leisurely strolling through London, tums a comer and suddenly sees the Eifel Tower. Knowing that London has not recently acquired a replica of the Parisian construction, the occurrence of this impression is not immediately intelligible (even though the impression itself is: it is an impression of the Eifel Tower). One has to invoke certain assumptions in order to explain this impression' s occurrence, such as that one is the victim of an illusion or hallucination.

Examples such as these, and the characterisation of narrativity 1 gave above suffice to distinguish my use of the term from other uses to which it has been put in the debate on personal identity. 1 am thinking in particular here about Ricoeur's (1992), Taylor's (1989, p.

CONTENT-ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY 91

50 ff.) and MacIntyre's (1981, p. 212 ff.) use. These philosophers apply the term to whole lives of persons, or at least relatively large segments thereof.4 By contrast, I want to use the term mainly at a 'lower level,' a level that is sub-personal-though not in Dennett' s (1969) sense of sub-intentional or sub-doxastic. Narrativity, as I will use it, has little to do with a story in which 'the person' is a protagonist (see the rest of this chapter for a slight qualification). In my use, it applies to strings of consecutive mental states that are only parts of the total of a person' s stream of consciousness.

To sum up, we can divide psychological continuity into two rough categories, one premised upon the qualitative similarity of contents, the other upon narrativity (in a qualified sense). The first is required for the preservation of beliefs, values, character traits, etc. I will labeI it P-continuity (P for 'preservation'). The second I will labeI N­continuity (N for 'narrativity'). I will not cIaim that one of these two kinds should be given up in favour of the other. My point, rather, wiU be that P-continuity should be complemented by-and is in fact only intelligible against the background of -N -continuity.

3. LEVELS OFN-CONTINUITY

Sequences of perceptions or thoughts constitute 'stories' of an extremely smaU scale. 'Individual' thoughts or perceptions are N­continuous with other thoughts or perceptions because the latter provide the context within which the former acquire their fuU meaning and within which their occurrence is inteUigible. We may call such ongoing and recurring 'stories' 'lower-IeveJ N-continuity.'

But stories can have larger scales as well. Ones mental states throughout a whole conversation are just as well N-continuous (assuming one' s attention never wanders from the conversation) as the thoughts that lead up to one single reply in that conversation. Likewise, one conversation may be N-continuous with a number of preceding conversations or with the history of a friendship, etc. in that these previous conversations or this history provides the backdrop against which the present conversation makes sense. And just like a series of conversations can make for a narrative sequence, so can e.g. series of intermitted trains of thoughts; my thoughts about this chapter today

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embroider on and are hence N-continuous with thoughts at earlier moments about this book.

Whole series of conversations or thoughts, are narratives at a slightly higher level than e.g. sequences of perceptions. This is not because these sequences stretch over larger periods of time (in fact, as 1 will stress in the next section, the lower-Ievel N-continuous sequence of perceptual states of a person stretches over the largest possible period of time). Rather, higher-Ievel sequences of N-continuous mental events involve relations characteristic of N-continuity between larger clusters or wholes of mental states, rather than 'individual' mental states. A whole train of thought can be N-continuous with a previous one if the latter provides the background against which the former is intelligible. This may be the case even when the intelligibility of one specific thought in the later sequence of thoughts does not in itself require specific reference to the earlier sequence.

A number of conversations or a series of trains of thought are still relatively low-level in comparison with the mental states comprising and representing e.g. ones experiences during ones last holiday, ones school years, ones professional career, or ones career as aparent. These higher-Ievel N-continuous sequences deal in larger 'units' of mental events than lower-Ievel ones. But the principle of their N-continuity is similar: 'one' mental state or 'one' larger 'unit' of mental states requires reference to earlier mental states or earlier 'units' of mental states for their contents and the intelligibility of their occurrence.

Just like 'individual' thoughts or perceptions are abstractions from larger mental processes, higher-Ievel events such as ones career as a philosopher or ones last holiday are abstractions from a larger psycho-biographical narrative. There are, of course, various ways in which we can abstract periods from a larger biographical narrative and consider them 'single' N-continuous sequences. Each choice involves interpretat ion in that it implies a certain sub-division of the larger narrative. But 1 would resist the jump from interpretation to construction here. The 'raw materials' of any higher-Ievel N­continuous sequence or lower-level subdivision thereof are given independently of any subdivision.

There is an interplay between higher- and lower-Ievel narratives. While on the one hand lower-Ievel narratives contain the

CON1ENT-ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY 93

'raw materials' for higher-level narratives, on the other hand higher­level narratives provide the contexts within which lower-Ievel ones as such make sense. For instance, my thoughts about this chapter acquire their full meaning within the total process of my constructing this book. Without that context an individual thought about this chapter loses its meaning and the intelligibility of its occurrences.

The same goes e.g. for perceptual sequences. The perceptions I have when I walk through the city I live in acquire their intelligibility and their 'meaning' (familiarity) through the context of earlier experiences I had, i.e. a large part of my biography. My experiences of a walk though my city are embedded in a story of how I got where I am. They will therefore be different from the experiences of a tourist who takes the same route simply because the stories that provide the context within which these perceptions occur and become intelligible differ considerably.

It may be relatively uncontested that individual mental states or lower-Ievel narratives acquire meaning and intelligibility within some larger context. But it is also clear that only a relatively small part of what I consider to be the whole of my psychological life is required for the meaning and intelligibility of an individual thought or perception or lower-Ievel narrative. While walking through the city, for instance, I may be heading for the post office to buy stamps in order to send an important letter that is taking up all my attention. How are my thoughts about this letter related to my perceptions? Neither requires the other for their intelligibility or meaning, or so it seems. It is one thing to say that some contents are N-continuous with others, but it is quite another thing to say that alt my contents are thus related. Still, I will insist on some level of N-continuity of nearly all the contents belonging to the psychological life of one person.

4. THE UNITY OF N-CONTINUOUS SEQUENCES. THE ROLE OFlliE BODY

While asserting that practicalIy alI of our psychological contents are N­continuous, I do not mean to say that our mental lives are completely logic al, coherent, 'fluid', and consistently structured wholes. Our conscious thoughts may jump from one topic to another, unrelated one. Our feelings, our moods may change inexplicably. Our own

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associations may now and then be far from transparent to ourselves. And more of ten than not, we are less than fully rational. an top of that, we lase consciousness now and then, so that our mental lives are far from 'continuous' in a temporal sense. In short, as we are made aware of by philosophers who incline towards the post-modernism of the 80's and early 90's, our consciousness seems fragmentary, patchy like a quilt, and, in Dennett's terms, 'gappy' (Dennett 1991a, p. 423). 1 do not intend to contest the gappiness and patchiness of consciousness. What 1 will contest is that these qualities contradict the N-continuity of seemingly unrelated contents.

1 want to argue for the claim that virtually all the mental states of one person are to a certain degree N-continuous. Let me indicate what 1 mean by 'virtually ali mental states' by indicating what kinds of mental states 1 think are not N-continuous with the rest of our mental lives. an reflection, we must conclude that even though our thoughts are not always logically structured, and even though the succes sion of associations, perceptions, etc. is sometimes opaque, they rarely completely fail to be intelligible to us. Still, sometimes they do. An example might be the case of a woman who is pathologically obsessed with the thought that she will harm her baby (Eagle 1988). She has this reoccurring thought, but cannot explain why. Given what she knows about herself-e.g. that she loves her baby-every occurrence of the thought is completely unintelligible to her. The thought simply does not fit into the narrative of her life.

In such extreme cases there is no N-continuity between this thought and the rest of her mental life (though we might yield to the claim of psychoanalysts that in such cases there might be unconscious N-continuity, but 1 will ignore this here). Thus, 1 grant that we can have experiences that are not N-continuous with the rest of our lives. But to this 1 must immediately add that 1 agree with L6w-Beer (1991) who claims that such experiences do not, in a crucial way, contribute to the psychologically continuous life of a person. About cases such as the aforementioned, L6w-Beer claims that "[p]eople do remember these experiences and have strong feelings towards them, but they still do not belong in an important sense to their li ves." (p. 219) While most of our mental states are intelligible to us, at least to a certain extent, there may be pathological instances in which this is not the case. These instances, 1

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would hold, do not contribute to our lives as persons. Far more of ten than these abnormal or pathological cases, we

experience contents that seem unrelated to the context within whieh they occur but whose occurrence is nevertheless intelligible to us. Superficially unrelated thoughts frequently succeed each other. We jump from topic to topie, and most of the time we associate freely rather than think 10gicalIy structured thoughts. Sometimes a certain thought or feeling might strike us at odd moments 'out of the blue.'

But this does not mean that we are surprised alI the time by the succession of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, etc. The tale that is spun by our succeeding psychological contents may sometimes be less than strictly coherent, but this does not make it less of a story. For one thing, though being less than coherent sometimes, it is rarely inconsistent (as it is in the above mentioned case). It is only when contents start to be genuinely inconsistent with their psychological context that we begin to question their 'belonging to us.' For another thing, the intelligibility of a thought or feeling usually draws on previous occurrences of related thoughts or feelings.

More important, however, is the fact that our thoughts and feelings occur against a relatively 'stable' background of an ongoing narrative. What 1 mean is this: despite the fact that our psychologieal lives are sometimes gappy and patchy, there is a basic narrative that is neither patchy nor gappy. This basic narrative is presented-in the case of actual persons (1 will explain this qualification below)-by our consecutive perceptual contents. No doubt other types of content also play a unifying role, but 1 will concentrate on perceptual contents because their unifying role is, 1 think, more transparent than that of any other type.

The stories told by the successive impressions of our senses are, as 1 briefly indicated in the previous section, the complementary stories of a body's movements through space and time and the story of the particular sensory features of its surroundings at consecutive times. Both stories interlock into one story about an objective continuant's successive whereabouts. Take the folIowing two examples:

"To begin with the road was a deep, narrow Iane between a high wall on our left and overgrown hedges on the other side so that it was impossible to see anything as we walked. [ ... ] Further on, the wall on our left was broken

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down so low in plaees that we eould see through it the rieh, rolling green slopes of the valley deeorated with occasional trees."

"1 kept glancing round and just before 1 reaehed the erest of the ridge, 1 looked baek at the farm for what 1 hoped would be the last time. [ ... ] An occasional bark reached me but the farmstead looked completely at peaee in the starlight and 1 hurried ono In a minute the road lay before me gleaming in the faint light. "S

Both quotes describe the same type of event: a person's route through a certain environment. In the first quote, the route of two persons is described by means of a description of the consecutive sense perceptions they have. In the second quote a sequence of perceptions is implied, rather than completely described, by means of a suggestion of the route taken by a person. If we concentrate merely on the information conveyed in these quotes, rather than on their literary functions, the mode in which these events are presented is interchangeable. This is because successive perceptions are the subjective counterpart of the objective event of one body mov ing through space and perceiving its surroundings.

And this is how we interpret our perceptual contents, how we make sense of them: as subjective complements of an objective ongoing story. It is this interpretative framework that endows successive perceptual contents with narrative coherence. That is, succes si ve perceptions acquire narrative coherence in virtue of the fact that we know them to be caused by a body's movements through a stable (not static) physical world with whose character and proceedings we are acquainted. Being able to make sense of the world is a prerequisite for being able to make sense of oneself as an objective continuant in that world.

This is largely in agreement with McDowell (McDowell 1997, p. 233): "continuous 'consciousness' is intelligible (even 'from within') only as a subjective angle on something that has more to it than the subjective angle reveals: namely, the career of an objective continuant ( ... )." As it stands, though, McDowell's claim is stronger than what 1 am after. For one thing, 1 do not want to claim that psychological continuity as a whole requires the continuity of an objective continuant or body. 1 only claim that N-continuity of perceptual contents does. The narrative unity that perceptual contents

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provide, 1 will claim, is necessary but not sufficient for full blown psychological continuity. Furthermore, 1 do not take it as a conceptual truth that the diachronic unity of mind that constitutes personal identity over time-according to a psychological criterion-requires a perceptual narrative for which bodily continuity, in turn, is a prerequisite. It may well be an empirical fact, though, that the diachronic unity of mind of alI actual persons is secured for a large part through bodily continuity.

With these qualifications in mind, and bearing in mind that we are discussing actualIy existing persons, the crucial unifying role of perceptual contents stems from the fact that, in Strawson's words, "( ... ) a temporally extended series of experiences should have a certain character of connectedness and unity, secured to it by concepts of the objective ( ... ). That experience should be experience of a unified objective world at least makes room for the idea of one subjective or experiential route through the world, traced out by one series of experiences which together yield one unified experience of the world­a potential autobiography" (Strawson 1966, p. 193; see also Rosenberg 1986, Cassam 1989, 1993, Evans 1982).

Perceptual contents accompany virtually all of our conscious life. Given that its source, an intelligible world, is a coherent whole to us-space-time- and causally related objects-their sequences cannot be patchy. Finding myself at place a, 1 need not expect to have perceptions of place b 100 miles away within the next ten minutes. The logic of perceptual continuity is our understanding of the whereabouts of our body (sense organs). The whereabouts of our bodies (as we understand them) change according to the laws goveming movements of physical bodies through space. We cannot be here one moment and a hundred miles from here the next. If we go from a to b, we will pass through aU intermediate places separating a and b according to the route we take, thus producing a sequence of perceptions narrating the story of this route (the position of our bodies at different places, the position of our eyes, etc.). The story simply cannot just stop to make room for a different one (unless we like to subdivide our route into different sub-routes, but this is, of course, only a convenient way of grasping the full story). Perceptual continuity, then, cannot be patchy. (And if it appears so, we know we are the victim of an illusion, the

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uncovering of which restores the continuous story).6 Consciousness is gappy, though. Every now and then, mostly

when we go to sleep, we Iose consciousness. Perceptual consciousness, ipso facto, is also gappy. But this does not at alI imply that our perceptual narratives are gappy. Usually we wake up where we went to sleep. The story of our body's movements, then, continues where it was broken off. It is not unimaginable, though, that we wake up somewhere else. In such a case we are either capable of inferring what has happened to us, or we are not. In the first case, we complete the narrative ourselves; in the second case, we know (rather than assume) that there is a part of the narrative that we are not aware of. At any rate, whether we are aware of it or not, the story that is usually told by our perceptual contents-rather than these contents themselves-does not allow for gaps. We may Iose consciousness for a moment, but we cannot Iose our bodies for a moment. Perceptual narratives, then, are incomplete subjective counterparts of complete objective narratives. And this is how we make sense of them.7

As will be c1ear by now, I should like to ascribe a crucial role to the body in the narrative coherence of successive perceptual contents of actual persons. The fact that the one body upon which consecutive perceptual contents are dependent is a physical object whose movements are subject to the regularities of the physical world guarantees the narrative coherence of these contents. For this coherence to yield necessarily, perceptions must not just be caused by or ascribed to one body, they must be perceptions of one body qua content.

This is not to say that an experience of, say, a painting on the wall must involve bits of the body in the visual field (see e.g. Bermudez 1998, Chapter 5). It is to say that the painting must be seen from a particular point of view, revealing the position of the body in the room. Moreover, the experience co-occurs with an awareness of the composure of the body, the position of the eyes relative to the body, etc. Awareness of these facts does not just co-occur contingently. Rather, the direct relation between these facts and the visual experience is exactly what allows us to make sense of the total experience as a whole. I would not know what to make of an experience consisting of feeling my head being tilted back so that I look upwards, while seeing my feet. I would probably conclude that one of the 'components' of

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this experience is illusory. Our perceptual contents are not just 'mental pictures, , smelIs,

sounds, etc. of the world. They are lived experiences of a situated body that expects her visual inputs to change with the turning of her head, that expects sounds to become louder as she approaches their source, etc., and that questions the veridicality of her perceptions or accepts additional assumptions as soon as these expectations are frustrated. Only by conceiving perception thus can we make sense of the meaningful, narrati ve connections between different 'individual' perceptions that constitute, I contend, a basic narrative throughout our psychological lives.

However commonsensical the intuition of an essential connection between a situated body and perceptual contents may seem, P.F. Strawson has devised a thought experiment purporting to show that it is in fact false. Since this connection plays an important part in the conception of psychological continuity I am developing, let me take some space to defuse this thought-experiment.

The experiment is intended to demonstrate the contingent connection between bodies and perceptual contents. Strawson distinguishes between three factors that determine our visual inputs: (1) whether or not our eyelids are open, (2) the position of our bodies, and (3) the position of our eyes relative to our bodies. Strawson's point is that "( ... ) the fact that visual experience is, in alI three ways, dependent on facts about some body or bodies, does not entail that the body should be the same body in each case. It is a contingent fact that it is the same body." (1959, p. 90) In order to substantiate this claim, a thought experiment is conjured up in which the visual experiences of a subject sare made dependent upon features of three bodies, a, b, and c.

Whether s sees anything depends on whether a's eyes are open or closed. Facts about b and care irrelevant in this respect. What s sees is dependent upon facts about b and c, but not about a. The location of b in space is a relevant factor, but the location of c is not. The position of c's eyes is another relevant factor, while the position of b's eyes is of no inf1uence. Strawson c1aims that this counterfactual situation is intelligible. As long as a, b and c's inputs are regarded merely as the causal factors that determine what s sees, he may be right. In our actual situation, the position of our eyelids, of our eyes and of our bodies

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constitute separate inputs, so why not let them be determined by separate bodies?

But if we conceive the role of a, b and c thus, that is, merely as delivering causal inputs for s, the relevant facts about them need not necessarily be those that normally regulate our visual experiences. Why not say that s sees red if c blows his nose? Why not say that s sees anything only if a wiggles his toe? These are causal inputs as well, and they may be wired so as to affect s's visual cortex.

The point of these absurd examples is to illustrate the extreme internalistic nature of Strawson's example. What s sees depends on her causal input, period. Whether or not the external reality determines the inputs so as to produce an experience of an intelligible, coherent world is not regarded as relevant. If, however, it is recognised that the external world is relevant, because it is what s sees-while s interprets her experiences as perceptions of an external world-the example becomes unintelligible. Let me explain this.

The separation of a's 'input' and b and c's 'inputs' does not pose much of a problem. A' s eyelids simply function as a kind of 'switch.' They turn s's sight on and off. But the separation of b and c is not so easy to understand. Suppose b stands in a room about two metres in front of a really large painting. Suppose further that c is located in a different room (a possibility Strawson explicitly allows for, p. 91). If b tums her eyes to the right, this does not affect what s sees. But if c, who does not stand in front of the painting, tums her eyes, s' s sight will be affected. But now the question is how will it be affected? Will s suddenly see the right-hand side of the painting? Probably not, since c is not even in front of it, only b is. And how can s suddenly see the right-hand side if b's eyes are not turned accordingly? But then what changes with c's eye movements? No determinate answer to this question can be given.

As soon as we conceive our visual experiences as being determined not just by internal causal inputs, but by inputs of the part of the world our eyes are fixed on, and as soon as we recognise that we make sense of our perceptions by interpreting them in terms of what they 'depict,' there is no way we can separate the factors that determine our visual inputs.

This point can be made rather easily by stressing the fact that

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the two most relevant factors Strawson separates, precisely have that in common which is essential to their determin ing our visual experiences. The position of the body and the position of the eyes are relevant only in so far as they both determine the same thing: the direction our eyes look, or the part of the world our eyes are fixed ono If the position of the body changes, our eyes focus on different parts of the world; if the position of our eyes relative to the body changes, our eyes focus on different parts of the world. That is what makes both factors relevant to what we see. It is the same thing. And that is why they cannot be separated.

The upshot of this is that intelligible perceptions are, qua contents, perceptions issued by a set of senseorgans tied to one body. Being perceptions of one body is the condition that allows temporally successive, perceptual contents to be narratively interrelated. The narrative coherence of a sequence of intelligible perceptual contents caused by the sense organs of one body, thus, is not a contingent matter.

N-continuous perceptual contents provide our psychological lives with what 1 will call a 'basic narrative.' Perceptual narratives are 'basic' in the sense that they provide a lifelong narrative that is neither patchy nor gappy, but in itself insufficient for full blown psychological continuity. Their start may be fuzzy, since we are not born with the capacity to interpret our sense impressions in terms of their depicting a coherent world-picture. We must learn what the physical world that surrounds us is like, how medium-sized objects move through space, how our impressions change with changes in the place we occupy in space, and, perhaps most importantly, how to integrate our senses (e.g. how the visual impression of distancing ourselves from a source of sound and the decreasing of the sound level are different but related aspects of the same process).

Once these capacities are developed, though, the perceptual narrative normally ends only when our bodies die. AIso, once these capacities are developed, we are able to infer parts of the history of our bodies we forgot or did not even experience. Once 1 know how my sense impressions are related to the way the world works and my being part of it, 1 know that my sense impressions must have 'spelled out' a narrative relating the whereabouts of my body, even when 1 was not

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able to interpret them thus. Hence, the perceptual narrative spans virtually a whole lifetime.

This is not to say that we can remember all or even most of it. Knowing that there is such a narrative, though, that there is a fact of the matter as to what perceptual experiences we have had at which time, is enough either to remember, or to infer a specific simple biographical narrative for each person against the background of which alt and only the mental states of that person occur. It is an elementary thread running through our 'streams of consciousness,' connecting aU its different temporal stages.

N-continuity of perceptual contents secures a minimal degree of N-continuity of almost aU our psychological contents that occur against this background. Non-perceptual mental contents such as beliefs and thoughts do not merely co-occur with perceptual ones, as e.g. Parfit (1984, pp. 250-1) would have it. Thoughts, desires and beliefs may, for instance, be directed at items in a person's direct proximity; 1 may attend to what my conversation partner is saying, my attention may be with a book 1 am reading, 1 may ponder about the quickest way of getting somewhere, 1 may be enjoying a concert, etc. etc. In such cases, it is easy to see how thoughts interrelate with a basic narrative. The same goes for intentions and thoughts concerning our own actions. Such thoughts can only be thought against a background that encompasses our present whereabouts and relate that to a future place and time-specified or unspecified-at which an action is anticipated to take place.

But even when thoughts, beliefs and desires do not concern a person's actions or direct environment, there are almost always conceptual, evidential or biographical ties to the subject' s basic narrative. Conceptual ties stern from the fact that successive perceptions yield a basic narrative in virtue of our acquaintance with a stable physical world-including our bodies-and its basic regularities. My belief that the Eifel towel is in Paris implies that it is about 600 kilometres from where 1 am now, that it'lI take me about 4 hours by train to get there, etc. There are evidential connections between beliefs and a basic narrative, sirnply because whenever there is perceptual evidence for a belief, a perception will also fit in and be part of a larger basic narrative. Biographical connections between ones beliefs and

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desires and ones basic narrative, finally, stern from the fact that a basic narrative, being a major constituent of a biography, encompasses ones experiences and hence determines ones beliefs as far as their experiential input goes. Thus, a basic narrative infuses most of our other thoughts, beliefs, and desires.

Our thoughts, beliefs and desires on the one hand and our basic narrative on the other are mutually dependent upon each other when full blown N-continuity is concerned. A basic narrative is necessary but insufficient for full psychological continuity. It needs to be supplemented with beliefs, desires, thoughts, motives for actions, values, etc. for that. Conversely, however, a basic narrative secures a degree of diachronic coherence between ones thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc. that is sufficient for these mental states to be narratively continuous in at least one elementary sense. This is the import of a basic narrative: it secures the N -continuity of our mental states such that there is an significant sense in which the psychologica1 life of a person is one narrative, despite the fact that there are many senses in which a person's life consists of various unconnected narratives.

Up till now I have described the basic narrative in terms of perceptual contents linked to one body. Since N-continuity requires a basic narrative, it might seem, therefore, that N-continuity necessarily requires bodily continuity. Or worse, N-continuity might seem to be bodily continuity supplemented with a number of psychological sub­narratives. I wish to defend N-continuity as a psychological criterion of personal identity, however, not a covert bodily one. So what reason is there to concentrate on the psychological counterpart of bodily continuity rather than bodily continuity itself?

The answer to this question is that there is no conceptual link between bodily continuity and the diachronic unifying role of the basic narrative. This becomes clear when we turn from actual psychological continuity to hypothetical cases.

Take a hypothetical case in which the brain of a person is transplanted in another body. If bodily continuity is a necessary prerequisite for a basic narrative which is a necessary prerequisite for N-continuity, then in such a case there would be a breach in narrative psychological continuity. However, while acknowledging that bodily continuity and the perceptual narrative framework it implies plays a

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crucially important unifying role in the narrative psychologicai continuity of actual persons, nothing said so far precludes that this role is played-for a brief period anyway-by some other psychological mechanism.

It would seem, 1 admit, that there will be a breach in the narrative continuity of the mental contents that supervene on the transplanted brain, when the person to whom it belongs before the operation is not informed of the operation beforehand. The perceptual and proprioceptual contents after the operation, for example, will not fit into the psychological context that is made up fully of contents the 'old' body acquired. But intuitively it would seem that if the person and her peers would be informed beforehand of the operation, the fact that she will expect the change of perceptual input and will be confirmed by her peers that she is stiU the same person after the operation will prevent a true breach of narrative continuity. Knowledge of the brain-transplantation, in such a case, might temporarily provide the basic narrative where normally awareness of ones bodily whereabouts does this.

Let me stress that the point here is not that in cases such as brain transplantation information does take over the role of the body in providing a basic narrative. This, it seems to me, is largely an empirical matter. Whether or not a mind will dis integrate when a person is tampered with in such a way that a mental structure as basic as the one provided by bodily continuity will be absent, even though she is informed beforehand, is hard to tell. The suggestion that armchair philosophy may provide an answer is in my opinion an overestimation of philosophy's merits and an underestimation of those of clinical psychology. The point, however, is that it is far from inconceivable that a basic narrative is provided by a mechanism other than the coherence of perceptual states caused by one body. There is no conceptual connection between N-continuity and the continuity of one body.

Roughly speaking, then, bodily continuity is a non-redundant part of a non-necessary but sufficient condition for there being a basic narrative, which in turn is a necessary but insufficient condition for there being full narrative continuity. But since bodily continuity may weB turn out not to be necessary for a basic narrative, narrative continuity including the basic narrative that provides its basic structure

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is a form of psychological continuity that cannot be replaced by bodily continuity. And this is true even when, as 1 think is the case, psychological N-continuity in the case of all actually existing persons is co-produced by the continuity of only one body per person.

5. N-CONTINUITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONNECfEDNESS

So far, 1 have developed a sketch of what 1 labelled 'N-continuity.' How does this kind of psychological continuity combine with what Parfit labelled 'psychological connectedness'? 1 will defend the following two claims: (i) a person stage's awareness of its N-continuity with other person stages requires psychological connectedness, even though N-continuity itself is independent of connectedness, (ii) psychological connectedness presupposes N-continuity. While speaking of psychological connectedness, 1 will focus mainly on memory.

(i) N-continuity is not strict1y speaking dependent upon connectedness. Our awareness of it, however, is. As 1 described it, N­continuity consists in the fact that mental contents require a diachronic context of other contents in order for them to have their full meaning and for their occurrence to be intelligible. Such a context consists of previous experiences, beliefs, hopes, thoughts, etc., to some of which a new content must have some kind of narrative, meaningful connection. That is, a new content must take some 'story' about an embodied, self­interpreting and (therefore-see e.g. Taylor 1985, 1989) socialised being one step further in order to be N-continuous with such a context.

It is important to note that the diachronic context of a given mental state may or may not be represented along with that mental state. If not, the 'subject' wiU not be aware of the N-continuity of this mental state with earlier mental states. Nor wiU she be aware of the full content of the mental state at issue, insofar as this is dependent upon the conscious combination of the mental state and representations of the relevant previous context. However, sin ce in such a case there is always the hypothetical possibility that the past context will be represented in the present co-temporal context of the mental state-in which case the full content of this mental state will be accessible since it can be seen how that state is N-continuous with what went on before-there is stiU N-continuity.

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For us to be aware of such a narrative connection, then, it is required that at the moment of occurrence of this new content, the previous experiences, beliefs, hopes, thoughts, etc. that constitute the relevant diachronic context must in one way or another be represented in the present synchronic context. One may call the representation of this context a kind of memory, or one may caU it a kind of belief­retention. In any case the connection between the retained beliefs, recoUected experiences, etc. and their antecedents is a form of psychological connectedness.

(ii) The dependence of connectedness on N-continuity will be less than obvious to most philosophers. As we saw in the previous chapter, memory, for instance, is of ten conceived merely as the causal connection between an experience and its recollection. Where is the narrativity? Where are the allegedly required connections between qualitatively dissimilar contents? Why should they be necessary?

In order to begin to answer these questions, we might start by concentrating on the information conveyed in memory and the way this information is different from that given in the original experience. A memory cannot completely resemble the experience it recoUects. Whereas an experience represents certain states of affairs to be the case now, a memory of that experience should represent these states of affairs as being the case then (see e.g. Evans 1982, p. 239). What is more, with the passing of time the propositional contents of the beliefs involved in experience and memory change like this: 'It is Y now' (original experience); 'It was Y a moment ago' (recollection shortly after the experience); 'It was Y a while back' (recollection long after the experience), etc. (lbid. P.236). These contents have to change in this order to keep one identical memory ali ve. (A similar point can be made about intentions; see e.g. Shoemaker 1984, p. 95).

The order in which the (propositional)8 contents of experiences and memories thereof change over time can properly be called 'narrative.' They must change in an order that fits the 'story' of a person' s temporally distancing herself from an original experience. The point here is that memory itself involves a narrative sequence of beliefs that are held at different moments in time. If one experience is consciously remembered, say, at four occasions that are each two years apart ("x happened two years ago," "x happened four years ago,"

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etc.), then none of the thoughts representing the memory can be replaced by the thought representing one of the other three instances of the same memory; each instance is appropriate only at a specific time, despite the fact that aH instances are of the same memory.

The appropriateness of a particular instance of a memory translates into-and is secured by-the way in which a memory fits into its psychological context. The complex of ones other memories, the beliefs one has acquired concerning ones general biography and ones present perceptual inputs all combine into a frame of mind that represents ones present consciousness as a particular stage in the psycho-biographical (basic) narrative of ones life. This alIows one to be aware of an (estimated) temporal distance between the moment one is conscious of a particular memory and the past moment in which one had the experience one is remembering. Thus, it allows one to express and think of one memory in different conceptual terms at different times.

In much the same way in which the propositional content of a particular memory at a particular time is 'controlIed' by a person' s (basic) psychological narrative, alI instances of ones beliefs that have a temporalIy indexed content are so controlled as well. No doubt I had the belief that "Carter is the president of the U.S." in 1976 while I now have the belief that "Carter was the president of the U.S. back in 1976." These beliefs represent the same state of affairs. But since this state of affairs is located at a specific point in time, I relate myself different1y to it at different times. And that requires me to represent myself or my present consciousness as a being at a certain point in time, so-and-so long after the state of affairs was the case. Here too the conceptual form in which a temporally indexed state of affairs is represented in a belief is 'controlled' by ones overalI (basic) narrative.

So far, I have concentrated on one way psychological connectedness in Parfit' s sense requires and contributes to N­continuity. But there is another way in which connectedness is intertwined with N-continuity. Take memory (again). Of ten memories are not given to us as simple connections between single experiences and a recolIections. I remember for instance that I used to go to school by bicyc1e, that I had a happy childhood, that I used to play the piano, etc. These are not memories of particular events. Rather, they

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summarise numerous events that abstract from and generali se over a larger part of my psycho-biography. 1 know that 1 went to a lot of movies last summer, but 1 don't know how many. It is not correct to say that this memory is constituted by as much connections as movies that 1 saw, for there is nothing in its phenomenology that would change had 1 seen a few mov ies more or less (Schechtman 1994b, pp. 8-9).

Although of ten hardly distinguishable, other such kinds of 'memory management' are conf1ation and condensation. In conf1ation and condensation, events experienced at different moments are respectively remembered more or less as co-temporal, or their temporal boundaries are not taken into account in the state of recollection. The phenomena of memory-summarisation, condensation, and conf1ation are far more common than the debate on personal identity has taken notice of (Schechtman (1994b) quotes several empirical psychological experiments (Barsalou 1988, Neisser 1981, Barclay & DeCooke 1988, Ross 1989) that confirm their frequent and necessary occurrence, and their everyday character). In my terms, these types of memory concern characterisations or specific features of larger bits of ones psycho­biographical narrative continuity. They establish and guard our grasp of the narratives of our lives, something which is not taken into account by the usual one-dimensional picture of memory as a causally produced one-to-one relation of qualitative similarity.

Here too, narrativity does not seem to be merely an optional aid to memory, it is crucial. By sketching a life story, remembered events cannot only be given a 'place' because they have a context, they can have the content, the meaning they have for us precisely because of this context. Moreover, many experiments show that the coherence between experiences, memories and their context is precisely a prerequisite for our capacity to store and retain these memories. We remember by means of narratives. Needless to say, perhaps, these narratives are normally constructed at least in part in terms of one body's subsequent experiences. It is not surprising, then, that psychological theories of memory are being developed in which embodiment is considered to be a requirement for the possibility and function of memory altogether (Johnson 1987, Lakoff 1987, Lakoff & Johnson 1980).

Up till this section, 1 have not portrayed N-continuity as a

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competitor to the Parfitian conception of psychological continuity defined in terms of overlapping chains of psychological connectedness. Now it is time alter that position slightly but crucially. 1 continue to hold that psychological connectedness is something over and above N­continuity, so that the former cannot be explained in terms of the latter; there is no possibility of such reduction whatsoever. Thus, there is something like peaceful coexistence of N-continuity and psychological connectedness. However, e-·/en though psychological connectedness is something over and above N-continuity, 1 have argued that the former does require the latter; there can be no memory, for instance, without narrative continuity (see also Section 2 of the next chapter). And that means that psychological continuity defined in terms of overlapping chains of psychological connectedness itself presupposes N-continuity. Parfitian continuity, then, cannot stand on its own feet, so to speak. The reverse is not true. Though awareness of N-continuity requires connectedness, N-continuity itself does not.

It is not true, then, that N-continuity and Parfitian continuity simply highlight different aspects of our mental lives independently of each other. Parfitian continuity implicitly presupposes N-continuity while the reverse is not the case. 1 am inclined, therefore, to favour N­continuity as a possible analysis of personal identity over Parfitian continuity on this basis alone. In the next chapter, however, 1 will argue that there is another very powerful argument for favouring N­continuity over Parfitian continuity: unlike Parfitian continuity (see the previous chapter), N-continuity can truly solve the five problems of Chapter 2.

6. SUMMARY

The aim of this chapter was to sketch the out1ines of a conception of psychological continuity in terms of the contents of the psychological lives of persons only, one that can take the essential embeddedness of continuous mental contents in psychological and objective contexts into account. 1 argued for the following claims:

(i) We must distinguish between psychological continuity conceived in terms of the overlapping of chains of

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psychological connectedness and psychological continuity based on the fact that mental states require a context of qualitatively dis similar states for their full content and the intelligibility of their occurrence. I have labelled the latter kind N(arrative)-continuity.

(ii) Most of the psychological contents associated with one body contribute to one N-continuous 'stream of consciousness,' despite the fact that much of our 'singular' N-continuous processes-thoughts, deliberations, associations, etc.­frequently appear dissociated. In the case of real people, this is due to the fact that such processes occur against the stable and continuous background of a perceptual narrative, relating the story of a body' s movements through space-time. This 'basic narrative' acquires its continuity from the intelligibility of objective physical reality and our bodies being part of it. Bodily continuity is a non-redundant part of a sufficient (but 10gicalIy non-necessary) condition for there being a basic narrative, which in turn is a necessary but insufficient condition for there being full narrative continuity.

(iii) Awareness of N-continuity requires psychological connectedness; N-continuity as such does not require connectedness. Psychological connectedness both requires and contributes to N-continuity.

-5-

A PSYCHOLOGICAL CRI1ERION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY:

THE FIVE PROBLEMS REVISI1ED

1. IN1RODUCTION

My claim in this chapter is that the description of psychological continuity in terms of intertwining psychological connectedness and N­continuity, developed in the previous chapter, yields an analysis of the concept of personal identity. There are roughly two ways of defending this claim. First, one may argue that the theory of psychological continuity developed in the previous chapter is better at accounting for the four features (Chapter 2, Section 2) than Parfitian continuity. Secondly, unlike Parfitian continuity the new description of psychological continuity might be argued to be able to deal with the five problems for a psychological criterion of personal identity described in Chapter 2. I shall opt for the second possibility (see Schechtman 1996 for a very interesting discussion that resembles the first option). 1 will discuss each of the problems outlined in Chapter 2 in turn and argue that the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity implies solutions to these problems in which no reference needs to be made to the substrata of mental contents.

The purpose of this exercise is twofold. On the one hand it shows that there is no need to conceive psychological continuity in terms of causally related brain states. We do not need to do this because there is another, better way of solving the five problems than by appealing to substrata. On the other hand of course, as a corollary, the exercise of readdressing the five problems is meant to show that a content-oriented conception of psychological continuity can 'stand on its own feet,' so to speak. It does not require a specific ontology of mind.

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By this 1 do not mean to be neutra! with regard to the question whether or not the mind is instantiated in the brain. 1 am not advocating substance dualism. 1 am aware that denying psychological atomism and CCR (Chapter 3) while at the same time claiming that the physical realisation of the mental provides a perfect backing for these doctrines (Chapter 2, Section 9) obliges me to reassess the mind-brain relation. 1 will do this in the next chapters.

But let me first show why the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity can stand on its own feet by showing how it can solve the five problems without an appeal to substrata.

2. CIRCULARITY, Q-MEMORY, AND N-CONTINUITY

The first notable advantage of the content-oriented description of psychological continuity is that it can cope with the circularity objection. Although it is not able to eliminate circularity in the definition of memory altogether, the remaining circularity will not be vicious. Moreover, since the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity does not analyse psychological continuity in terms of memory, the remaining circularity will not affect an analysis of personal identity in terms of psychological continuity. This is probably the most important feature of the content-oriented conception, since, as in the case of the substratum-oriented conception, the way in which the content-oriented description deals with the circularity problem provides a model for dealing with at least three of the other four problems. Before discussing how N-continuity can evade the circularity problem, though, let me first connect the criticism of the Q-memory solution to the circularity problem with the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity for the sake of completeness.

The circularity objection is directed first and foremost at particular kinds of psychological connectedness. It is directed at psychological continuity only given a Parfitian analysis of continuity in terms of connectedness. The objection was advanced, originally, by Butler against Locke's (alleged) memory criterion of personal identity. Parfit has added other kinds of psychological connections in his version of the psychological criterion. Shoemaker has even added some types of what 1 call N-continuity-though not the most important; the basic

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narrative of perceptual contents is left out. Still, even in Shoemaker' s writings, the objection is focused almost exclusively on memory, exceptions being other kinds of connectedness, such as intention. The circularity objection, then, is directed not at the entire Parfitian­Shoemakerian psychological criterion. But since in both criteria (in fact in all contemporary psychological criteria) memory is an integral part, this does not make it a less serious obstac1e.

The objection states that a veridical memory can be defined in terms of three requirements (once again):

(1) 1 am presently in a state as if remembering having a specific experience,

(2) The content of that state is qualitatively identic al with or very similar to a past experience,

(3) 1 had that experience.

Requirement (3) introduces personal identity into the definition of veridical memory. Therefore, veridical memory presupposes what it is meant to .constitute. The ParfitlShoemaker solution consists in replacing (3) with:

(4) My memory is causally dependent, in the right kind of way, on the past experience that is qualitatively identic al or similar to my memory.

In Chapter 3, 1 have argued that (1), (2), and (4) do not make for a complete definition of memory. Scrutiny of some hypothetical cases of Q-memory that (1), (2), and (4) allow for, shows that what is crucially lacking in such a definition of memory is what 1 called a 'context continuity requirement.' That is, (1), (2), and (4) do not secure, yet presuppose without specifying for each person stage in which a memory is instantiated, the presence of a psychological context that is co-instantiated with that memory and that given any plausible degree of holism allows the memory to retain enough of the original experience's content and hence retain its epistemic merits.

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In Chapter 4, 1 have sketched the outlines of a conception of psychological continuity based on the 'narrative' interconnection of mental contents. 1 have also argued that there are different ways in which connectedness presupposes this N-continuity. Here 1 would like to indicate another very important way in which one type of connectedness-memory-is dependent upon N-continuity. For N­continuity, 1 would like to claim, is crucial in securing the kind of psychological context for memories that allows them to retain their content and epistemic entitlements. It is indispensable in explaining how the context continuity requirement of Chapter·3 is fulfilled.

To be sure, how each memory acquires the appropriate context cannot be explained in terms of N-continuity alone. For one thing, a large portion of such a context, including all relevant bits, will be dependent upon further memories or other kinds of psychological connectedness. Since the full content of an original experience itself is co-determined by its psychological context, a part of that context needs to be represented in the context of its recollection as weB. Such representation need not consist in exact duplication, though. For instance, Paul's memory of seeing Palladio's San Giorgio, requires (e.g.) other Venetian memories in order for him to believe that he has actually been to Venice and saw the real thing and his memory of San Giorgio is not a Q-memory. But such other memories need not be very specific and may well be represented by a long since embedded thought, "1 have visited Venice in 19 ... "( So where does narrative continuity come in?

The essential role of narrative continuity is that it determines and delineates the experiences and bits of knowledge to be potentially represented in the context via memory or other kinds of connectedness. Each recollection requires a highly specific context, as is argued in Chapter 3. Such a context is framed largely through psychological connections by means of which past states of mind are represented as the relevant bits of the psychological context of a given memory that bring out its full content. But in order for such psychological connections to be there, the relevant past states of mind need to have occurred and be stored in the brain so as to be retrievable. On any of the contemporary atomistic conceptions of psychological continuity, there is no reason whatsoever and hen ce no guarantee at alI that, indeed,

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such states of mind have occurred and are stored. an the narrative, content-oriented conception of psychological continuity, by contrast, there is something close to such a guarantee.

That is, since N-continuity is characterised precisely in terms of the coherence of mental contents and the fact that continuous mental states require each other for their full content, there is at least the guarantee that the states of mind to be represented in the context of a memory have indeed occurred. Thus, if a state of recollection of x is N­continuous with experience x, a crucial necessary condition is fulfilled for that recollection being a veridical memory of x, a condition that cannot be fulfilled in an atomistic conception of psychological continuity-the context continuity requirement of Chapter 3, Section 6.

Now it seems there is still the option that there is N-continuity between an experience and a recollection while the required psychological connections between the context of experience and the context of recollection are absent. Thus, N-continuity, it seems, is still notenough to satisfy the context continuity requirement. However, in Such a case there would not be a true memory at alI on the model defended in the previous chapter. For in the absence of an appropriate psychological context, to count a mental state as a memory nevertheless is precisely to adopt the psychological atomism that was rejected. The point is that allowing a certain degree of synchronic mental holism with regard to experiences and recollections forces us to view memory as a kind of psychological connection between aggregates of mental states rather than 'single' mental states.

The relation between such aggregates need not be a one to one relation of identical aggregates. Again, as in the case of the Palladian memory, a context may well be represented by 'summaries' of experiences or otherwise abstracted bits of self-knowledge. Such summaries may have evolved e.g. as a result of the frequent recurring of a number of other memories. N-continuity thus aIIows us to conceive the interconnection between aggregates of mental states that are constitutive of a memory not just in terms of plain psychological connectedness, but also in terms of interweaving pattems of memories, beliefs and self-knowledge securing the right contexts to bring out a memory' s full content, even though that context is likely to differ from the context of the remembered experience. The picture is one of a

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diachronic mental holism, so to speak, rather than one of causally connected time slices of synchronously holistic frames of mind.

In view of the fact that N-continuity helps to explain how the context continuity requirement is fulfilled, a requirement that a Q­memory definition cannot fulfil, my proposal would be to supplement a definit ion of memory in terms of (1), (2), and (4) with:

(5) My state of remembering must be N-continuous with that past experience.

A seeming recollection of an experience is a veridical memory only if the state of recollection and the original experience are part of the same psychological narrative of an embodied, acting, self-interpreting and sociali sed being. (The same conclusion, by the way, can also be drawn on the basis of the ways in which psychological connectedness/memory requires N-continuity spelled out in Section 5 of the previous chapter).

An advantage of a characterisation of memory in terms of (1), (2), (4), and (5) over one in which (5) is lacking, is that it leaves room for and explains the actual epistemic criteria for veridicality of memory. On a Q-memory characterisation of veridical memory, it is quite unclear how we are supposed to assess the veridicality of our own memories. As far as the characterisation in terms of (1), (2), and (4) goes, assessing the veridicality of a given memory is assessing the causal origins of that memory. Quite obviously, though, this is something we can't assess directly. It may or may not be true that by assessing the veridicality of a memory we are in fact assessing its causal origins, but we certainly can't assess its veridicality through assessing its causal origins. For in day to day life there is just no way of tracing the causes of any given mental state or brain state. I take this to be self-evident.

A definition of veridical memory that incorporates (5), by contrast, explains the generally coherentist epistemic criteria for veridicality we normally employ with regard to our memories. To determine whether or not what seems like a memory really is one, we can do little more than determine whether the belief that we had the experience we appear to remember coheres with and is sustained by other beliefs and memories, as well as beliefs of other people (e.g. people who were around at the time we had the experience) and

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extern al facts (e.g. photo albums, county registers etc.). Such a criterion is not watertight, of course. But it is rather ac curate in practice and the only feasible criterion we have.

This coherence can only be the criterion it actually is, when it is a feature of our past psychological lives that they are structured in a specific way so that e.g. certain experiences can and others cannot fit into it. N-continuity involves such a structure: very roughly, the biographical narrative of an embodied, socialised, self-interpreting (human) 'being.'2 Any representation of such a narrative puts rather severe constraints on which psychological states we could have had in the past. This contrasts sharply with an atomistic conception of psychological continuity according to which roughly anything goes. This, it seems to me, is an extra argument for patching up a Q-memory definition of memory with (5).

Now the possibility may seem to open up of avoiding the circularity objection against a psychological criterion of personal identity that involves memory by means of a definition of memory in terms of (1), (2), (4), and (5). However, there are two considerations that count against that option and for the option of taking N-continuity itself to be the criterion of personal identity.

On the one hand, the addition of (5) to a definition of memory yields a much more elaborate criterion of personal identity than memory theorists have in mind. Now it turns out that if memory is co-constitutive of personal identity, N-continuity is co-constitutive of it as well. But while memory presupposes N-continuity in an sorts of ways, the reverse is not true. Memory is required for us to be aware of the fact that our present mental make up is N-continuous with the mental make up of former person stages (if we cling to that idiom), but it is not required for N-continuity itself (see Chapter 4, Section 5). Memory itself is not enough to constitute personal identity, for it is not a transitive relation. Parfit therefore forged a conception of continuity out of psychological connections such as memory. But if memory already presupposes another kind of psychological continuity, we may as weB skip memory altogether and stick to that continuity as a criterion of personal identity. Insisting on memory on top of N-continuity as a criterion of personal identity is to ignore the principle of simplicity for any explanation.

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A second and more compelling reason for considering N­continuity rather than memory the criterion of personal identity is that it allows us to do justice to a three formerly incompatible philosophical intuitions. Originally, Butler's circularity objection merely cIaimed that Locke conflated an epistemological criterion of personal identity, which he agreed memory to be, with an ontological one (Noonan 1989, p. 68). That is one intuition. A second, related one, is that memory and personal identity are intertwined in such a way that it is impossible to define memory completely in abstraction of personal identity; to argue circularity away completely is to misinterpret Locke and misconceive the nature of memory (see e.g. McDowell 1997, Shoemaker 1959). The third intuition is simply the intuition that personal identity stands in need of a psychological criterion.

In aU contemporary versions of the psychological criterion of personal identity, the third intuition appears to cIash with the former two. But not if we accept N-continuity as a criterion of personal identity. Obviously N-continuity fits the third intuition. But it also fits the other two.

Memory is required for us to be aware of the fact that our present state of mind is N-continuous with former ones. It is an epistemic criterion for N-continuity, then. Hence, if personal identity is constituted by N-continuity, memory is, indeed, an epistemic criterion of personal identity. It is not, however, an ontological criterion of N­continuity. N-continuity is in itself independent of whether or not we remember previous person stages. Hence, we may agree with Butler, that to c1aim that memory constitutes personal identity is to conflate an epistemological criterion with an ontological one.

As to the ineliminable circularity, 1 have argued above that memory requires and presupposes N-continuity. If N-continuity constitutes personal identity, then memory presupposes personal identity, as McDoweU, Shoemaker and-arguably-Locke claimed. There is some circularity, then, in memory as an epistemic criterion of personal identity. But precisely because memory is only an epistemic criterion of personal identity, this circularity is not vicious. That is, since N-continuity-which is presupposed by memory-is not itself co­constituted by memory, memory does not presuppose itself the way it would presuppose itself when it is held to constitute and presuppose

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personal identity. The circularity with regard to memory that remains in this proposal is entirely harmless.

So these are two important reasons for preferring N-continuity as an ontological criterion of personal identity over memory-cum-N­continuity and for considering memory a mere epistemological criterion. But how plausible is N-continuity as an ontological criterion for, or an analysis of personal identity?

1 think it is extremely plausible. First, to explain what N­continuity is about, we do not have ta have recourse ta the concept of personal identity; the concept of N-continuity does not presuppose the concept of personal identity. Second, it seems that once we have spelled out aU the facts about the N-continuity between two 'person stages' or mental states, there is no remaining open question with regard to the co­personality of these stages or states. It doesn't make sense to ask whether two temporally distinct mental states that are part of the same ongoing coherent psycho-biography unified by a basic narrative issued from the fact that these mental states are linked with one continuous body are states of the same person. For it would be entirely unclear what further fact we are asking for here. There is no theoretical function to be played by this alleged further fact. It is therefore reasonable to consider N-continuity an analysis of personal identity.

The fact that we can really get rid of the circularity objection by accepting this analysis, is, 1 think, a strong reason for considering N­continuity a good psychological criterion for personal identity. So let us see whether it can deal with the other four problems.

3. NARRATIVITY AND LOGICAL FORM

The second problem facing the neo-Lockean description of psychological continuity mentioned in Chapter 2 is the problem of logical form. As with the former problem, 1 will argue that (1) this problem emerges precisely because psychological continuity is defined in terms of psychological connectedness, and (2) it can be solved by replacing connectedness-based psychological continuity with N­continuity.

The problem of logical form comes in two guises, one based on the apparent non-transitivity of psychological connectedness, the

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other on the fact that psychological connectedness admits of degrees. Let me start by discussing transitivity.

The charge of non-transitivity accuses theories of personal identity based on psychological connectedness of not being able to endow the psychological relation that is allegedly constitutive of personal identity with the transitivity that is characteristic of an identity relation. Therefore, psychological connectedness cannot analyse personal identity. This charge can be levelled against any view that construes psychological continuation merely in terms of psychological connectedness without further additions.

As we have seen, neo-Lockeans have found a way of circumventing this problem. While psychological connectedness itself is non-transitive, a relation of overlapping chains of (strong) connectedness definitely is transitive. If a person-stage at t 3 is (strongly) connected by means of memory to a person-stage at t2, and that person­stage at t2 is (strongly) connected by means of memory to a stage at t" this does not mean that the stage at t3 is necessarily connected with the stage at ti: none of the memories connecting the stages at t 3 and t2 may be identic al with the memories connecting t2 and ti' If the memories connecting the three person-stages overlap during a certain period of time which includes t2' however, the t3 stage certainly is continuous with the ti stage.

A first problem with this approach is that the relation between distinct person-stages that holds in virtue of overlapping chains of connectedness might well be an indirect relation (Schechtman 1996, 29). One person-stage need not have conscious access to an earlier person-stage in order to be continuous with it, it is sufficient for the later person-stage to be strongly connected with (have conscious access to) an intermediate person-stage that is strongly connected with (has conscious access to) the earlier person-stage. Such indirectness clearly cannot be a feature of strict-identity relations. The transitivity implied by an identity relation is such that if c relates to a because c relates to b

which in turn relates to a, the relations between a and b, b and c, and a and care not different in kind: ali are identity relations. Although this does not amount to a full-fledged objection, it raises an important issue. If possible an account of psychological continuity should be able to deal with it.

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The main problem with the neo-Lockean transitivity account is the notion of 'overlapping.' The idea of overlapping chains of connectedness rests on these chains co-occurring at distinct times in someone' s mind. It therefore presupposes an account of the unity of mind at one point in time. Parfit does virtualIy nothing to come up with such an account (and is reproached for this, see e.g. Oaklander 1987) except simply describe the relation of distinct contents at one point in time as 'co-occurring in a single state of awareness.' As 1 said, this can hardly be called an explanation of the unity of consciousness and doesn't take into account at alI the unconscious contents we harbour at a point in time.

In fact, though, Parfit implicitly uses a perfectly clear criterion for the unity of mind at one point in time: their co-occurrence in one brain. What is wrong with this criterion was outlined in Section 7 of Chapter 3. The causal-physical unity of the brain in itself leaves out the coherence and consistency of mental contents required for the unity of mind at one point in time. Although it is more than likely that such coherence and consistency presupposes the physical unity of a brain, such physical unity does not in itself imply the required coherence and is thus not sufficient for the unity of mind in the sense sought for.

My claim is that N-continuity can account for the overlapping of chains of connected contents in particular and the unity of mind in general in a much deeper and phenomenologically more ac curate way than Parfit' s implicit criterion can. Moreover, it can avoid the indirectness of transiti vity relations implied by Parfit' s mere overlapping of chains of connectedness.

Psychological connectedness and N-continuity intertwine. Connectedness-e.g. memory-requires N-continuity and contributes to our awareness of it. Memories, intentions and the retention of e.g. beliefs are relations of qualitative similarity between mental contents that become intelligible against a narratively changing background. As 1 argued earlier, the propositional contents of memories, for instance, must change in accordance with my temporalIy distancing myself from the remembered event. AIso, my capacity for remembering is enhanced or even made possible in the first place by my capacity to relate remembered events to an overarching narrative, my biography.

Viewed in this way, the overlapping of chains of connected

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contents can be conceptualised not just as their temporal overlapping, but more important1y as their being intelligible against the background, and contributing to the same part of a larger narrative. Thus, overlapping of chains of (strong) connectedness becomes something more than just co-occurrence. It is not just the occurrence of these contents at the same time in the same brains that counts, it is also their meaningful, intelligible relation of being part of and fitting into the same overall narrative or psycho-biography. The internal coherence of e.g. beliefs and memories held at one time thus becomes not just an optional extra, but an essential prerequisite for the overlapping of the respective chains of connectedness of which they are a part.

This way of conceiving the overlapping of chains of connectedness is, I think, an improvement on Parfit' s. Like Parfit' s, it secures transitivity, because it is an account of overlapping of chains of connectedness. But the notion of narrativity or intelligible succes sion of contents can itself be put to use. It not only allows for transitivity by providing a background against which chains of connectedness can overlap, it provides for transitivity itself. I explained the sense in which N-continuity of a person's mental contents yields one story in Section 4 of the previous chapter. The relation between different parts of one story is a transitive one. The beginning of a story is narratively related to the middle, which is in turn narratively related to the end. These two relations comprising one story are transitive: the beginning and end are narratively related.

Narrative transitivity is a richer and, I think, intuitively more plausible account of the transitivity involved in psychological continuation. One of the important things that makes it plausible is that, unlike the neo-Lockean account, it does not imply the indirectness of many relations between mental contents had at times that are no longer connected by memory. It does not make much sense to speak of direct or indirect narrative relatedness. If we forget part of the narrative of our lives, this does not make these parts less related to our present states. We are related to past stages we have forgotten about because these past stages are part of the story that tells how we have become what we are now.

This point does not apply to the remote past only. It is, for example, rarely the case that while having a conversation we can

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remember the first few sentences that started it. Yet these sentences are the ones that set off the train of sentences that led up to the point in the conversation one finds oneself in. They are narratively (in my restricted sense) related to this present point. It would be misleading or even ridiculous to say that these first sentences are only indirectly related to the present stage of the discussion.

Conscious access or accurate memory is simply not the right criterion for direct relatedness. Without the notion of narrativity, however, it might be the only one. With that notion there is no need for (and sense to be made of) a distinction between direct and indirect relatedness. Narrative transitivity, thus, is a much better approximation of identity-transitivity than overlapping chain-transitivity.

This connects closely with the issue of degree, the second problem of logical form that faces psychological continuation analyses of personal identity. The problem of degree, to repeat, is this: while relations of identity are alI or nothing, psychological continuation can admit of degrees.

Again, this point is directed at psychological connectedness, which is indeed considered by e.g. Parfit (1984, p.206) to be of much more importance to personal identity than continuity. Psychological connectedness admits of degrees-we can remember more or less of our previous person-stages. Psychological continuity does not, strictly speaking, admit of degrees. But since what matters in personal identity, according to a near consensus, is the preservation of certain beliefs, values, character traits, memories, etc.-in short, psychological connectedness-the issue of degrees is applicable also to theories that define continuity in terms of connectedness.

Parfit' s option here, as we have seen, is to bite the bullet and become a revisionist: the fact that connectedness holds in degrees is just a fact of life we have to deal with. If it does not fit our preconceptions about personal identity in relation with ethics and rationality, then that is just too bad for these preconceptions.

If we do not accept this counterintuitive response, there will be something very implausible in the neo-Lockean conception of personal identity analysed in terms of relations of overlapping connectedness. Suppose person-stage P 1 holds a certain set of beliefs, desires and values. Suppose further that over a considerable period of time the

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person of whom Pl was a stage has changed most of these beliefs, desires and values, gradually and consciously, that is as the result of deliberation, evolution, or 'discovering her true self.' Thus, a much later person-stage P2 that is continuous with Pl holds a considerably different set of beliefs, desires and values. For the sake of the argument, we may also assume that P2 has forgotten most things about Pl> even though she has memories of intermediate stages. According to a psychological connectedness criterion, P2 is a different person than Pl' When did she become a different person? Well, when she failed to be strongly connected to Pl' This might well have been a matter of losing just one more memory, one more irrelevant belief, or one more petty desire. But that leads to the absurd consequence that "abatement of an annoyance could be a death sentence". (Schechtman 1996, 44) Are we then faced by the unattractive choice between this absurdity and Parfitian revisionism? I think not, because there is a third option.

This third option is to introduce the narrative model of psychological continuity. In this model it is nof just connectedness that counts. For narrative continuity allows persons to change their beliefs, desires and values gradually, and to forget gradually and yet not become different persons. This is the case when old desires, beliefs and values are narratively related to the new ones; that is, when old ones are not just discarded and new ones adopted, but when there is a process of e.g. deliberation in which one belief is being replaced by another one, one value by a better one, etc. If different sets of beliefs, desires and values are narratively related, Le. if there is a biographical story to tell about this change, then the difference between this set need not be construed as a difference in person. Rather, it may be construed as a person maturing, changing her mind, adopting beliefs that are her own instead of her environment's, finding out who she really is, and so ono

Even when 1 forget my old beliefs, 1 will be continuous with them because they are part of the story that tells how I became the person 1 am now.3 This continuity, instead of connectedness-based continuity, is relevant to personal identity. For if the beliefs, desires, values, life plans, etc. are what count in being the person one is, then how these beliefs, desires, values, life plans, etc. have come about, how one became what one is now is precisely the background against which one understands who one is. Knowing how one came to be a religious

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person or an atheist is an essential ingredient of these personal beliefs/ atti tudes.

It is quite wrong, on this view, to define the degree to which one is continuous with earlier person-stages in terms of memory or the holding of the same set of beliefs, values, etc. The degree to which one is continuous with earlier 'stages' (the scare quotes will be explained below) is defined in terms of the relevance to the beliefs, values, etc. held at these times to the coming about of one's present beliefs and values, and the extent to which the old beliefs and values render the new ones intelligible. In other words, the degree to which one is continuous with earlier stages is determined by narrative coherence, not by

qualitative similarity. Thus, even when there is no strong connectedness between

'person-stages,' as long as there is narrative biographical coherence, it is misleading, to say the least, to assert that these stages are related to a lesser degree than is required for personal identity.

The plausibility or implausibility of this view should not be evaluated by determining the likeness of this definition of degree of connection/continuity with the all-or-nothingness of a strict Leibnizian identity relation. Rather, it should be evaluated by determin ing whether it can account for the four features-survival, self-interested concern, compensation, and responsibility-as well as strict identity can. And the answer to this question is that narrative continuity can do this at least as well as strict identity. It is not just that we can explain why we should be concerned for future states that are narratively related to our present ones, that we can explain why a narrativity can analyse survival, why we can compensate and/or hold responsible a given 'person-stage' for what a narratively related 'person-stage' did (see Schechtman 1996, pp. 136-62 for much more on this). It is also that we can take the role of changes in beliefs and values in such practices as holding people responsible to account.

In our practices of holding people responsible we tend to reckon with the fact that a person shows remorse or regret. Remorse and regret are changes in attitude, in beliefs about what one did. Without failing to hold people responsible for what they did-i.e. without claiming that the person who acted is not really identical with the person about to be punished-we do of ten diminish the

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consequences attached to these actions, for instance legal sentences, when people show remorse or regret, when people have changed their attitudes and beliefs regarding their actions.4 Examples such as these can be multiplied (we assign the right to being compensated for certain actions to persons who have forgotten about them; we are concerned for future states even when we have changed our minds considerably about certain values and beliefs; etc.). While considering persons identic al over time, we do take their changes into account. This is a feature of our moral and legal practice that cannot be accounted for by strict-identity theories.

The proposal to account for personal identity by means of narrative continuity amounts to the thesis that persons are, in a sense, temporally extended beings. Persons are, strictly speaking, complete beings when their biography is finished, i.e. when their lives are over. This point, familiar from existentialism, is not as counterintuitive as it seems. From a first-person point of view it has some plausibility.

This plausibility comes to the fore when we try to imagine viewing ourselves in accordance with its denial. Notions of life plans, values, ideas about the standards we try to live up to while not yet succeeding, and visions of 'the good life' -notions that. are crucial to our being persons (see Taylor 1989)-become intelligible only when we do not (yet) regard our present selves as finished beings. Most of us will feeI the need to finish plans, make up for some of our past actions, etc. when faced with a terminal disease. We want to finish our lives, for only then will we feei that we have lived our lives. Thus, there is something very commonsensical to the idea that persons are temporally extended beings.

But this is not exactly embracing the four-dimensionalism of e.g. Lewis and Perry. Lewis' and Perry's four-dimensionalism is a special version of the bundle theory. Meaningful, internat or narrative relations between 'individual' psychological contents and distinct 'person-stages' do not play a crucial role. It is not strictly speaking the four-dimensionalism of Lewis and Perry that I object to, it is their adherence to a Humean bundle theory. The rejection of the bundle theory will be discussed in Section 5.

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4. THIRD-PERSON CRITERIA OF REIDENTIFICA nON: THE ROLE OF THE BODY

The third problem for a psychological criterion of personal identity, mentioned in Chapter 2, is how to allow for third-person criteria for the reidentification of persons. The easy and intuitively correct way in which a bodily criterion can deal with this issue is one of the main things such a theory has going for it.s Third-person reidentification is closely connected with the daily use we make of the notion of personal identity, e.g. in relation to the four features.

As we saw in Section 10 of the second chapter, a substratum­oriented psychological criterion of personal identity can deal with the demand for third-person criteria by invoking the objective notion of 'causally connected brain states of the appropriate kind.' This criterion is far from ideal because of the relative inaccessibility of the data determining personal identity. In practice, though, this problem can be ignored because in our actual world bodily continuity is a perfect epistemological criterion for there being one physically continuous brain, and hence for there being causally connected brain states of the appropriate kind. As 1 remarked at the end of Section 7 of Chapter 3, the substratum-oriented psychological criterion of third person reidentification, as an epistemic criterion, is highly likely to be coextensive with a third-person epistemic criterion of reidentification issued by the proposed content-oriented conception of psychological continuity. The point is, as 1 argued, that as such it is right for the wrong reasons.

With regard to third-person criteria or reidentification, the question is not "what is our actual epistemic criterion?" Rather, the question is "how does the fact that we reidentify persons by their bodies in our actual world fit into the various ontologic al criteria of personal identity, and how is such an epistemic criterion explained by the various ontological criteria?" Regarding this question, there are roughly three options.

(1) On a bodily theory of identity, bodily continuity is a perfect epistemological criterion for reidentification, because bodily continuity is an ontological criterion of personal identity as well.

(2) On the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, bodily continuity is an imperfect epistemic criterion for

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personal reidentification, because it is contingently (i.e. in our world but not in other possible worlds) indicative of causally connected brain states of the appropriate kind, which in turn is the ontological criterion of personal identity.

(3) On the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity, bodily continuity is an imperfect epistemic criterion for personal reidentification, because as a matter of contingent fact bodily continuity (in conjunction with a normally functioning brain) is sufficient and (as a contingent matter of fact) necessary for there being a basic narrative, which is required for N-continuity to yield a life-Iong identity constituting relation.

Unsurprisingly, my c1aim is that all in all (3) offers the best explanation for the fact that bodily continuity is our epistemic criterion for the reidentification of persons. As discussed in Chapter 2, Sections 2 and 3 and the second half of Chapter 3, the explanans of (1) and (2)-a bodily criterion of personal identity and a substratum-oriented psychological criterion-are highly problematic. And, regardless of how unproblematic an epistemological criterion follows from an ontological one, if the ontological criterion itself is not feasible, then neither is the implied explanation of the epistemological criterion. In the case of (3), I contend, the explanans, and hence the explanation, are feasible.

Just like (2), however, (3) tells us that in some non actual but possible worlds, bodily continuity may not be a fully reliable epistemic criterion for personal identity, namely in those worlds where 'body swaps'-e.g. by means of brain transplants-are a live possibility. The question, then, is what third-person epistemic criteria for the reidentification of persons we should adopt in such fictional cases.

According to the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, causally connected brain states of the appropriate type do the job. The problem with such a criterion, tough, is that it is not tight enough. As is argued in Chapter 3, causally connected brain states do not guarantee the kind of coherence of mental contents that is required for psychological connectedness and continuity. Even the transplantation of a whole brain into a new body is not guaranteed to preserve psychological continuity and hence personal identity. The breach in a person's basic narrative caused by such a

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'body swap' may be severe enough to disrupt N-continuity. Then again, it may not. There may be circumstances in which e.g. information about the brain transplant provided to the patient beforehand may restore the basic narrative. Whether or not is does, 1 argued, is an empiric al matter about which we cannot construe a priori arguments.

But this may be considered to put the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity in a difficult position. There may be possible worlds in which neither a bodily criterion, nor a causal­continuity-of-brain-states criterion will be correct as third-person criteria for the reidentification of persons. But given that we should await empiric al data before reconstructing a practicable epistemic criterion for such possible worlds, it seems we cannot provide c\ues as to what such a full blown epistemic criterion ought to be like. Does this put the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity in a difficult position? 1 think not. 1 think that even though we cannot list the sufficient conditions under which a body-swap can take place successfully, careful consideration of some of the necessary conditions shows that the problem presented here is a pseudo-problem.

What the considerations of the previous chapter show is that we should be careful in thinking that a person can survive a brain transplant or body swap just like that. It is quite common to come across thought experiments in the literature in which one person' s brains are transplanted into another body during sleep. That person is then thought to wake up, look in the mirror and feeI nothing but surprise.6 Given the central unifying role of the basic narrative as 1 outlined it, this reaction seems wrongly imagined. The very serious experienced disruption of N-continuity-the person's post-operation experiences clash with her memories and her acquired and evolved self­image-is not unlikely to result in a further mental breakdown or even psychosis. And when there is no breakdown or psychosis, why would the post-operation person not think that she has retained her body which has been endowed with new memories, character traits, etc. ?-this is basically Williams' (1970) point against psychological criteria of personal identity. Given that the fundamental identity determining role of the basic narrative is normally played by ones perceptual narrative, such an imagined reaction does not seem farfetched.

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As discussed earlier, it will probably make a huge difference when the pre-operation person is informed in advance of the operation. The expectation of new bodily perceptions may restore, or rather retain an otherwise disrupted basic narrative. Though such information is undoubtedly of crucial import to the feasibility of brain-transplants with preservation of identity, one can be sceptical as to whether it is sufficient for that. Moreover, it is not quite clear what such information is going to do for Williams point. Without pretending-again-to list the sufficient conditions for a successful body swap, I believe it is more than likely that one of the necessary conditions is provided for when the pre- and post-operation person's peers are informed as well of the operation. If this condition is recognised, we can deal with Williams point. More importantly, we can explain why the problem of the vague third-person criteria for N-continuity in some possible wor1ds is a pseudo problem for the position I am defending. Let me elaborate on this.

It seems doubtful that, even when a pre-operation person is informed of the transplantation in advance, the post-operation person will unproblematically experience herself as being N-continuous with the pre-operation person when her peers, including the neuroscientists who performed the operation, do not treat her as such. If these peers treat the 'new' body with the 'old' brain as a different person-a person they do not know, or worse, a person they know to be quite different from the pre-operation person-the post-operation person will be in an epistemically awkward position to assess her identity. Her memories conceming her slightly bizarre recent past do not match with and are not corroberated by her present experiences in her social life. In such a situation, she may very easily begin to doubt the veridicality of her own memories (remember the coherentist epistemic criteria for the veridicality of memories) and fali prey to Williams' doubts.

If, on the other hand, the person' s peers are informed of the operation as well, if they are instructed to treat this 'new' body as the same 'old' person they used to know, Williams' doubts will be inappropriate. If the peers can confirm the newly embodied person that her memories are indeed veridical and are not 'just a bunch of memories' instantiated in a new body but the true memories of a person who lived a life they shared, it will seem quite inappropriate for

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the newly embodied person to believe that she really is this one body­that she cannot remember-endowed with new memories, character traits, beliefs, and, crucially, a new sociallife. A person's psychological and social features are simply too important for that in comparison with a body. (And if we're inclined to reply here that the body it self is important too, this is, 1 contend, because we're so used to this body being the epistemic criterion for the (re)identification of this person).

So, it is more than plausible to assume that a post-operation person's peers ought to be able to recognise her as personally identical with the pre-operation person in order for body swapping to be a real possibility which does not result in psychosis or other kinds of destruction of the original person. But if that is so, the very possibility of body swapping presupposes practicable third-person criteria for reidentification. Quite likely, such criteria derive from a person's peers being informed of the operation, and the new looks of their old acquaintance. But we need not really worry about that. The important thing to note here is that the theory of personal identity proposed in this book is not subject to a problem that stems from a possible world in which body-swap operations are possible that preserve personal identity but in which the third-person criteria for reidentification of persons are unclear. Such a world is not possible: if there are no third-person criteria for reidentification, there can be no body swapping with preserved personal identity.

Science-fiction cases, then, do not pose a serious problem for the theory defended so far. The most important thing to stress in this section is stiH the fact that N-continuity as a criterion of personal identity can perfectly well explain why in our actual world bodily continuity is the epistemic criterion for the reidentification of persons. Science-fiction cases aside, bodily continuity is a precondition for psychological continuity in the real world.

5. IN BETWEEN THE EGO- AND THE BUNDLE THEORY

The fourth problem facing the psychological criterion is that of the unity of the mental bundle. This problem can be illustrated by considering problem cases of mental states that seem neither causally related nor connected by relations of qualitative similarity to other

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states of the same person's mind. Again, this problem was solved by invoking the brain: causally connected time-slices of (a) temporally unified brain(s) are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the unity of the mental bundle in and over time. In other words, two mental states belong to the same person' s mind by being tokened in the (numerically) same physically unified brain at one point in time.

There is the worry, however, that when two mental contents have realisation bases that are part of the same material object, this does not in any way take the interrelatedness of the mental contents comprising one mind into account. This worry connects with the rejection of the substratum-oriented conception. For this rejection was grounded on the lack of attention for the essential embeddedness of mental contents in their respective psychological and objective contexts. It is impossible to see how the 'being part of the same physical object' relation of two realisation bases can account for this kind of interrelatedness. Unless, of course, there are semantic or meaningful relations involved, perhaps backed up by indirect causal connections (a shared causal history). And this is where N-continuity might be of help.

Take Noonan's example of non-causally related, qualitatively dissimilar perceptions that nevertheless belong to the mind of the same person: "At present I have an impression of a desk top covered with sheets of writing paper. If I turn my head to the left I have the impression of a book case filled with books. The impression of the desk top neither resembles nor is a cause of the impression of the book case (nor is the desk top itself a cause of the book case); yet I regard both impressions as mine." (Noonan 1989, p. 96) This is just a perfect example of a tiny piece of what I labeI someone's basic narrative. The different perceptions described by Noonan are N-continuous.

Thus, N-continuity can, I claim, account for the unity of mind, even in problem cases. It can do so by occupying a middle position in between the ego theory and the bundle theory. Roughly speaking, an ego theory accounts for the unity of mind by invoking too much: an ego or an immaterial subject of experience. Conversely, the bundle theory invokes too little: causal relations between qualitatively similar and dissimilar contents just does not unify ali contents of a mind. The ego- and the bundle theory thus produce something of a dilemma.

The dilemma can be solved by introducing N-continuity. N-

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continuity allows us to pinpoint what it is exactly that holds different contents together both in and over time without having to invoke something that holds them together. The relation that holds between different psychological contents of one person is neither their being ohad' by a common 'owner', nor is it mere contingent co-occurrence or successive occurrence. Rather, the relation that holds between different contents of one person is the relation of narrativity. Together these contents teU the history of an embodied, self-interpreting, and acting 'being.' That is what connects them. Their narrative coherence is the mark of their constituting the life of one person. The person is not the owner of contents. To put it like this, the person just is the narrative speUed out by these contents.

It may be objected here that 1 am opting for one of the sides of the dichotomy rather than rejecting the dichotomy altogether. 1 may have given the impression that 1 am merely refining, rather than rejecting the bundle theory.

This impression is mistaken. The crucial difference between the bundle theory and N-continuity is this. According to the bundle theory psychological contents are identifiable in abstraction from the bundle they constitute. The bundle is the mere addition of self­contained contents. By contrast, N-continuous contents are identifiable only as parts of the narrative they co-constitute. To repeat (Chapter 4, Section 2), 'a perception' or 'a thought' taken in isolation is an abstraction from a whole meaningful perceptual sequence or a complete process of thought. In other words, narrativity is not a contingent by-product of individual contents suitably ordered, as a refinement of the bundle theory would have it.

This difference between the bundle theory and N-continuity may perhaps be elucidated by means of metaphors. Parfit's favourite metaphors are those of a nation or a club (Parfit 1984, pp. 211-3). The bundle of psychological contents, either at one moment or over time is, according to him, comparable with the 'bundle' of persons that constitute a nation or a club. In both cases, a nation or a club can be said to exist without having to assert that something over and above a number of persons exist. Persons have ontologically primacy, not nations or clubs.

The metaphor 1 would like to use in order to explain N-

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continuity is that of a piece of music. Just like a nation consists of a number of people, a piece of music consists of a number of 'individual' notes. But the notes do not have ontological primacy. Unlike in the case of nations/persons individual notes cannot be said to constitute a piece of music. For it is not just the notes but also their musical interconnections that constitute the piece. One single note probably 'says' nothing if played in isolation. Within the context of a whole piece, however, it may 'mean' the climax of that piece, evoking aH sorts of emotions etc.

Music does not consist of the mere addition of notes, the way nations consist of the mere addition of persons (iJ, indeed, they do). One single chord may be 'the subdominant' only in the context of a whole (tonal) piece. The notes are what they are only through the piece. The piece cannot exist without the notes but is most certainly something over and above the addition of particular notes (as the possibility of enharmonic shifts in pitch shows). Therefore, neither the notes, nor the whole piece have ontological priority.

Likewise, different psychological contents contribute to a narrative that is more than the addition of contents and that gives 'individual' contents (which are abstractions, in a sense) their full meaning and intelligibility.

6. CONTENTS, SUBSTRA TA, AND THE INDIVIDUATION OF PERSONS

N-continuity can be defined and described merely in terms of the contents of mental states. How these contents relate to their substrata can possibly be explained by a functionalist-materialist theory of mind, though it is not c1ear whether (for instance) the unifying role of a basic narrative can be analysed in purely functional terms. In any case, the substrata of mental contents need not be involved in a definition of psychological continuity as such. This is, in fact, completely in line with the tenets of Locke, whose original psychological criterion did not require mentioning a substratum (the soul) either. Personal identity, I claim, can be conceived of on the level of a (folk-psychological) description of the contents of a person's psychological life only.

Thus 1 may seem to ignore the problem of individuation, the fifth one fac ing the psychological criterion, shamelessly. How can we

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individuate two qualitatively identic al persons when they are not individuated by their particular bodies and when their 'streams of consciousness' are not individuated in terms of the substrata that underlie them? In this section I will claim that although the conception of psychological continuity I favour does not mention the substrata of mental contents, it is nevertheless not the case that the individuation of two qualitatively identical but numerically distinct 'streams of consciousness' poses a problem for the position defended. For, as I will argue, a situation in which two numerically distinct persons are qualitatively strictly identic al cannot arise in principle.

Consider a situation which we might call 'the case of absolute parallel minds.' Suppose there are two brains which sustain identic al mental states at each point in time. The case seems theoretically possible. Given that persons are to be individuated in terms of individual 'streams' of continuous mental states, how many persons are there in such a case?

The answer to this question depends, of course, on what criteria we apply to individuate streams of continuous mental states. Individuation in terms of contents would imply the existence of only one person, individuation in terms of substratum implies the existence of two persons. If the case can be construed such that we have strong intuitions that there are two streams of mental states, this will imply the rejection of my claim that a content-oriented conception of psychological continuity does not require reference to substrata in order to individuate persons.

There are two ways in which we can construe the case of absolute parallel minds. Either the two brains are 'wired' to numerically distinct but qualitatively identical bodies, living in separate, but identical environments, thus securing qualitatively identical contents. Or both brains are 'wired' to the numerically same body.

The first case will probably give us the strongest intuitions that there are indeed two persons. It is not suitable, however, to separate the c1aims of the content- and the substratum-oriented conceptions of psychological continuity. For there is an easy way of telling the two qualitatively identic al streams of consciousness apart without mentioning their substratum, namely by concentrating on the external objects whose representations co-constitute these persons' basic

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narratives. Suppose persons p and q are qualitatively identic al at each

point in time and (therefore) live in qualitatively identic al worlds. Suppose that both are looking at a red apple at time t. Needless to say these two apples and their respective psychological representations are qualitatively identical. But they are numericalIy distinct. And the contents of p's and q's representations of these two apples do not just concems these apples as types, but also as tokens. In other words, p and q both perceive what is 'this apple here' to them, which is a different apple in each case. Hence, p and q have different perceptual contents at t, even though their minds are phenomenologicalIy identic al. Thus, the numerical distinctness of the respective environments of the two persons can serve to individuate alI perceptual contents of these persons, and hence their basic narratives, without referring to the respective substrata of these contents. (This is putting to use a commonsensical extemalism about mental contents that is not open to neo-Lockeans; see Chapter 2, Section 9).

This leaves us with the second construction of a case of absolute parallel minds only, the one in which two brains are wired to one body. In such a case, the contents supported by the two brains are completely identical, and not just phenomenologically; if the eyes of the body to which these brains are wired are locked on an apple, then the perceptual contents supported by both brains are about the numericalIy same apple and in both cases 'this apple'-the content of the two perceptual states-means the exact same thing.

Of course this second construction has its own peculiarities. For one thing, brains are wired in two directions to bodies. They receive their sensory inputs from a body they control at the same time. Two brains can receive the same sensory inputs, but only one can actualIy control a body. This need not be a problem though.

Dennett (1981 a, pp. 217-29) for instance, describes the following thought experiment.7 The brain of a person is taken out of his skull and wired to his body by means of radio links. The brain remains in a bas in while the body moves around to various places. A computer monitors the traffic of information to and from the body and reprograms itself to copy the brains' outputs on given inputs until it will do exactly as the original brain does. Dennett's claim is that the

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computer and the brain will be interchangeable. Although I am sceptical about the possibility of conscious

computers, I will grant this possibility for the sake of the argument. The situation is such that one body causes a brain and a computer to have identic al contents. Which of the two actuaUy controls the body is irrelevant, since both issue the body to behave exactly as the other would. Does this case involve two qualitatively identical streams of conscious states and hence of two qualitatively identic al but numericaUy distinct persons? Dennett does not address this problem directly. But from what he says an answer can be inferred.

The person (body) whose brain is taken out and whose perceptions are fed to a computer which mimics the brains outputs watches his own brain float in the basin. Beneath the bas in is a switch which connects either the brain' s, or the computer' s outputs to the body (both continue to receive the same inputs). The person flicks the switch and notices ....... nothing. Nothing changes, not from the outside-behavioural patterns may remain the same, a sentence just begun may be finished flawlessly-and not from the inside (Dennett 1981 a, p. 226). This effect (or lack thereof) is predictable. But what does it ten us? Are the two streams of consciousness in fact one? Or is it simply the case that the person remains 'in' his brain while he notices nothing strange since the computer issues his body to do exactly what the brain would, thus creating the illusion that the brain is stiU controUing the body?

In terms of contents the first answer is the correct one, in terms of substrata the second. What the first answer has going for it is the fact that the streams of content are identical. What the second answer has going for it is that even though the brain and the computer have the same contents at one time, only one of them can cause the body to act on it. Should causal efficacy bother us here? Should the brain be worried about the fact that the computer has taken over? Not as long as the computer causes what the brain would otherwise have caused. The computer' s outputs are causally dependent upon the brain' s characteristics, since the computer is programmed to mimic the brain by monitoring it.

Thus the brain is causally relevant in the computer' s producing behaviour, albeit in a rather indirect way. Which of the two,

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the brain and the computer, is directly causally efficacious is really of Httle import. It becomes an important issue only when the contents of the two will diverge and both would control the body differently (which is what happens at the end of Dennett's fiction). For in that case, it could not be said that both of them are causally involved in the producing of behaviour. But in that case, the defender of the content­oriented conception of psychological continuity will be happy to admit that there are in fact two persons.

While the minds run absolutely parallel, there is only one mind, for there are no criteria relevant to anybody that may tell them apart. The case of absolute parallel minds, then, need not bother a content-oriented description of psychological continuity. If two minds run absolutely parallel and perceive the same environment through the same body, then what sense would it make to say that there are two persons? What practical consequences would such a claim have? None that I can think of. What consequences would there be for our accounts of the four features? Again, none that 1 can think of.

7. SUMMARY

The aim of this chapter was to argue for the claim that a conception of psychological continuity in terms of intertwined connectedness and N­continuity provides a (metaphysical-cum-semantic) criterion of personal identity that can deal with the five objections mentioned in the second chapter. A content-oriented description of psychological continuity (i) implies a non-circular analysis of personal identity in which N-continuity is the metaphysical-cum-semantic, and memory an epistemic criterion, (ii) solves the problem of logical form because it is transitive, even in a direct way, because N-continuity does not admit of degree, and because it limits the extent to which psychological connectedness admits of degree in accordance with the four features, (iii) explains why in our wor1d we can use a bodily third-person criterion for reidentification, while not being bothered by the fact that in some possible wor1ds we need another epistemic criterion than the continuity of one body, (iv) can account for the unity of mind without lapsing into either an ego- or a bundle theory, (v) allows for the individuation of persons in terms of their psychological contents

THE FIVE PROBLEMS REVISTIED

without appealing to the substrata of these contents.

139

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N-CONTINUITY AS A PART OF FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY.

THE LINK BETWEEN PERSONAL IDENTITY AND

THE IDENTITIES OF PERSONS

1. INTRODUCfION

The main idea for which 1 have argued in the foregoing four chapters is the following: The connections between mental states that are constitutive of the kind of psychological continuity that can function as a criterion of personal identity must be conceived-briefly put-in terms of a diachronic holism of mental contents (see Chapter 5, Section 2) rather than in terms of overIapping causal connections between the substrata of qualitatively similar states. Therefore, as far as psychological continuity is concerned, mental states ought to be identified and individuated in terms of their contents rather than their substrata. Only thus can we grant the narrative, process-like succession of mental states and the intimate relation between psychological continuity and embodiment in a physical world the relevance that is their philosophical due.

This idea is developed, partly, as a critique of the somewhat naively atomistic materialism that implicitly motivates (e.g.) the Parfitian conception of psychological continuity. If theories of personal identity can be criticised precisely for the use they make of ideas, however implicit, that are taken from the domain of the philosophy of mind, it is only natural to assess in turn the repercussions that such criticism might have an the philosophy of mind itself. Such assessment will not just serve the purpose of completeness. Much more importantly, it allows us ta generalise the position defended so far by taking it beyond the debate an personal identity.

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This project boils down to assessing the possible consequences that the notion of N-continuity and its corollary, diachronic mental holism, have for the philosophy of mind. Two questions seem relevant: (1) whether N-continuity and diachronic holism fit into our practices of ascribing mental states to each other (practices that I shall refer to as 'folk-psychology' but with the explicit understanding that this term is not meant to be contemptuous or pejorative; no overly sharp contrast with scientific psycholog;' is intended), and if so (2) whether recognition of the factuality and function of N-continuity has specific consequences for our metaphysics of mind. I shall address the second question in the next chapter and concentrate on the first in this one. Of these two chapters, the next one is by far the most important-if one considers it to be intuitively plausible that N-continuity is a 'natural' part of folk-psychology, the present chapter can be skipped.

In the previous chapter I have argued that memory presupposes N-continuity. Insofar as memory is a part of folk­psychology, then, so is N-continuity. However, in order to argue that we should take N-continuity very seriously, it would be good if the role of N-continuity in folk-psychology is not limited to enabling memory. In the next section, I shall describe very briefly the relatively trivial sense in which diachronic mental holism and N-continuity are an integral and unproblematic part of our folk-psychological practices of ascribing mental states to each other. As I shall argue, however, 'N-continuity' in this sense denotes mainly what I labelled 'lower-Ievel N-continuity' (in Chapter 4, Section 3). In order to draw a richer picture of the role N­continuity plays in our practices of mental state ascription, I shall concentrate on higher-Ievel N-continuity for the rest of this chapter.

I do not at aH mean to be exhaustive in my description of the role higher-Ievel N-continuity plays in folk-psychology. In fact, I shall concentrate on one exemplary function of higher-Ievel N-continuity only. This function is far less trivial than the functions of lower-Ievel N­continuity I shall outline in the next section. More importantly perhaps, it allows us to see how N-continuity can bridge the gap between personal identity as it is discussed in the previous chapters and 'personal identity' as this term is usually understood in ordinary speech-the behavioural peculiarities, value pattems, life-plans, etc. that characterise a given person. I shall refer to personal identity in this

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latter, ordinary sense as 'the identities of persons.' In order to introduce this non-trivial function of higher-Ievel

N-continuity, 1 will first identify a problem for the two main traditional theories of mental state ascription-the theory theory and the simulation theory-posed by the fact that people of ten have striking idiosyncrasies in their practic al reasoning. Idiosyncratic, or highly personalised reasoning is impossible to accommodate, either by the theory theory, or by the simulation theory, without taking a biographical, diachronic, narrative view on mental state ascription. At least, that is what 1 shall argue in Section 4. In Section 5, 1 shall briefly discuss the connection between idiosyncratic reasoning and the identities of persons and hence, by the theory developed so far, the connection between personal identity and the identity of a person.

2. LOWER-LEVEL N-CONTINUITY AS A TRIVIAL PART OF FOLK-PSYCHOLOOY

There is a fairly straightforward way in which N-continuity plays an important role in folk-psychology. A description of this role has surfaced already in relative detail in the course of the foregoing chapters. But since this description is scattered over the various chapters, let me present a brief repetition.

The-uncontroversial-presupposition behind the function of N-continuity 1 am after is that the contents of mental states that are ascribed to a person at one moment in time have to be consistent and relati vely coherent. Lets start with consistency. While it may be perfectly in order to ascribe the betief that p at one moment to a person and the betief that -,p at some later or eartier moment (a person can change her mind), both betiefs cannot be ascribed to the same person at the same time. One way of stressing this point is by drawing attention to the intimate connection between mental state ascription and behaviour.

Mental state ascription can be falsified by behaviour (or a lack thereof). Suppose 1 ascribe the desire for a cup of coffee to Mary. Suppose further that Mary knows how a coffee vending machine works, that she has the appropriate coins in her pocket, that she knows this, and that there are no interfering factors that might prevent her from throwing the coins into the machine's slot. If she stiU does not throw the coins in the slot, 1 would have to retract my ascription of the desire

N-CONTINUlTY IN FOLK-PSYCHOLOOY 143

for coffee. (Altematively, I could (on further evidence perhaps) decide to ascribe interfering mental states such as the belief that coffee is bad for ones health and the desire to stay healthy). Keeping this connection between behaviour and mental state ascription in mind, it is c1ear that a persons behaviour at one moment in time betrays either a belief that p or a belief that -,p (or neither, of course), but never both at the same time. 1 If behaviour can be betray a belief that p while also leaving room for the belief that -,p, behaviour would never suffice to falsify mental state ascription. However, in our practices it sometimes does.

As to (synchronic) coherence, the demands are far less strict and far less weH described. Clearly we can ascribe a wide variety of completely unrelated beliefs to a person. At this moment, for instance, I believe that Paris is the capital of France, that it is four o c10ck in the aftemoon, that I am in front of a computer screen, that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon sometime in the distant past, etc. etc. But it just will not do to ascribe only unrelated beliefs to a person. My belief that 1 am in front of a computer screen coheres with my belief that I am at present writing a chapter of a book, that I am sitting at a desk at which the computer is located, etc. etc. It is impossible to eliminate aH my further beliefs about my present whereabouts and retain only the belief that I am in front of a computer screen. For one thing, how can I distinguish between believing that I am in front of a computer screen and believing that I have the illusion of being in front of a computer screen without a context of cohering beliefs conceming my present whereabouts?

The point I want to make in this section is that very many of the beliefs and desires we ascribe to persons can only be ascribed when it is at least assumed that the mental context of these beliefs and desires contains memories or beliefs about past states of affairs. Mary cannot desire coffee unless she knows what coffee is. Given that such knowledge is acquired in the past, one form of memory or another (semantic memory in this case) has to be presupposed. John cannot believe that the mailman has delivered the mail today unless he knows what mail is, what a mailman does etc. AU that involves memory. I cannot believe that the presidential election in the U.S. in the year 2000 was a mess unless I know what the U.S. are, what a president is, what democracy is, etc, etc. In short, most of the beliefs and desires we

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ascribe presuppose other mental states that simply could not have been acquired at the very same moment the belief or desire is ascribed. Retention of these context mental states involves memory.

The same goes for more autobiographically coloured beliefs. And that is where N-continuity comes in. Take, for instance, the belief that it will be only a couple of days untiI ones birthday. Or the sudden realisation that one has forgotten ones wallet in the supermarket this moming. Or the desire to relive ones last summer vacation. Or the hope that ones efforts to achieve x will finally pay off. Or the belief that it is time for a haircut. Or .... etc. etc. In cases such as these mental states are ascribed that make sense only within a presupposed context of other mental states that are not just acquired at a different time, but that also represent stages of a person's biography (usually the stage at the time of acquisition). The synchronic coherence and consistency that is part of all mental state ascription hinges, I submit, in cases such as the above, on the diachronic narrative coherence of the biographical stages represented by the appropriate mental context of a given biographicalIy coloured mental state.

It is important to be clear about the exact way in which synchronic coherence and consistency hinges on narrative diachronic coherence and consistency (1 shall leave out the 'and consistency' in what folIows). For this to be clear, we should look at what synchronic coherence of an autobiographical belief with its mental context amounts to. Take the belief that I have left my wallet in the supermarket this moming. This belief coheres with my belief that there is a supermarket in my village, that 1 have been to it this moming, that I usually carry a waIIet, and that I don't have this wallet at this moment. It also coheres with my memories of putting on my shoes and coat, going out the door, walking to the supermarket, carrying the groceries back home etc. etc. In short, this autobiographical belief coheres with my beliefs about my everyday life, my physical environment and my spatio-temporal path through it.

For the autobiographical belief that 1 ha ve left my waIIet at the supermarket to cohere with its synchronic mental context, this synchronic context should contain representations of experiences that are narratively related in that they 'tell the story' of an objective continuant through a highly specific bit of space-time (for consistency

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it is sufficient that the context is at least devoid of negations of such representations). What this means is that narrative coherence of past experiences provides the norm for synchronic coherence of a given autobiographical belief and representations of the believer' s past. An autobiographical belief coheres with its mental context iff the context allows the belief to be fitted in the narrative of a persons life, where the norm of what does and what does not count as a narrative is determined for a crucial part by the fact that persons are objective continuants trough space-time.

Or take a slightly more abstract autobiographical belief: the belief that one's birthday is due in a couple of days. Obviously the context of this belief should contain knowledge of the concept of a birthday and knowledge of the concept of 'a year.' It probably contains memories of previous birthdays. It certainly contains knowledge of dates in general and knowledge of the present date. But most crucially, it contains a sense of ones life as a spatio-temporal 'worm' from the moment of ones birth up till now, where the 'now­stage' is so-and-so many years and so-and-so many days removed from the moment of birth. This latter sense crucially provides for possible coherence of ones belief that ones birthday is due with its mental context.

It is important to note that 1 do not claim that ones representations of ones past life that form the background of present autobiographical beliefs should aH be accurate or true. The point, rather, is that ii part of ones representation of ones past is false, adjustments to the whole autobiographical story should be made in order to restore narrative coherence. Narrative coherence is not optional, and is more crucial for the ascription of mental states than autobiographical truth. For instance, 1 might wrongly believe that 1 have been to South Africa five years ago. This belief can only be ascribed to me when many more false beliefs are also ascribed to me that fit the first belief into the story of myself as an objective continuant through space-time (e.g. about my having time off from my job at that moment, about my trip on he plane to South Africa, about my stay there, etc.). For the ascription of beliefs, truth matters only insofar as it influences coherence.

Thus, the narrative coherence of ones past experiences

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provides the norm for what it is for a given belief to cohere with a present mental context containing many other autobiographica1 beliefs in the sense that it provides a 'format' for synchronic coherence. In this respect, it resembles the way in which rationality provides a norm for mental state ascription in general. Whereas rationality is a very general norm for the kind of coherence required for the ascription of just about any mental state, N-continuity provides for a more specific norm that is required for the ascription of autobiographical beliefs.

In the examples above, 1 have concentrated on what 1 have called 'the basic narrative' in Chapter 4. Other forms of N-continuity might also play interesting roles. But as long as we concentrate on relatively simple autobiographical belies such as the ones mentioned in the above examples, the only kind of N-continuity required is lower­level N-continuity.

3. THE PROBLEM OF IDIOSYNCRA TIC PRACTICAL REASONING

So what about higher-Ievel N-continuity? From a commonsensical point of view, it may seem that what goes for lower-Ievel N-continuity also goes for higher-Ievel N-continuity. For instance, the belief that it is time for a career change requires representation of a higher-Ievel narrative (relating ones career up till this moment) as part of its synchronic context. But here the question is how specific such a context needs to be when all we are interested in is the possibility of ascription of mental states. Suppose you and 1 both believe that it is time for a career change. Given our different biographies, the specific contexts of our shared belief differ considerably.

Consider for an instructive contrast the example of my belief that 1 have forgotten my wallet in the supermarket this morning. The context for that belief needs to be highly specific-very few people would have a short-term history that is similar enough to mine to be ascribed the same belief to. Alternatively, consider the example that 1 believe that my birthday is due in a couple of days. That belief can be ascribed to a fair amount of people. But the relevant contexts of that belief are very similar, if not identic al. The context of the belief that it is time for a career change, is far from similar in all cases where ascription of the belief is appropriate, but this does not stand in the way

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of belief-ascription at aU. What this example shows is that the role played by higher­

level N-continuity in the ascription of mental states is not as c1ear-cut and as easily demonstrated as the role of lower-Ievel N-continuity. Though I am sure that many interesting things can be said about the way higher-Ievel narratives figure in the contexts that give certain highly personal mental states their fuU sense and content, aU I am after in this chapter is to ascertain that higher-Ievel N-continuity does indeed play some ineliminable rale in mental state ascription. Therefore I shaU concentrate on one specific application of higher-Ievel narrativity that establishes this role and ignore other possible applications.

The role I am after can best be presented as the solution to a problem for conventional theories of mental state ascription. I shall outline this prablem in this section, and discuss the solution in the next. The problem I have in mind is not usuaUy recognised as such. I shall labeI it 'the problem of idiosyncratic practic al reasoning.'

Consider the following examples:

1. I believe that hunger in the third wor1d should come to an end as quickly as possible. I also believe that capital punishment should be abolished wor1d-wide. You share those beliefs or values. Both of us have busy lives; we have limited time and money. So each of us should make a choice. You choose to support third-wor1d development programmes, I choose to support Amnesty International. We have the same values, then, but apparently we assign different weight to them.

2. J ohn and Mary both believe that telling the truth is the right thing to do. They also both believe that it is best to avoid hurting other people's feelings as much as possible. Both have a criminal past of which their peers are unaware. Both are sure that their peers would really be shocked to hear that one of their friends has a criminal past of which they were unaware. Thus, both are faced with an ethical dilemma: whether they tell their friends, or whether they keep quiet, they will inevitable go against one of the above values while upholding the other. While Mary decides to tell them, John is quiet about it. Again, John and Mary have the same beliefs, desires

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and values, but assign different weight to them in their practical reasoning.

3. Ben and Jerry are presented with an opportunity to join a lottery. They have to pay $ 500 and get a 1/100 chance of winning $ 50.000. They both want the $ 50.000 equally much, and they could both easily afford the $ 500. Nevertheless, Ben decides to endorse the bet while Jerry keeps his $ 500. Again, Ben and Jerry share their beliefs, desires and values but assign different weight to them in deciding what to do.

These examples are not far fetched. Depending on their inc1inations, people can react in a wide variety of ways to the same situation given mental states that are at least similar in propositional content, simply because they assign different weight to various desires, values and beliefs. This phenomenon might be called 'idiosyncratic practical reasoning' -the fact that though ascription of mental states with the same propositional content to different people seems appropriate these people may nevertheless behave differently. Idiosyncratic practical reasoning is hard to accommodate by either of the two major theories conceming mental state ascription. Let me elaborate on that.

There are two rivalling views on the nature of mental state ascription, the theory theory (TT after this) and the simulation theory (ST after this). According to IT, folk-psychology is a theory. Hence, to ascribe a mental state is to postulate a theoretical entity. The purpose of such postulation is the prediction of future behaviour of the person to whom the mental state is ascribed, or the systematisation of past behaviour. Whether or not the theoretical entities postulated by folk­psychology really exist is a matter that is undecided among the proponents of this view. Almost alI TT-adherents agree that a future scientific (cognitive) psychology should vindicate mental states if we are to believe in their objective existence. But there is considerable disagreement over whether a fu ture psychology will do this.

According to some (e.g. Churchland 1979, 1989) folk­psychology does have a reasonable degree of empirical adequacy­mental state ascription of ten helps to predict behaviour-but the most likely candidate for a future cognitive psychology, connectionism, has a

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much higher le vei of empirical adequacy while it does not postulate anything resembling folk-psychological mental states. One way of rejecting this view is to question the idea that a future cognitive psychology wilI take the form of connectionism. Defenders of artificial intelligence views of the mental (e.g. Fodor, 1990), for instance, think that a fu ture cognitive psychology will very much resemble folk­psychology in nature and structure. Others, such as analytical functionalists (e.g. Pettit and Jackson, 1990b) conceive of the nature of mental state (as theoretical postulates) in such a way (i.e. as causal role states) that neither connectionism, nor A.I. will count as a full refutation of folk-psychology.

There is disagreement over the truth of folk-psychology as a theory, then. But there is enough agreement over the theoretical postulates of folk-psychology to consider idiosyncratic reasoning a highly problematic part of folk-psychology on alI TT views. The point is this: in order for folk-psychology to be a useful theory-and the usefulness of folk-psychology is not even denied by those who reject its truth-the regularities between the ascription of (sets of) mental states and the behaviour that is anticipated on the basis of such ascription should be similar for alI people. If folk-psychology is to be a theory with a reasonable degree of empirical adequacy, when you and 1 behave differently, this should be explained in terms of a difference in mental make-up between you and me. Conversely, when both of us behave identicalIy (over a period of time, see below) in identic al circumstances, we should be considered to have identical mental make-ups. If each person would require a different folk-psychology, the theory would be practicalIy useless. There is no discussion between proponents of TT, then, over the idea that folk-psychology applies to alI persons in exactly the same way.

It is not usual to distinguish between the propositional content of a mental state and the weight such a state gets in practical reasoning, the way 1 used this distinction in the above examples. Proponents of TT usualIy identify mental states by their propositional content alone. It can readily be seen, however, that a folk-psychology in terms of propositional content alone cannot accommodate the examples given above when we keep in mind that the theory should be equally applicable to all persons. In each of the above examples, the

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propositional contents of the mental states ascribed to persons is identical while their behaviour is different. A folk-psychology in terms of systematic connections between sets of mental states, characterised in terms of propositional content, and behaviour cannot capture what is going on in idiosyncratic reasoning.

It seems like we should introduce something along the lines of what 1 have termed 'the weight' a mental state gets in practical reasoning. 2 So far so good. But how should we conceive of the ascription of weight? What criteria should we employ to ascribe a different weight to e.g. my desire to end third-world hunger and yours? The most commonsensical answer would probably be to say that we ascribe different weight to a given desire, belief or value after we have observed to what action the ascribed mental state leads. But that would turn folk-psychology into a hopelessly circular enterprise. At any rate, it would rid folk-psychological ascription of mental states of aH predictive power as soon as there are idiosyncrasies in a person's practical reasoning. It looks like idiosyncratic reasoning poses a problem for TT.

Does ST fare any better? According to ST, the idea that folk­psychology is a theory is highly problematic. As an explicit theory, articulated in terms of theoretical predicates connected by generally valid rules, folk-psychology would be incredibly elaborate. How can we employ a vast number of highly complicated rules with such surprising ease? Moreover, how are we capable of acquiring an immensely complicated theory at such a very young age? Quite apart from considerations such as these, it does seem very hard to imagine, to say the least, that folk-psychology can really be falsified and replaced by some other theory.

In order to avoid problems such as the above, ST draws a different picture of what happens when we predict or understand someone's behaviour using folk-psychology. When we predict the behaviour of others, we employ our own capacity for practical reasoning and decision-making. If we think of this capacity-for the sake of simplicity-as an identifiable practical reasoning system or module, the idea is that when we ascribe a certain set of beliefs and desires to a person, we simulate the other person's decision making by imagining ourselves to hold the same set of mental states, using them as

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'inputs' for the practical reasoning system and seeing what the outcome of that system would be. Obviously, we shall not act on the decision we come up with, since we only pretend to share the set of mental states ascribed to the other person. The practical reasoning system if run 'off line,' then, so to speak (Gordon 1986, 1992, Goldman 1989, 1992).

ST does manage to avoid ascribing to us the capacity to acquire and use a hugely complicated theory with virtualIy no difficulty. AIso, it can explain why folk-psychology is here to stay, which does at least conform to most people's intuitions. There are, however, crucial blanks in ST. For one thing, it is not quite clear how a person's practical reasoning system actualIy works. This problem becomes more acute when we realise that the system cannot operationalise a theory or system of rules, without encountering the exact same problems it intends to avoid by rejecting TI. 1 shall not discuss this problem, here. Instead 1 will concentrate on another difficulty-the same one that affects TI.

In order for ST to work, the practic al reasoning systems of the person who uses folk-psychology to predict another person's behaviour and the practical reasoning system of the person whose behaviour is being predicted must be relevantly similar. LogicalIy speaking there is no need for them to be completely identic al in alI respects, but the input-output relations must at least be the same. ST does not merely c1aim that some people can predict the behaviour of a selected class of relevantly similar persons. It rather claims that in principle every normally functioning person's behaviour can be predicted using the method sketched above by every other normalIy functioning person. The character of practic al reasoning systems must be relevantly similar for, say, at least alI persons in our (western) culture.

But now consider the examples of idiosyncratic reasoning. Like TT theorists, ST theorists do not usualIy distinguish the propositional content of a given mental state from the weight it gets in practic al reasoning. However, when ascribed mental states are identified only in terms of their propositional contents, the examples of idiosyncratic reasoning would quite simply falsify ST. In aU of the examples, one person's simulation of the other person's practical reasoning would result in a different simulated intention for action than

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the person whose behaviour is being predicted would come up with. When mental states are characterised merely in terms of propositional content, the above examples seem to imply that the practic al reasoning systems of people do differ, contrary to what ST requires.

Things will be entirely different, of course, when we would count the weight mental states get in practic al reasoning as inputs in the practic al reasoning system as welI as these states propositional content. For then the difference between, say, Ben's and Jerry's reaction to the lottery possibility need not be explained in terms of different practical reasoning system but in terms of different inputs that the simulator may well be able to simulate. It seems that ST must acknowledge that weight­ascription is as much a part of our folk-psychology as content ascription.

But now the same problem arises that also arose for TI. How should we conceive of the ascription of weight? What criteria should we employ to ascribe a different weight to e.g. my desire to end third­world hunger and yours? Again, the most commonsensical answer would probably be to say that we ascribe different weight to a given desire, belief or value a/ter we have observed to what action the ascribed mental state leads. But again that would turn folk-psychology into a hopelessly circular enterprise. It looks like idiosyncratic reasoning poses a problem for ST as welI.

So, this is the problem of idiosyncratic practical reasoning: each of the two major theories concern ing mental state ascription presupposes that folk-psychology is equally and similarly applicable to alI persons (or, to be on the safe side, to alI persons belonging to the same (western) culture). Examples of idiosyncratic reasoning appear to contradict this presupposition. However, the presupposition-which is a conditio sine qua non for both theories-can be saved when it is conceded that we do not just identify a mental state by its propositional content alone, but also by the weight it gets in a person's practical reasoning. The problem now, however, is that the ascription of weight to mental states does at least initially seem to hinge on observation of the very behaviour that is being predicted through the ascription of mental states-either via the methodology of TT or via the methodology of ST. And that would quite simply turn the ascription of merital states into a superfluous project. Folk-psychological practice would be

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completely circular, at least when idiosyncratic reasoning is concerned. The challenge, then, is to account for weight-ascription in such

a way that it does not require observation of resultant behaviour. Although meeting this challenge does not just consist in putting higher­le vei N-continuity to use, 1 shall argue that higher-Ievel N-continuity does play an ineliminable part. Insofar as idiosyncratic reasoning is a part of our folk-psychological practices, then, so is higher-Ievel N­continuity. Or so I shall contend.

4. A BIPARTl1E SOLUTION. INDUCTION AND HIGHER-LEVEL N-CONTINUTIY

1 shall not claim that the problem of idiosyncratic practical reasoning can be solved in terms of higher-Ievel N-continuity alone,then. What 1 shall c1aim is that higher-Ievel N-continuity is a necessary part of such a solution, even though it may not even be its 'main ingredient.'

So what is the main ingredîent? Here we ought to consult common sense. Take the Ben and Jerry case. Without additional information, the usual interpretation of such a case would quite simply be to ascribe a different 'character,' temperament or what have you to these two persons. Ben just happens to be more adventurous (or whatever one would like to call it) than Jerry. Of course, notions such as temperament and character are ill defined and coarse grained. They can be applied to such a wide variety of cases that they virtually cease to be informative. Nevertheless, there is some unmistakable truth in this common sense type of interpretation.

People are just not identic al in their innate or acquired behavioural responses. That is a simple fact we ought to reckon with. This is not to say that that fact wholly accounts for idiosyncratic reasoning. But it does seem true that we are born with what we might call 'a motivational profile' (MP after this) that differs from person to person. 1 am not a psychologist and 1 shall not be concerned with the nature and varieties of MP's. Thus, 1 am certainly not committed to the viability of one or more typologies of MP's that one finds in popularised psychology. What I am committed to is the c1aim that motivational differences between people such as the one between Ben and Jerry, are at least partly not subject to public justification or deliberation-they are just there. In that sense, they are not part of

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folk-psychology. Rather, they are points of departure for folk­psychological predictions of behaviour.

For our purpose, we can 'translate' the notion of an MP into the given tendency to ascribe specific mental states a specific weight in practic al reasoning relative to other mental states. With this translation, it may seem as if we haven't moved any c10ser towards the solution of the problem of idiosyncratic practical reasoning. For now the ascription of an MP does seem to depend on the observation of behaviour, the very same behaviour that folk-psychology informed by the notion of an MP should help us predict.

However, this impression is not entirely correct. The notion of 'a profile' is intended to suggest that the 'weight-distribution pattern' of an individual is a relatively stable and therefore characteristic feature of that person (at least during a certain period). And that opens up the possibility of folk-psychological prediction in which the part played by the postulation of an MP proceeds via induction. Given a set of beliefs and desires we ascribe to a person-say on the basis of verbal reports­we can deduce her MP by observ ing her behaviour. After a number of such deductions, we can then project the this MP on future situations. In such future cases, the conjunction of this MP and new sets of ascribed mental states will lead to the informative, non-circular prediction of behaviour.

While 1 certainly grant that this picture of the role of idiosyncratic reasoning in folk-psychology is overly schematic (l shall try to remedy this at least to a certain degree below), 1 also believe that there is a good deal of truth in it. Folk-psychology is not a universal behaviour predicting device; part of people's behaviour is idiosyncratic and can only be predicted through observation of previous behaviour revealing the more or less stable mind-set we call 'character' or 'temperament' in ordinary language, and which 1 have labelled 'MP' here.

At this stage it looks like folk-psychology complemented with induction might suffice to account for our capacity to predict behaviour based on idiosyncratic reasoning. However, as 1 said, this picture is still overly schematic. The main reason for this is the assumption that a person's MP is monolithic and permanent that is an implicit part of the picture sketched so far. This assumption is

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obviously false. 1 believe there is no need for an argument for that. Given that MP's change over time, however, there is need for an extra addition to the theory that explains how we can track changes of MP' s over time. This might also be a mater of induction. But 1 think that if we look at the nature of MP changes, it will become clear that higher­level N-continuity plays a crucial role in tracking, predicting and understanding MP changes as well. So lets look at some salient ways in which the MPs we are born with get modified in the course of our lives.

Roughly speaking, there are three ways in which an MP may get modified during life. First of alI, it does seem likely that there is a biology-driven pattern of change in ones MP during a lifetime. Here we can think of such trivial facts as that adolescents tend to be confused and in search of their identity, that the older one gets, the milder one gets, etc. It does seem undeniable that changes such as these have some biological underpinning. However, interfering culturally determined influences as well as personal differences make it tremendously difficult to single out this kind of MP change in each concrete case. This is why 1 shall largely ignore it.

A second type of MP change is one in which ones motivational profile gets modified through external influences. There are many kinds of relevant external influences to be mentioned. But let me discuss two of them. First of all socialisation plays a crucialIy important part in moulding the MP' s of persons in such a way that, if successfully moulded, they fit the culture the person lives in. For instance, in our upbringing we learn to constrain or curb very many of our direct impulses--e.g. the impulse to start eating as soon as there is food on ones plate, the impulse to hit someone who is annoying you, or the impulse to just say out loud whatever it is one is thinking of at this moment. These are trivial examples, of course. But they are, 1 believe, instructive in that they point the way to a plethora of further examples that each of us can take from their own biography. Of course such examples need not be limited to cases where impulses are learned to be subjected to self-censure. In many other cases, it is the other way round in that specific automatic responses are learned that can be considered part of ones MP once they are well and truly internalised-think e.g. of rules of politeness.

The role of socialisation, is not limited to ones upbringing. In

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fact, it does seem like socialisation never ceases to bother people. In many cultures different stages in life are expected to yield behaviour that is 'fitting' for that stage. The same goes for professional situations-behaviour, dress, language etc. are determined to a large degree by the kind of job one does or even by the particular company one works for. The behavioural codes prescribed by ones age and ones occupation are very easily internalised as quasi-permanent parts of ones MP (in fact they are co-determinants of ones 'identity' as, say, a middle-aged bank-employee, a senior college professor, etc.; see the next section).

Another striking kind of external influence that might modify ones MP consists in the lasting influence of significant biographical events. These can include traumatic events-tragic deaths of loved ones, incarceration, illnesses, being treated unjustly, and other kinds of misfortune-happy ones-being lucky in love, being successful in ones job-or events that cannot be classified as merely tragic or happy-say a near-death experience. It is uncontroversial that certain crucial life­events can permanently change people. They will change the way people behave. In our terms they will modify a person's MP.

A third kind of influence on the MP of people is what we might caB 'internal' influences. People can and of ten do deliberately change their behavioural responses permanently through self-discipline and training, not because this is demanded of them by others but because they themselves prefer this. There can be thousands of reasons why a person wants to change herself in this way, but we might summarise them under the heading of 'personal development.'

Given that a person's MP can change in so many different ways, and is likely to keep on changing throughout any person's life, it wiB be clear that induction alone will not do as an addition to folk­psychology as a solution to the problem of idiosyncratic reasoning. Suppose we have established a given person's MP at some stage in her life with a fair degree of accuracy through induction. Now suppose we want to predict that person's behaviour at some later stage. Can we use the established MP as a starting point for our folk-psychological exercise? We can if we know that it hasn't been modified since the time we determined it. Alternatively, we might be able to figure out how it has been modified. So the question is: how do we know whether a given

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MP has been modified and if it has been modified, how do we know the nature of these modifications?

Here, it might be thought that induction will help us, again; that there is no way of finding out about a change in someone' s motivational profile other than by looking at her behaviour. But if that is the case, the conjunction of induction and folk-psychology ceases to be the useful predictive device many philosophers take it to be. Recall that induction did not necessarily stand in the way of folk­psychological prediction since, once an MP has been established it can be used as a starting point for folk-psychological predictions of behaviour other than the behaviour by means of which the MP was induced. But that strategy only works if the MP stays stable. If not, or if we are not certain that it does, and if induction is the only way to find out, we're back at square one. That is, if each time we use our 'image' of someone's MP as a starting point of a folk-psychological prediction we need to establish or re-establish that 'image' through induction, there is no way to avoid circularity in our prediction. For in that case, the very behaviour that we want to predict should first be observed in order to establish the MP.

Therefore, if idiosyncratic reasoning is real (I contend that it is) and if folk-psychological prediction and understanding of behaviour based on idiosyncratic reasons is possible (I contend that it is a simple fact of life that such understanding and prediction is possible), we apparent1y have recourse to some other means than induction to track, understand, and predict changes in the MP' s of persons (or a lack of change, of course). In my opinion, what happens in cases where we understand and/or predict idiosyncratic behaviour, is that we consciously or unconsciously draw on what we know of a person's biography in order to deduce what has remained of an MP we knew the person at issue to have. And even if we haven't got a clue as to the previous MP of some person, having knowledge of, say, certain significant biographical events will definitely help us to piece together something of an MP that can be of (obviously much more limited) use in predicting idiosyncratic behaviour. Some elaboration might be useful here.

One way to elaborate on this is by recalling the three examples that gave rise to the problem and imagine what our interpretative

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strategies would be in the praxis of everyday life with regard to the prediction and understanding of idiosyncratic behaviour. Take the first one-you and me sharing concern over third-world hunger and over capital punishment, where you support development programmes and 1 join Amnesty International. Neither of us believes that, objectively speaking, abolishing capital punishment is more important than ending third-world hunger or vice versa. The choice is arbitrary (at least for the sake of the argument). If you want to predict and/or understand my choice for Amnesty given that all my relevant beliefs and desires are identic al to yours qua propositional content, you should have access to the weight-distribution of these states in my case.

Suppose you know nothing whatsoever about me. In that case you simply cannot determine which of the two arbitrary choices would be mine. That much is obvious. The question is: what type of information do you need in order to be reasonably sure of your ascription of a choice to me? Knowledge of earlier behaviour reflecting a choice in a case of similar arbitrary options would have great informative value. This is the inductive component. (By the way, ones access to such earlier behaviour need not consist in actual visual evidence; verbal testimony, either by me or by someone else, might do just as well). But on top of such knowledge, you should assess the extent to which my present self is likely to be similar enough to the past self whose choices you have knowledge of.

Suppose you know that 1 always have believed that capital punishment should be abolished and that third-world hunger should end. Suppose you also know that 1 used to work for all kinds of development projects in the third world. After working for these projects, however, 1 got seriously disappointed by the corruption and bureaucracy one inevitably comes across in such projects as well as with the heavy paternalism involved. As a result 1 quitted and got myself a regular job in a western country. If you have knowledge of these later biographical events, you would correctly predict my supporting Amnesty. If not, your knowledge of my working for development programmes will lead you to a wrong conc1usion.

Of course this is just a fictitious example. Nevertheless, it shows is that information about biographical events can be crucial to the understanding of idiosyncratic practical reasoning. It also shows

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that knowing only a part of ones biographical narrative may lead to wrong conc1usions. At any rate, the MP of a person's present stage is obviously not just considered given, but the resultant of a part of ones life-story. And since such a life-story relates changes to ones MP, it can be informative about previous MPs as weB as about the present one. Even if you know nothing of my previous MP, knowledge of my working in third-world countries and leaving with disappointment may provide you with enough c1ues to make a fairly accurate guess about my previous MP as weU as about my choice for Amnesty.

Now take the example of John and Mary's dilemma. Both want to teU the truth, but neither of them wants to hurt their friend' s feelings. Mary decides the first value is more important to her than the latter, while for John things are exactly the other way round. This may be a matter of innate tendencies in both. But their choices may also be due to biographical events-say, Mary's having had a terrible youth because of an ever-Iying father. Alternatively, e.g. Mary's truth-telling might be due to her being brought up in a strict Christian environment. These are just possibilities, of course. The point here is that having knowledge of a life-story might enable one to determine whether one of these possibilities obtains and hence to determine what the person's response to the dilemma will be. Here again, a person's MP can be considered a resultant or outcome of a biographical story.

The same goes for Ben and Jerry. Suppose Jerry was a notorious gambler who decided to kick the habit and got himself into a drastic psychological program which after a while enabled him to handle his craving for bets. Now, finaUy he has managed, through self­discipline and personal development, to resist bets such as the one in the example. If this is the case, we ought to have knowledge of this story in order to be able to determine Jerry's relevant MP.

What examples such as these show, 1 believe, is that what we do in order to piece together a person' s MP is of ten a diachronic version of the normal folk-psychological ascription of mental states whereby we let behaviour and knowledge of further mental states con strain ascription. The methodology of MP-reconstruction can be conceived along TT-lines as weB as along ST-lines. If we opt for TT, we should consider the theory caUed folk-psychology to contain rules concerning the succession of beliefs, desires, experiences, cravings, values etc. etc.

160 CHAPTER6

If we go for the ST option, we should consider ourselves to be able to imagine parts of people's biographies and find out what we would do if we would have had their life-experiences and if we would have had their innate MP to start with. Both options seem viable.

What that shows is that biographies, or life-stories are an integral part of folk-psychology, whatever theory of folk-psychology one favours. The regularities that govern MP-change can be identic al for everyone, even though the actual MP one end up with is highly personal. Part of what makes us the unique individuals we are is not due to peculiarities that cannot be captured in terms of e.g. a theory that ought to be applicable to everyone, but rather to biographical oddities one is very unlikely to share with anyone else, while these oddities themselves are subject to regularities that are universal. Thus, at least a part of the ascription of idiosyncratic reasons does fit into folk­psychology by recognising that this ascription is essentially diachronic.

It should be unnecessary to stress that the kind of biographical information that is argued here to be a part of folk-psychology is higher-Ievel N-continuity. Stories of personal development, of career changes, of crucial biographical event, etc. do not concern single trains of thought, or the narrative succession of sensory inputs. They ought to be conceived of from a larger perspective. Thus, my contention is that idiosyncratic reasoning provides at least for one significant role that higher-Ievel N-continuity plays in our folk-psychological practices.

5. N-CONTINUITY AND THE IDENTITIES OF PERSONS

When the term 'personal identity' is used in ordinary discourse, it is usually not meant to refer to personal identity as 1 have been discussing it in the previous four chapters. Rather than the continued existence of a person through time-something we alI are supposed to have in common-the term is meant to signify roughly what makes each of us a unique individual. 'Personal identity' in this everyday sense should be thought of as the parallel to e.g. 'national identity.' Where by 'national identity' we mean the cultural peculiarities, values, customs, etc. of a particular nation, 'personal identity' is meant to refer to character traits, values, behavioural peculiarities, life plans, beliefs, etc. that characterise a given person as this unique individual. In order to

N-CONTINUITY IN FOLK-PSYCHOLOOY 161

avoid terminologie al confusion, let me use the term 'identities of persons' to signify this everyday sense of 'personal identity' and use the term 'personal identity' as 1 have do ne this in the foregoing chapters.

The connection between personal identity and the identities of persons is not usually made explicit (see e.g. Rorty 1976). Nevertheless, interesting connections do exist and ought to be scrutinised (see e.g. Taylor 1989, pp. 49-52). Consider, for instance, the utterances "in view of my identity as a Christian, 1 cannot agree with this," and "the police found out the real identity of Mr. X; it turns out Mr. X is Jack." Both utterances concern the identities of persons­they are about what makes persons the unique individuals they are. However, while the first utterance appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with personal identity, the second is about the fact that the person­stage we know as Mr. X is identic al over time with person-stages we know as Jack. In other words, in the latter utterance a persons identity is being determined through determining his identity over time. So, what, exactly, is the connection between the identity of a person and her being identic al over time? 1 believe this question can best be answered by concentrating on identity in the sense of "my identity as a Christian ... "

There is an important link between identity in the sense of "my identity as a Christian .... " and higher-level N-continuity. This can be c1arified by concentrating on the connection between identity and idiosyncratic reasoning. Idiosyncratic practic al reasoning is what sets one person apart from another as an individual. The same goes for identity. So it seems like idiosyncratic reasoning and a persons identity are connected.

There is no consensus over what it means to ascribe an identity to a person. Sometimes the term 'identity' is simply meant to refer to that what sets one persons behaviour apart from that of another; sometimes it is meant to refer more specifically to a set of moral convictions and concurring life-plans. For my purpose, it does not really matter how wide or how strict the term is interpreted. For in both senses, and all the senses in between, it will be intuitive that a persons identity will manifest itself in idiosyncratic practical reasoning (the difference between identity in a wide sense and identity in a strict sense

162 CHAPTER6

is in the question whether ali idiosyncratic practic al reasoning is indicative of a person's identity-with identity in a wide sense this is true, but not with identity in a strict sense). Let me elaborate.

A person's identity manifests itself in behaviour-verbal or otherwise. But it is always possible that a part of a persons identity does not manifest itself, and perhaps never will. Depending on circumstances, it may, for instance, be the case that Jack is typicalIy a person who will turn into a fanatic socialist should he be drawn into a politic al discussion, though in fact he never is drawn into such a discussion. A person's identity, then, consists of dispositions to act in a specific way given appropriate circumstances.

Clearly not alI dispositions will be constitutive of identity, however. It will not be considered indicati ve of my identity that I usually stop my car when I am in front of a red traffic light. The point is that although I do have the disposition to stop before a red traffic light (ceteris paribus), so do you and so do millions of people. This particular disposition of mine is in no way specifically characteristic for me. Since a person' s identity is supposed to mark that person' s individuality or selfhood, it should consists of dispositions that are typical or characteristic for that person or person-stage (Schechtman (1996) speaks of 'the characterisation question' when she discusses problems concerning the identities of persons).

So now the question is: what makes a disposition typical of a person? This is a tricky question. For I can hardly think of a specific disposition or attitude of mine that is not shared by a host of other people. Even the rarest preference or inclination will not be rare enough to single me out. What is characteristic of me is not so much one or two specific attitudes that are not shared by anyone else, rather it is a huge set of attitudes and dispositions each of which in isolation is likely to be shared by numerous other people. It is the specific combination of attitudes that characterises me.

But even a whole set of attitudes can, in principle, be shared by a number of people. So, if there are further individuating features of such a set, they should be considered relevant to my identity as welI. When the attitudes and dispositions at issue are characterised merely in terms of the propositional contents of the mental states in terms of which we ascribe them, it seems the weight these mental states get in

N-CONTINUITY IN FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY 163

practical reasoning should be considered such a further individuating feature. Even though we may share alI our mental states qua propositional content, it may still be the case that you will act differently upon them than I do because you employ a different order of import these states get than Ido.

But now it seems as if what I labelled a person's MP is in fact that person's identity. In a qualified sense, I submit, that is indeed the case. The qualification concerns the time-index. An MP determines the identity of a person-stage. At one particular moment in time, a person's MP, disclosing the peculiarities of that person's idiosyncratic practic al reasoning; it marks what is most characteristic or typical of that person. In that sense, it marks a person-stage's identity.

But a person is not a person-stage. So what about the identities of whole persons? During a person's life-time, an MP will change under many influences, some of which I have mentioned in the previous section. Can we conceive of a person's identity in terms of her changing MP's, then? I'd say yes. an the one hand because it alIows us to view a person's MP at a given time as the resultant of the foregoing biographical narrative relating the changes in the person's original MP. The biographical narrative makes for a kind of unity among differing MP' s at different points in time. Within such a biographical narrative, marked life-events will play an important role, as well as the various kinds of socialisation to which a person is subject. But perhaps the most important narrative-identity constituting factor is what I have labelled 'personal development' in the previous section. VirtualIy no one takes her or his own MP at face value; we alI have attitudes towards our own proclivities and inclinations. As e.g. Frankfurt (1971) and Taylor (1985, 1989) have stressed, it is very of ten part of the identities of persons that they strive to change some of their inclinations-e.g. one may be addicted to alcohol and hence desire alcohol while it is part of ones life-plan to stop drinking because one does not want to desire alcohol or because one does not value that desire.

On the other hand, the idea that the identities of persons can be analysed in terms of a biographical narrative relating the changes in a person' s MP allows for the fact that at different stages in a person' s life, persons have different identities. 1 used to be a schoolboy. That was part of my identity then, but not of my identity now. Nevertheless it

164 CHAPfER6

is part of the biographical narrative that has shaped my present identity. AlI in alI, then, the higher-Ievel narratives relating the changes in ones behavioural dispositions in connection with ones biography makes for a realistic conception of the identity of a person.

Of course, this view of the identities of persons is sketchy at best. But since the topic of the identities of persons is not central in my overall argument, 1 shall leave it at that. What concerned me in this section was to see whether there is a connection between personal identity and the identities of persons. And the view of the identities of persons sketched above does seem to put us in a position to assess this connection. The identities of persons, according to the above, consist in the narrative development of MP's. The identity of a person over time consists in narrative psychological continuity. The narrative MP development is, as a higher-Ievel narrative, part of the overall narrative psychological continuity that constitutes the identity of a person over time (see Chapters 4 and 5). So here' s the connection: t h e

psychological continuity that constitutes a person 's being identical over time is co-constituted by the development of the identity of that person.

6. CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I have tried to outline some of the ways in which N­continuity plays a part in our folk-psychological understanding of ourselves and each other. I have argued first that lower-Ievel N­continuity plays a trivial but crucial role in the ascription of mental states; the diachronic holism involved in N-continuity puts constraints on the ascription of mental states. Bodily continuity and the Iimits that it sets on N-continuity provides for a 'format' of mental state ascription that resembles the rationality constraint of 'normal,' synchronic mental holism.

Higher-Ievel N-continuity plays a role in understanding idiosyncratic practical reasoning. We grasp the 'temperament,' 'character' or (more neutral) motivational profile of a given person by combining inductive knowledge of this person's 'mind set' with knowledge of bits of that person's biography that may have altered this mind set. Thus we piece together a motivational profile that is the

N-CON11NUITY IN FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY 165

starting point of folk-psychological understanding and/or prediction of a person' s behaviour and that accounts for differences in practical reasoning among persons who share a set of beliefs and desires with identic al propositional content.

Finally, this higher-Ievel narrative development of a persons motivational profile is what constitutes the identity of a person. Since this narrative is part of the overall psycho-biography that constitutes personal identity over time, it is safe to say that a person' s identity co­constitutes identity over time.

-7-

NONREDUCTIVISM:

THE RELEV ANCE OF N-CONTINUITY

1.IN1RODUCTION

In the previous chapter 1 have argued that N-continuity is a part of folk-psychology in more respects than that its being a precondition for memory. The concept of N-continuity and its corollary-diachronic mental holism-does not just help to solve problems facing a psychological continuity criterion of personal identity, then, its reality is quite independent of this explanatory function. Now it is time to see whether N-continuity has consequences for the philosophy of mind. In this chapter 1 claim that it has.

In order to do so, 1 want to elaborate on and put to use the relative autonomy of descriptions of (N-)continuous mental states in terms of their contents-i.e. 'mentalistic' descriptions-from descriptions in terms of the causal interconnection of their substrata­i.e. 'physicalistic' descriptions. Although 1 claimed that mentalistic descriptions can, and physicalistic descriptions cannot reveal the mechanisms that underlie the kind of psychological continuity that is constitutive of personal identity, 1 certainly do not mean to deny the existence of causal connections between the substrata of (N­)continuous mental states. The point rather is that even though it is more than likely that N-continuous mental states have causally connected substrata, it is not this property that explains what it is for them to be N-continuous (and hence constitute personal identity). Mentalistic descriptions are required for that. That result, 1 will argue in this chapter, can be put to use to defend a nonreductive physicalism about the mental against a number of standard arguments.

NONREDUCTIVISM 167

Nonreductivism is subject to recurrent arguments to the effect that it renders the mental explanatorily impotent. The fact that-short of accepting substance dualism-mental states nonreductively conceived lack causal efficacy that is independent of the efficacy of their physical realisers appears to deprive them of too much of their explanatory relevance. Epiphenomenalism or even eliminativism looms, or so these arguments allege. My main c1aim in this chapter is that such arguments can be countered by making use of the insights of the foregoing chapters.

As I shall show in the next section, when the interrelation of mental states and their relation to their physical realisers is viewed along the lines of the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, nonreductivism about the mental will lead to epiphenomenalism-the causal inefficacy of the mental as such. In order to avoid this conc1usion, I shall argue in Sections 3 and 4, the one-to-one systematic or nomological correlation of mental states and their physically characterised realisers ought to be rejected, roughly in the way Davidson has done this in his anomalous monism (AM after this).l

AM, however, is subject to even more serious criticism than the substratum-oriented conception of the interrelation between mental and physical states. As Jeagwon Kim argues, AM basically amounts to the elimination of the mental. This puts the nonreductivist in a precarious position: accepting the substratum-oriented conception of the interrelation between mental and physical events with its insistence on the systematic correlation of mental and physical states leads to epiphenomenalism, denying this conception leads to eliminativism.

The main point I want to make in this chapter is that the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity allows us to develop an AM-like view on the interrelation of the mental and the physical that succeeds in avoiding Kim's argument for the c1aim that AM-like nonreductivism amounts to eliminativism. Thus, while the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity does not allow for a feasible nonreductivism (i.e. a nonreductivism without epiphenomenalism), the content-oriented conception does. Let me briefly indicate how I am going to argue for this claim.

In Section 5, I will argue that the situation that is the result of

168 CHAPI'ER7

Kim's arguments, is the consequence of accepting the supposition that the explanatory power of mentalistic descriptions of events derives wholly from whatever autonomous causal powers mental states have and the supposition that the mental owes whatever place it has in our ontology to the explanatory function of mentalistic descriptions. Roughly, I shall accept the latter supposition but challenge the former. If it can be shown that mentalistic descriptions have an autonomous explanatory function other than a causal one, then the mental deserves a place in our ontology inasmuch as the respective explananda do.

No such non-causal explanatory function can be assigned to the mental within the model of the mental-physical interrelation issued by the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity. At first glance, the same goes for AM. However, in Section 6 I sha11 argue that an AM-like view can be derived from the diachronic holism of the mental implied by the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity. This alternative view, I will c1aim in Section 7, does a1low for a non-causal explanatory function of the mental.

Unlike the traditional rationalistic-predictive explanation of human action that is normalIy considered to be the typical explanatory function of the mental, the considerations of the previous chapters help us to an explanatory function that is much more c1early not in conflict with whatever causal-physical explanation. Whereas the explanandum of rationalistic-predictive explanations is in the end the same human action that allows for a physical-causal explanation, the success of a content-oriented conception of psychological continuity and the unfeasibility of a substratum-oriented one help us to conceive a radically different set of explananda that allow for mentalistic explanations only: the four features that spelI out what is at stake in the de bate over personal identity, self-interested concern, survival, responsibility, and compensation.

Thus 1 will argue that this virtually ignored explanatory role of the mental helps us to reject a the picture of nonreductive physicalism as the unattractive position that various standard considerations in the debate on mental causation make it out to be. In Section 8, I shall briefly sketch the contours of the nonreductive position that follows from the argument of this chapter.

NONREDUCTIVISM 169

2. NONREDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM AS EPIPHENOMENALISM

According to the substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity, there is a systematic correlation between the occurrence of specific mental states and their physical realisers. No type-identity need be implied, to be sure. But it ought to be possible at least in principle to individuate the referents of mental state concepts in terms of their physical realisers. In other words, according to this conception there can be a one-to-one mapping of mental states on their physical realisers.

It is held by many philosophers, that this view does not in itself imply the feasibility of a downright reduction of the mental to the physica1. One of the chief considerations here is the multiple realisability of the mental. I shalI not go into this. What I am interested in here is the question whether such nonreductivism does or does not lead to unacceptable consequences.

Psychological continuity, according to the view under consideration, consists of causally connected mental states of appropriate types (i.e. realising overlapping relations of qualitative similarity). As is clear from e.g. Parfit's and Shoemaker's writings, mental-to-mental causation is considered to be the backbone of psychological continuity. Jeagwon Kim has argued that such mental-to­mental causation, in combination with the systematic mapping of mental states onto physical ones and a nonreductivism about the mental leads to epiphenomenalism. Let me briefly discuss his argument.

Kim's argument is directed against a rather broadly defined vers ion of nonreductive physicalism, one that is roughly coextensive with the physicalism 1 claimed to be required by the atomism and CCR of the substratum oriented conception of psychological continuity. The definition includes currently fashionable 'neo-emergentist' theories, according to which mental properties are properties of physical systems that cannot be theoreticaIly predicted from such a system's physical description, but which nevertheless 'emerge' when such systems become complex enough. More importantly, it includes functionalist theories of mind in various guises. Kim's target class of theories is united by the acceptance of four theses.

First of alI there is mental realism. The existence of mental

170 CHAPTER7

states is not considered to be exhausted by the usefulness or accuracy of intentional interpretations of the behaviour of people. Whatever explanatory function intentional interpretations or mentalistic descriptions have should be grounded in the objective existence of these states and not merely in some 'heuristic overlay.' In Kim' s view this means that their reality is grounded in their causal efficacy.

Secondly, there is the nonreductivism claim. Mental states, although instantiated by physical systems, cannot be fulIy described in terms of their physical instantiators. There are no bridge laws that regulate the translation of mental into physical terms.2

Thirdly, Kim' s target philosopher is committed to physicalism. Roughly put, physicalism says that alI concrete existents are physical: there are no non-physical particulars such as Cartesian thinking substances. The question of what exactly is meant by 'physical' here can be answered by referring to currently accepted physical theories. 'Physical' means 'describable in terms of theories that are currently accepted in physics.'

Fourthly, there is the physical realisation thesis. This thesis tries to combine physicalism and nonreductivism. In its weakest form physical realisation just claims that a physical system' s being in physical state P realises that system's being in mental state M iff the system is in state P and in state M and there is a strong connection of some sort between P and M. This connection can be interpreted as one of physical necessity, but stronger interpretations are possible. Loewer and Lepore (1989, 179) propose to understand this connection as an explanatory one: the system' s being in state P explains the system' s being in state M. Objecting to the purely epistemic rendering of this point, Kim even goes one step further. "If P explains M", he writes, "that is so because some objective metaphysical relation holds between P and M" (Kim 1993b, p.197).

Kim's claim is that nonreductivism defined in terms of these four theses cannot account for the causal efficacy of mental states in mental-to-mental causation such as in cases where one thought is alleged to cause another, or, to stick to the discussion of the previous chapters, where an experience is alleged to co-cause a recollection. The argument can be divided into two steps.

(1) The first step in Kim's argument says that one mental state

NONREDUcnYISM 171

causing another requires the mental causation of a physical state. Suppose mental state M causes mental state M*. This means that M is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of M *. According to the nonreductive physicalist, M* is physically realised (by the fourth thesis) by a realisation base that we may call p* (see Fig. 1). Given the description of 'realisation', this means that p* is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of M* as well.

M ______ ~c~a~u~re~s ________ .. ~ M*

i realises

p*

Fig. 1

The two stories explaining the presence of M* are in tension. They must be reconciled. But how? It is not an option here to suppose that p* and Mare both required for the occurrence of M*. For according to the physical realisation thesis, p* alone is sufficient for M*' s occurrence. Neither can it be an option to suppose that M * is overdetermined, that either Mor p* would have sufficed to bring about M*. For that would also contradict the physical realisation thesis, which says that a physical realisation base is a necessary prerequisite for any mental state to occur. M as a cause for M* is in danger of being superfluous.

The way out of this situation, according to Kim, is to suppose that M causes M* via P* (see Fig. 2). That is, if M can be said to cause p* and P* to realise M*, then both M and p* are required for M*'s

occurrence. The causal efficacy of M in bringing about M * ' s occurrence is saved, for the moment, while the physical realisation thesis is left intact. This commits the nonreductive physicalist to the existence of what is of ten called 'downward causation;' mental state M is supposed to cause physical state P*.

172 CHAPTER7

M M*

~i causes realises

~ p*

Fig. 2

(2) The problem with downward causation is that this time the causal efficacy of mental states cannot be saved. For, like M*, M has a physical realisation base of its own, call it P. Sticking to the causal closedness of the physical domain, we would have to as sume that P causes p* (or else that p* has another physical cause). But that would deprive M of its causal efficacy. After alI, M was supposed to cause P*. It might seem that the way out here is to assume that P realises M, which in turn causes p* (see Fig. 3).

ţ~ M*

i realises causes realises

~ P p*

Fig. 3

But this is no option, for two reasons. First there is the principle of simplicity: we can do with P alone as the direct cause of P*, so why invoke an intermediate step? Secondly, the causal closedness of the

NONREDUCTIVISM 173

physical domain-a widely accepted thesis that 1 am not going to challenge-says that p* must have some direct physical cause, P. And this leads to Kim's 'problem of explanatory exclusion' (Kim 1989, 1990), which says that two distinct, sufficient causes cannot simultaneously cause a single event.3 Given these considerations, then, it seems that there is no other option than to say that P causes p* while P realises M and p* realises M* (see Fig. 4).

M M*

i i realises realises

causes p

Fig. 4

The upshot of this argument, then, is that while the physical realisation thesis may be able to combine physicalism and nonreductivism, it cannot save M's causal efficacy in producing M*; it cannot save mental-to-mental causation. The nonreductive physicalist seems forced by Kim' s argument to embrace epiphenomenalism.

3. THREE IN1ERPRETATIONS OF THE ABOVE ARGUMENT

The argument represented above is not as straightforward as it looks. In this section 1 will discuss three interpretations of it, and argue that only one of them is feasible.

One of the main assumptions behind the argument is that the physical realisation relation is relevantly similar to the causation relation. In a footnote Kim actually makes this assumption explicit (Kim 1993b, 205 n), writing that the situation in which both M and p* are sufficient conditions for M* is "essentially identic al to the situation we face when we are given two distinct, independent causes for one and

174 CHAPfER7

the same event, each claimed to be a sufficient cause." What goes for the problem of M and p* competing to be M*'s sufficient condition, also goes for its alleged 'solution'. To concei ve of P * as an intermediate step in between M and M*, p*'s realisation relation to M* is required to be relevantly like M's causal relation to P*.

The assumption that realisation is relevantly similar to causation has implications that are absolutely necessary in order for Kim's argument to succeed. The important thing is that in both cases­realisation and causation-there must be something like an antecedent and a consequent that are at least in some sense contingently related. For if M and p* are to be competitors for the role of being the one sufficient condition for M*'s occurrence, M* must be thought of as possibly, though not factually, metaphysically independent from both.

There is a dualist tendency in this. By conceiving realisation as relevantly like causation, the mental and the physical are kept apart. And that, in turn, brings us to the main problem: the vexing choice between regarding M as the cause of M* or regarding M as the cause of P*. This choice is at the heart of the argument. For if we want to regard M as the cause of M* we know that p* is its stronger competitor, and if we want to regard M as the cause of p* we know that P is its stronger competitor. Hence, according to Kim, M cannot but be causally inefficacious.

The importance of this quasi dualist interpretation of physical realisation for Kim's argument can hardly be overestimated. For suppose we regard a particular token of p* and a particular token of M* as extensionally identic al. Or suppose we re gard M* as an essential property of P*, a property without which p* would be different even in physical respects. Such suppositions are perhaps not unproblematic (see the next section), but the argument presently under consideration would be refuted by them. For if such suppositions are true, p* and M* would be the joint effect of some cause. And in that case there can be no choice between something's being a cause for p* rather than M* or vice versa. This cause is not, of course, M. For just as M* and p* might be conceived as a joint effect, M and P might be conceived as a joint cause. In other words, if realisation is regarded as relevantly different from causation in that the realisation base and the realised mental state are not separated as cause and effect or antecedent and

NONREDUCTIVISM 175

consequent, the argument described above (though not other arguments by Kim, see the next section) will be misdirected.

It is essential to the feasibility of the argument under consideration, then, to see whether there is a sense in which physical realisation of mental states can be said to be relevantly similar to causation. In order to determine this, 1 will consider three common characterisations of causation and see whether they are applicable to realisation. These three characterisations are: (1) causes necessarily precede their effects temporally, (2) causes exert some power in order to bring about their effects, and (3) causes and effects are nomologically related. Of these three 1 will argue that only the last is possibly applicable to realisation.

(1) David Hume is generally credited with one of the most inf1uential ways of characterising causality. According to him, and to a host of other ,philosophers and, perhaps, to common sense, causes necessarily precede their effect temporally. In a notoriously obscure passage (Hume 1888 [1777], pp.75-6), Hume argues that if causes and their effects were to occur simultaneously, any lapse of time would be inconceivable. This argument is not generally accepted.4 1 will not discuss these objections. Not only are there counter-objections,5 the point is that 1 am interested here merely in possible ways of conceiving causality, not in arguinents for such ways. And one very inf1uential conception of causality stresses the fact that causes necessarily precede their effect temporally.

Is this characterisation of causality applicable to realisation? 1 think not. While causes may precede their effects, realisation bases and the higher order states reali sed by them necessarily occur simultaneously. If a mental state is realised by a physical state, then the mental state occurs when the physical state occurs and as long as that state occurs. This is part of the concept of realisation (or supervenience for that matter). So, while the lapse of time involved in a cause producing its effect is one way of characterising causality, this way is not suitable to highlight a paralle1 with physical realisation.

(2) A second way of characterising causality is by stressing the fact that a cause actively produces its effect. There are highly sophisticated ways of expressing this, but let me just express it by saying that if X causes Y, X has causal powers which, given the

176 CHAPTER7

circumstances, produce Y. If 1 kick a baU and thereby cause this baU to move, my

kicking foot has kinetic energy that is transferred to the baU. This transfer results in the baU's movement, which endows the baU with causal powers it did not have before 1 kicked it. Now, for instance, the baU has the causal power to break a window. The ball when it is kicked and the window when it is broken are passive. In both cases, some cause transfers its kinetic energy to both objects resulting in the baU's movement and the window's breaking. A cause, in short, actively brings about its effect.

Again, this way of characterising causality is not of much use to indicate a parallel between causation and physical realisation. In realisation no energy is being transferred (for one thing, since there is no lapse of time between the occurrence of a realisation base and its higher order state). There is no such thing as 'realisation power.' Nor is such a thing necessary, for the higher order state is realised simply by a realisation base's occurrence, not by a power exerted by it. Realisation is not an active process of one state produc ing the other. In fact, it is not even a process.

Before discussing the third option, let me stress that whereas these differences between causation and realisation may seem obvious, they are not generaUy treated as such. Kim' s footnote quoted above is a case in point. Just to give another example, take the following quotes taken from Pettit (1993b, pp.218-9) in which the relation between macro-Ievel regularities, such as mental regularities, and micro-physical laws are described:

[O Jnce the microphysical conditions and the microphysical laws have been fixed, then ali the crucial features of a world like ours will have been fixed ( ... ). (italics mine)

Macro-level regularities ( ... ) are fixed in place by the regime which the micro-physical laws establish. (italics mine)

What is clear in these quotes is the tendency to describe realisation relations by metaphorically endowing them with the same temporal and active/passive distinctions between their relata that are distinctive of causation. This 'natural' tendency, 1 contend, is responsible for the

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strong appeal of Kim's argument. Once we recognise that realisation relations are only metaphorically endowed with causality' s properties, however, this appeal diminishes.

(3) There is a third influenti al characterisation of causation. Initially propounded by Hume [1777], again, the so-called 'covering law model' of causality describes the relation between causes and effects as a nomological one. Roughly speaking, the covering law model says that causes and effects are lawfully related: given appropriate circumstances, every event of a certain type is followed by an event of another specific type. Every token of the antecedent type is a cause, every token of the consequent type its effect.

Is a nomological characterisation possible for realisation relations? The answer is that, it does indeed seem possible. Of course, various authors have denied the nomologicality of some rough equivalents of realisation, but many others have defended views that allows for or even require nomologicality-think e.g. of certain versions of functionalism or computationalism. The point is that realisation is widely held to be an explanatory relation-Loewer and LePore (1989) are a case in point. And it is hard to see how a relation can be explanatory, when 'realisation power' is out of the question, without being nomologica1.6

Is Kim's argument viable if-and because-both causation and realisation are nomological relations? In so far as nomological relations between two relata imply that there being a certain antecedent is a sufficient condition for a specific consequent, the answer seems to be yes.

This, then, is what 1 take Kim's first step to say (given the failure of the other attempts to characterise realisation as relevantly similar to causation): one mental state M * is the nomological consequent of two antecedents, M and P *, either of which independently implies the occurrence of M* given the respective laws in which M and p* figure. There is a c1ash, not in the first place between the law relating M and M* and the law relating p* and M*, but between the explanatory uses to which both laws are put: should M*' s occurrence be explained in terms of P *, s or in terms of M' s occurrence? If this clash is not to result in the law relating M and M* being explanatorily superfluous, the two laws must be merged. And the

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merging of these laws must take the form of M' s being the nomological antecedent of P * and P * being the nomological antecedent of M *. And this takes us. to the second step of Kim' s argument, which is inescapably correct once the first step is feasible.

This does not look like a strong interpretation of the argument. It's 'weakness' is a lack of metaphysical bite, so to speak. Laws are first and foremost linguistic entities. This does not seem in line with Kim's intentions. Kim stresses firmly the metaphysical nature of both realisation and causation relations. I may not have discussed alI possible interpretations of causation and realisation. Kim may have different interpretations in mind, interpretations that take realisation to be on a par with causation metaphysically. Barring true interactionist dualism, it is not c1ear to me what these interpretations are.

The nomological interpretation of Kim' s argument therefore seems to be the only feasible interpretation of the argument as an argument against nonreductive physicalism. The main problem with the argument in this interpretation, however, is that it suggests two ways out: either one denies the nomologicality of causation, or one denies the nomologicality of the physical realisation of the mental-or, if one defines realisation such that it implies nomologicality, of some rough equivalent of realisation. Even though the covering law model of causality is not universally endorsed by all philosophers, it is certainly widely accepted. Therefore I shall concentrate on the other option: the denial of the nomologicality of (some equivalent of) realisation. For this denial is by now a well-entrenched doctrine in philosophy.

4. ANOMALOUS MONISM AND THE NONREDUCI1VIST'S DlLEMMA

The denial of the nomological character of what may be considered the equivalent of realisation in a slightly different metaphysics is most influentially propounded by Donald Davidson. Rather than speaking of physical states realising mental states, Davidson speaks of events having mental and physical properties, or falling under mental and physical descriptions. Some events fall under mental descriptions. But since all events fall under physical descriptions, mental events are physical events.

Hence, Davidson does not undertake a defence of precisely

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the position Kim attacks. He does, however, develop a position that is c10se to the position attacked in its commitment to both nonreductivism and physicalism, and which evades the argument of Section 2. Kim acknowledges this (Kim 1993b, 196n). But that doesn't commit him to the redundancy of the argument discussed. For, he has a separate objection against Davidson: anomalous monism boils down to a form of eliminativism. Thus, he apparently forces nonreductivists to choose between either a nomological realisation relation and epiphenomenalism, or an anomalous realisation relation and eliminativism. Hence the nonreductivist's dilemma. Before arguing that this dilemma can be dissolved by having recourse to the results of the discussion on psychological continuity in the foregoing chapters, let me out1ine anomalous monism and Kim's objection to it.

Anomalous monism (AM after this) follows from three plausible theses. First of aH there is the thesis that mental and physical events interact causally. An example of physical-to-mental interaction is perception. Physical events in the outside world cause a perceiver to have certain perceptual contents. Intentional action is an example of mental-to-physical causation: the having of a certain intention or motivation causes a person to act according to that intention or motivation.

The second thesis is the nomological character of causation. Where there is causality there must be a strict law; this is the covering law model of causality.

The third thesis is the anomalism of the mental. There are no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained. A Humean belief-desire psychology that explains a given action in terms of a desire and the belief that this certain action will lead to the direct or indirect satisfaction of the desire cannot issue in strict rules. Rules of the form 'to desire y and to believe that f-ing will bring you y leads to the performance of an action that counts as f-ing,' allow for so many exceptions as they stand, and are to be complemented with so many cete ris paribus clauses that as strict rules they should be regarded as false. Patching them up with the required provisos, though, will make them unsuitable to figure in deductions and lawful generalisations about actions.

If the mental is anomalous and the physical nomological,

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psycho-physical laws seem out of the question as well. One further reason for this stems from the holism of the mental. Beliefs and desires are modified and shaped by other beliefs and desires; there are conceptual, inferential and evidential links between them. It is impossible, for instance, to ascribe to me the belief that 1 am one metre removed from my telephone and the belief that 1 am less than 50 centimetres removed from it, given that 1 understand what 'metre', 'centimetre', 'removed' etc. mean. To ascribe the first belief is not to ascribe the second one and vice versa. But to suggest that this mutual exclusion is due to our grasp of an informative law requires­absurdly-at least the conceptual possibility of my believing both that 1 am one metre removed from my telephone and that 1 am not more than 50 centimetres removed from it. The point is that there is no "echo" of this holism to be found in the physical realm. Hence, psycho-physical laws seem out of the question.

These three theses apparently c1ash. If the interaction between the mental and the physical is not nomological, and if causality is nomological, how can there be causal interaction between the mental and the physical?

It is by accepting token identity-the idea that mental events are physical events or the idea that every event that allows for a mental description also allows for a physical one-and by rejecting type identity-the idea that every event that allows for a description in terms of a specific mental state type always falls under one and the same physical state type as well-that these three seemingly incompatible theses can be accepted. The reconciliation of the three theses rests on the acceptance of (l) an extensionalist conception of causation and (2) the idea that events are mental or physical only under a mental or physical description: "Causality and identity are relations between individual events no matter how described. But laws are linguistic; and so events can instantiate laws, and hence be explained or predicted in the light of laws, only as those events are described in one or another way" (Davidson [1970] 1980, 215).

By distinguishing between events and descriptions thereof, it is possible to deny the existence of mental-to-mental, mental-to-physical and physical-to-mental laws (anomalism of the mental) and yet accept that mental and physical states interact causally. Events, that can be

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described as mental or as physical, interact causalIy. But that does not mean that there have to be psycho-physical laws. AlI this requires the principle of the nomological character of causality to be read very carefulIy: "[It] says that when events are related as cause and effect, they have descriptions that instantiate a law. It does not say that every true singular statement of causality instantiates a law" (lbid.). In other words, mental events may be said to cause mental Of physical events even if a statement describing such a process does not express a law that subsumes the causal relation as described.

The absence of psycho-physical laws prohibits the reduction of the mental to the physical. Mental event types are such that they do not connect to each other nomologicalIy, and physical event types are such that they connect nomologicalIy. The mental and the physical have different taxonomies, and there can be no mapping of one onto the other. Mental descriptions of event types cannot be translated into physical ones, even though for every description of a mental event there is an extensionalIy equivalent physical description.7 Hence Davidson' s nonreducti ve physicalism.8

AM is not vulnerable to Kim's argument of Section 2, even though it is nonreductivist and physicalist. It is not true that a physical realisation base, i.e. an event that falIs under a physical type is as such a sufficient condition for that event falling under a mental type, i.e. that event being describable in mental terms. AM does not conceive of physical realisation (or whatever term one would prefer here) as an intensional, nomological relation between mental and physical state types. Rather, it conceives of realisation as an extensional relation of token-identity between mental and physical events. Hence, the whole issue of whether M causes M* directly or via p* does not arise in Davidson' s theory: an event describable as either P or M causes an event describable as p* or M*.

According to many philosophers, however, AM' s commitment to token identity, the nomologicality of the physical and the non-nomologicality of the mental is in fact nothing but a recipe for the causal inefficacy of the mental, even though the argument of Section 2 can be avoided.9 AM does not save mental causation, according to them, because mental events cause other events in virtue of the fact that they falI under physical types and not in virtue of the fact that they falI

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under mental types. Mental events are causally efficacious not as mental events, but as the physical events they are identical with. The charge, again, is that AM amounts to epiphenomenalism (or, better, type-epiphenomenalism, see McLaughlin lbid.).

The most important part of Davidson's defence against this multiply voiced criticism is his insistence on the fact that, given his concepts of events and causality, it is not possible to speak of events causing other events 'as' X rather than Y. He insists that "it makes no literal sense ( ... ) to speak of an event causing something as mental, or by virtue of its mental properties, or as described in one way or another." (Davidson 1993, 13) Davidson holds an extensionalist view of causation.

This response to the epiphenomenalism charge has certainly not convinced everyone. McLaughlin observes, for instance, "[t]hat causal relations are extensional relations between events is straightforwardly compatible with the claim that when events are causally related, they are so in virtue of something about each." (McLaughlin 1993, 32) As correct as this observation is, though, I believe it threatens to obscure the argumentative merits of Davidson's appeal to the extensional character of causation.

In itself the claim that events are causally related in virtue of something about each that is fully captured only in a physical description does not lead to the conclusion that the mental is causally inefficacious. The causal inefficacy of the mental would be warranted only when it can be demonstrated that the 'something' in virtue of which events cause each other is not even partly responsible for the fact that such events also have a mental description. And this has nof been demonstrated.

Now one may argue against this move that if the causally efficacious elements of events are involved in the fact that such events are mental events, this would imply that the mental can be reduced to the physical. But this response makes two mistakes. On the one hand it assumes-unwarrantably, as 1 shall argue in the next sections-that causally efficacious elements of an event are not just necessary but also sufficient for the fact that that event can also be described in mental terms. On the other hand it begs the question against the thesis that the mental and the physical are not nomologically related by suggesting

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that a physical description of events, presenting their causally efficacious elements, implies their mental descriptions.

The point is that the relation between the describability (not

the description) of events in mental terms and the describability (not

the description) of events in physical terms must also be conceived as an extensional, metaphysical relation. If we view the mental-physical relation thus, it might well be the case that causally efficacious properties of events play a part in such events being describable in mental terms without it being the case that the causal efficacy of these properties can be captured in a mental description.

Does this mean that Davidson's AM is saved from the epiphenomenalism charge? Yes and no. For while it has been shown that in AM the mental need not be causally inefficacious, what is left of the causal rale of the mental gives rise to a much more venomous attack, one that cannot be countered by means of an appeal to the extensional character of causation.

What is left of mental causation in AM is something akin to what in more functionalism-oriented approaches has been called 'causal relevance.' 10 The causal efficacy of the mental is limited to the causal efficacy of physically describable properties of events that are a necessary but non-sufficient condition for the describability of such events in mental terms. The describability of an event in specific mental terms can thus secure its specific causal efficacy, even though a description of this efficacy can only be couched in physical terms.

The big difference between Davidson' s case and that of (analytical) functionalism is that in the former case there aren't while in the latter case there are systematic11 relations between the mental and the physical. This allows functionalists to explain how a specific mental description involves a specific (micro-)physical configuration that will cause certain other events; it alIows functionalists to explain how and predict that mental states 'program for' a specific outcome (to use Pettit and Jackson's terminology). This is not possible in Davidson's case. But the fact that one cannot explain and predict the specific (micra-)physical configuration from the mentalistic description of a given event does not preclude at alI that this configuration including its causally efficacious properties is necessary for that event being describable in mentalistic terms (which, again, is perfectly compatible

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with the claim that mental description do not explicitly bring out these causally efficacious properties; see also Section 6). Thus, a mental description of an event ontologically yields a specific causal efficacy of that event, even though we are epistemically in no position to assess this efficacy from the mental description alone, for lack of systematic relations between the mental and the physical. Though many philosophers may think this is not enough ta speak of the causal efficacy of the mental, it is also false to say that this renders the mental causally irrelevant (hence such terms as causal relevance).

In this admittedly rather minimal sense, then, mental causation of some sort is saved. However, given that there are no mental causal powers that can be distinguished from the physical properties that are involved in their constitution, the-rhetorical-question arises: what do we need mental descriptions of events for? What explanatory work is being dane by describing events as mental events? What function do mental descriptions of events have independently of physical descriptions? In Kim's words:

( ... ) [A]nomalous monism, rather than giving us a form of nonreductive physicalism, is essentially a form of eliminativism. Unlike eliminativism, it allows mentality to exist; but mentality is given no useful work [ ... ]. This doesn't strike me as a form of existence worth having. In this respect, anomalous monism does rather poorly even in comparison with epiphenomenalism as a realism about the mental. (Kim 1993a, p.270)

Against this charge, which I take ta be Kim's real objection ta AM, it will not do ta argue that causation is extensional. For the charge is not directed against the causal efficacy of the mental, but against the explanatory use of mental descriptions, given that these are descriptions of causally related events that do not bring out this causal relatedness. (Therein lies a crucial difference with the argument of Section 2. If there are nomological connections between the mental and the physical, then mental descriptions-or the mentioning of mental properties, depending an your metaphysics-may suffice ta bring out causal regularities, even though the mental as such is not causally efficacious. Hence, in the case of such nomological connections, alI Kim can argue for is a 'mere' epiphenomenalism, not eliminativism).

Ta this move Davidson (1993) objects that even though the

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mental realm is anomalous, this does not prevent there being mental regularities or non-strict laws. These regularities or non-strict laws may have a function of their own. Even though something along these lines is what 1 will be defending, in abstraction from a diachronic view on the interrelation of mental events 1 shall agree with Kim (e.g. Kim 1993c) that this is not a very powerful counterattack. For while there may indeed be non-strict mental laws, the fact remains that for every event that can be explained by means of a non-strict mental law there has to be a physical explanation using strict laws. At best non-strict laws can help to point out that AM leads only to weak and not to strong eliminativism. The mental is eliminated, but we retain mentalistic language for practic al purposes, knowing that there is a more accurate but harder to obtain physical replacement for every mentalistic sentence. But even weak eliminativism cannot be squared with the mental realism to which nonreductive physicalists are committed.

So, this is the nonreductivist' s dilemma: with a nomological correlation between mental states and physical states, the mental becomes a causally inefficacious epiphenomenon; without a nomological correlation between mental and physical descriptions of events, mental events do have at least causal relevance, but mental descriptions become strictly speaking superfluous so that the resulting position amounts to (weak) eliminativism.

5. STRA lEGIe ImERMEZZO. PRESUPPOSITIONS BEHIND THE DILEMMA

Overcoming the dilemma requires rejecting either the epiphenomenalism argument against nonreductivism that allows for nomological mental-physical relations, or the eliminativism argument against AM or an AM-like nonreductivism. Such (a) rejection(s) should proceed either by identifying a mistake in the reasoning that constitutes these arguments, Of by identifying and rejecting presuppositions these arguments necessarily require. 1 cannot see how the first strategy can be applied to the arguments at issue. 1 shall therefore concentrate on the second.

There are three rather obvious presuppositions behind the dilemma. (1) First, it is assumed that if the mental deserves a place in our ontology it does so on the basis of its explanatory potential. We

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should use mentalistic descriptions of events or invoke mental properties, that is, only if doing so helps to explain or understand certain facts about this world. (2) Next it is assumed that the only kind of explanation that is relevant in this respect is causal explanation. (3) Finally it is assumed that whatever the mental explains should not have a better explanation in physical terms.

The argument of Section 2 shows that nonreductivism violates (3), given (1) and (2). lf there are nomological relations between the mental and the physical, then invoking mental regularities can certainly help to identify and describe real lawful regularities-we may predict the occurrence of M* on the basis of our knowledge of M-so that (1)

is satisfied. These regularities are grounded in causal laws so that (2) is satisfied as well. However, since the real causal work is being done at the physical base level, the explanation of these regularities can best12

be cast in physical terms, so that (3) is violated. The mental is thus not eliminated but reduced to an epiphenomenon.

The argument against AM shows that if AM is accepted, (3) and (1) are violated, given (2). Quite obviously, if the mental is anomalous and the physical nomological, and if causality presupposes nomologicality, then if all the relevant explanations are causal (by (2», the physical can explain everything the mental explains better-(3) is violated. But since there are no nomological relations between the mental and the physical, mental regularities do not help us identify causal processes as such, even though their referents are extensionally identical with such processes. And if causal explanations are the only explanations that count (by (2», then the explanatory potential of the mental is in fact next to nothing and the mental should strict1y speaking be eliminated from our ontology (by (1».

Since the argument for epiphenomenalism only claims that nonreductivism violates (3)-and not (l)-it might seem as if attacking that argument is an easier task than attacking the anti-AM argument, which states that nonreductivism (of the AM sort) violates both (1) and (3). However, one of the purposes of my elaborate discussion of the epiphenomenalism argument was to show that that argument can only be rejected by accepting a non-nomological relation between the mental and the physical. It seems to me that a good defence of a nonreductivism that does not imply epiphenomenalism cannot do

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without an accoi.mt of the incommensurability of mental- and physical taxonomies. I shall therefore opt for a roughly Davidsonian line of defence.

I shall accept (1) and (3). Presupposition (3) speaks for itself, I think; it safeguards mental explanation from possible redundancy. Presupposition (1), by contrast, is alI but an uncontroversial one. Many philosophers regard the mental not just as an explanans, but also as an explanandum in its own right. This, I admit, is a reasonable position. However, the point is that unlike for instance analytical functionalism, AM does not explain the physical realisation of the mental. Where functionalists define mental states in such a way that it can be made intelligible that a certain configuration of physical states and their causal interrelation realises a mental state, Davidson does nothing of this sort. In fact the lack of nomological or systematic relations between the mental and the physical seems to preclude such an explanation. In view of this it seems right to demand that mental descriptions of events are justified by some explanatory purpose they serve.

The presupposition I shall attack is (2). I will claim that there is a non-causal explanatory function that can be played by the mental and only by the mental in virtue of which it justifies its place in our ontology. If this can be established, the argument that AM or AM-like versions of nonreductivism violate (1) fails completely. For if (2) is rejected, the fact that mental explanations do not identify causal processes as such is no longer sufficient to warrant the claim that (1) is violated. Furthermore, the claim that AM violates (3) can be rejected if it is indeed the case that the non-causal explanatory function that is assigned to the mental is directed at an explanandum that does not alIow for a physical-causal explanans.

Before going into the possibility of a non-causal explanatory function of the mental, however, we should ask whether (2) can be rejected at alI. It might well be thought that no function other than a causal one suffices to justify adherence to mental realism. In that case, even if there are non-causal functions of the mental, they will not help AM to mental realism (rather than, say, eliminativism or instrumentalism). This position, however, lacks a reasonable foundation.

As argued in the previous section, AM allows for the causal

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relevance-or whatever term one should think is more appropriate here-of mental states; mental states are causally relevant even though mental descriptions do not bring the details of the causal efficacy that underlies this relevance to the fore. Therefore, AM satisfies the following principle: that nothing can exist unless its existence makes some causal difference to the world. Presupposition (2) goes beyond this principle. It qualifies (1) and (3) so that autonomous causal efficacy of the mental is the only ground for granting mental realism.

While there is something to be said for the first principle-if X does not have causal efficacy, it would have to exist completely independently of the physical-there are no a priori reasons to endorse the stronger claim (2). We may find reasons to reject the idea that the mental is indispensable in virtue of a particular explanatory function E, to be sure, namely when E can be recast in terms of physical explanations. But there are no a priori reasons to suppose that every explanatory function of the mental is thus reducible. Short of mistaking (2) for the first milder principle, then, a rejection of (2) is theoretically possible.

The meagre kind of mental causation AM allows for, I submit, fulfils a necessary condition for mental realism-the first principle. Kim is right, however, to stress that it is insufficient for mental realism. We may infer from this, with Kim, that AM precludes mental realism and amounts to (weak) eliminativism. But we can avoid such a conclusion when a further non-causal explanatory role can be conferred to the mental which complements its causal relevance/efficacy so as to make for a set of sufficient conditions for its indispensability. AM does not seem to allow for such a non-causal explanatory function. Within its framework all explananda that allow for a mentalistic explanation also allow for a causal-physical one. 1 will claim, however, that the considerations of Chapters 3-5 allow for an AM-like view that does allow for such an autonomous explanatory function of the mental.

Unsurprisingly, 1 shall claim that personal identity or the four features that are at stake in the de bate on identity are explananda that require a mental explanans. What is important about this move is that the mental is not merely given its own 'style' of explanation. Such a 'style' of its own is granted by all philosophers who argue for some

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kind of autonomy of the mental on the basis of the fact that the mental rationalises actions. On top of its own style of explanation, my aim is to argue for the claim that the mental has an explanandum of its own. Unlike actions, which can be rationalised and explaine~ in physical­causal terms, personal identity does not allow for a causal-physical explanation as well. Thus, (3) can be saved along with (1).

At least, that is what I will argue in the next three sections. I shall start with a discussion of how the diachronic holism of the mental that emerged from the previous chapters allows for a different argument for the irreducibility of the mental to the physical than the one Davidson uses. Davidson's focus-and that of many other philosophers-in his discussion of the difference in taxonomies between the mental and the physical is just that: the difference. While discussing this difference, no particular attention is paid to a potential explanatory use to which the structure of the mental realm, but not that of the physical realm, can be put. The difference in taxonomy between the physical and the mental that I shall concentrate on in the next section is such that room is made for an autonomous explanatory function of the mental.

. After outlining the resulting AM-like view, in Section 7, this function will be the topic of Section 8. In that section, 1 shall very briefly present the failure of the substratum-oriented conception of psychologicalcontinuity and the success of the content-oriented conception as the point that personal identity can be explained in mental but not in physical terms. This is contrasted with the usual explananda of rationalistic-mental explanations-human actions-that allows for both types of explanation.

6. DIACHRONIC HOLISM ANO IRREOUCIBILITY

In Chapter 3, Section 6 I discussed how the full content and epistemic entitlements of memories depend on the specific psychological and objective context in which they occur. In Chapters 4 and 5, I argued that this context represents the narrative-or, if you wish, narratives­comprising one's biography. Not only memories, but in fact every mental content with a conceptual component derives its full meaning from its being embedded in a specific narrative. The fact that mental

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contents are dependent on their diachronic contexts makes for a complete lack of 'isomorphism' between the way mental states or events are meaningfully interrelated and physical events are causally interrelated. The difference is such, I shall argue, that for reasons similar to, yet distinct from the ones Davidson stresses, the structure of the mental does not have an echo in the physical realm.

The embeddedness of conceptual mental contents in a personal narrative is responsible for the fact that individual contents can only be completely individuated when reference is being made to this narrative context. The point should in fact be made even stronger: There are no such things as individual mental contents. Rather, there are narrative mental processes from which we can abstract 'individual' mental contents for practical purposes.

I might, for instance, single out my desire to have my hair cut from the much larger narrative of my psychobiography for the purpose of explaining my actions. My wish to get my hair cut at this moment is thus conceived as being tightly connected with and co­determined by my preferences concern ing looks, my beliefs about the length of my hair, which in turn are connected with memories of perceiving myself this morning and at other times in the mirror, and so ono

It is not the case that the fact that my desire to have my hair cut is instantiated in my brain (whereas it could have been instantiated in yours) is sufficient for this desire to be mine. This is the type of individuation of mental states that was criticised in Chapter 3 (see also Chapter 6. Section 5). Here 1 will just note that my desire to have my hair cut and your desire to have your hair cut are distinct, not merely in substratum, but also in content. For my desire to have my hair cut is linked to my remembering myself looking into the mirror this morning and noticing that my hair is too long, or some other event in my past with which your desire to have your hair cut cannot possibly be N­continuous. Or, to take an example from Chapter 3, my experience of taking my children to school is only my experience of taking my children to school when it is linked to my remembering having the children 1 have, raising them the way 1 did, bringing them to the school they go to, and so ono These examples can be muItiplied infinitely, but the point will be clear.

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What goes for mental contents goes for their epistemic entitlements, especially those of our memories. As I argued in Section 6 of Chapter 3 and Section 2 of Chapter 5 the epistemic criteria for the veridicality of our memories do not lie in our drawing on extern al knowledge about the causal history of our current states of recollection. Rather, these epistemic criteria lie in the coherence and consistency of this state with its psychological context-other beliefs, memories, etc.­and its objective context-perceptions of the external world, testimonies by others, photo albums, newspapers, etc.

The context(s) in which a specific mental state or event is embedded is not just a context of synchronously occurring events, it is mainly a context representing diachronically occurring events. To individuate a full mental content, one does not just have to refer to events occurring at the same time, but also (and mainly) to events that occurred at other times. Roughly speaking, the more personal a mental content becomes (Le. the more important its role in the narrative of one's life becomes), the more reference has to be made to events at other times in order to capture its full content. Whereas the thought 'It is raining now' will probably require little reference to past events,l3 the thought '1 really have to write that letter to John tonight' will obviously require a fairly elaborate context of past events.

It is important, and in the case of the letter example obvious to see, that this context is not just required for mental events to have the content. they have, but that the context is of ten implicitly invoked by the contentitself. By thinking of a specific letter I should write, I invoke a context of a certain correspondence and my role in it. The contents of this specific letter presuppose at least part of this correspondence, and the fact that 1 think I should write it demonstrates my awareness of the time that has lapsed since I last received a letter from John.

The fact that very many of our actual mental states require us to refer to mental states we had at other times in order to specify their fuU contents and in order to individuate them, makes for an important, though largely neglected, distinguishing feature of the mental realm. When it is recognised that most of the actual mental contents we harbour are not of the type "it is raining now" or "the moon is not made of green cheese," but of a much more elaborate and personal nature, it should also be recognised that a diachronic holism is not an

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accidental but a cardinal defining property of the mental. The fact that we do also have thoughts that do not require reference to earlier mental states is irrelevant here. The claim is that there can be no mental realm if alI mental states are of that latter type.

I take the fact that without a diachronic holism of the mental such integral parts of that concept as memory are unthinkable (see Chapter 3 and the next section) is enough support for this claim. So let me defend this claim here by discussing and rejecting what might seem to be a powerful objection.

One reason why the diachronic embeddedness of mental contents may not be regarded as yielding true diachronic individuation of individual mental contents may be this: in so far as the context within which contents have their individuation criteria involves reference to the past, it is a context of co-temporal memories rather than past experiences. In other words: the past experiences to which reference has to be made in order to individuate present mental contents are not realIy past experiences, but representations thereof that exist at exactly the same point in time as the content whose individuation requires them. Therefore, it seems, individuation of a present mental content does not truly require reference to the past. Such an event or state can in fact be synchronically individuated.

This objection to what I want to say appears to be serious, but is in fact not so. In order to see this we must recognise that the objection makes use of a distinction between two kinds of properties of memories. On the one hand there are what we may calI 'backward­referring properties,' Le. properties in virtue of which memories refer to past experience. On the other hand there are what I will call 'belief­inducing properties,' Le. properties in virtue of which memories induce in us beliefs about experiences we may or may not have had.

What the objection says is that backward-referring properties of memories are not the ones that constitute the context within which certain present experiences acquire their full meaning. Belief-inducing properties are sufficient for such a context. My desire to have my hair cut makes sense within the context of my belief that I looked in the mirror this morning and found my hair to be too long, rather than the context of my actually looking in the mirror. For alI we know I might not have looked in the mirror but merely believe that I did. In that case,

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my desire for a haircut would have been the same. Thus, it seems that my beliefs about the past rather than actual past experiences constitute the context of my desire, a context that exists at precisely the same time as that desire.

The mistake contained in this objection is that the two kinds of properties of memories-backward-referring and belief-inducing-can really be told apart. The point is that the beliefs induced by memories are themselves backward-referring. Even when I falsely believe that I looked in the mirror this morning and found my hair to be too long to my taste, my present desire to have my hair cut would have a backward­referring property about it. It cannot be indi viduated completely, qua content, if no reference is being made to an event in the past, whether this event toak place ar nat. The content of my desire is simply not to be individuated while reference is being made anly to events-internal or external-that occur at the time the desire is had.

It is in the very nature of mental contents that their individuation requires reference to their intentional objects. The intentional objects of memories are past events. Thus, if a certain content makes sense only within a context of certain memories, it cannot be understood except by referring to these past events. The synchronous contexts that render our memories intelligible cannot but be interpreted as a phase or stage in a diachronic process of N­continuous mental events representing ar misrepresenting an objective narrative. By extension, every mental content that makes sense only within a framework of memories-which is almost every mental content of significance for us-requires implicit reference to the past for its individuation and description.

Physical objects or states, by contrast, do not require reference to objects or states at other times for their individuation. This is not accidental but given with the characterisation of 'physical' as 'being describable in terms of currently accepted physical theories.' For it is a defining feature of physical theory that although physical processes occur over time, each of their (infinite number of) temporal stages can in principle be described in abstraction from the other stages of the same process. Physical processes are chains of causally connected temporally indexed self-contained states.

It is important to stress that this purported axiom is not refuted

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by the existence of causal laws of nature that relate synchronically identifiable physical events diachronically. It may indeed seem that such laws force one to accept that the causal properties of states or objects are diachronic properties. But this is the case only if such causal properties cannot be individuated save by referring to the states or objects that cause the state or object being individuated or referring to the states or objects that are caused by the state or object being individuated. And this, typically, is not the case in physics. The causal powers of objects and states are characterised in physics precisely in synchronic terms.

Physical objects, whether they are micro-physical or not, have mass, speed, acceleration, kinetic energy, impetus, impulse, etc. etc. And these properties are describable and quantifiable at each separate moment in time. Such speed, kinetic energy, etc. may or may not lead to specific effects. But these fu ture events are not being referred to while ascribing causal powers to the object or state that is the cause. The synchronic individuation of states and objects, including their causal properties, is an axiom of physical theory. Axioms cannot be argued for. In a sense they speak for themselves. In any case the claim that this is an axiom of physics seems to be corroborated by Newtonian and E· .. 14 h· Il b h . 15 mstemlan p YSICS as we as y quantum mec amcs.

The difference between the role that temporal interrelation plays in the individuation and identification of mental events or states and the role it plays in the individuation and identification of physical events or states prevents the translation of a physical description of an event or state into a mental description and vice versa. Suppose a neural state N x that is token-identical with a thought Tx at tx is synchronically identifiable. Tx-say my thought that I should have a haircut-cannot be properly identified without referring, for example, to Ty at ty-say my experience of looking into the mirror a while ago. To be more precise, Tx and Ty are abstractions from the same N-continuous mental process and Tx is such that for this abstraction not to yield a serious impoverishment of content and the total disappearance of the mine­ness of the content, a link to another abstraction, Ty, should be stressed.

What is the physical realisation base-to use this slightly out of place functionalist terminology-of Tx? If we say it is Nx , we make the mistake of abstracting Tx from its real diachronic context to such an

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extent that we completely neglect a large part of its actual content: aU that makes this mental content mine. But we cannot avoid this problem by regarding both Nx and Ny as the realisation base of Tx• For in that case we have not specified the realisation base of Tx especiaUy, rather than of Tx and T y• The temporal orderings of mental events and physical ones are not commensurable such that a one-to-one mapping of a mental state onto its realiser is really possible.

Things get worse when tx and ty are, say, a week apart. A physical-causal connection between events a week apart must necessarily involve numerous intermediate events that constitute a causal chain over time relating the relevant neural event at tx to the event at ty. But it may very weU be the case that there are no relevant intermediate mental events in between Tx and Ty semantically speaking. There are two ways of identifying a realisation base, neither of which is satisfactory. Either one takes the neural events at their separate times to be connected by means of a large causal-physical chain over time, in which case we have not succeeded in identifying a physical realisation base that can be 'matched with' or 'mapped onto' the mental content(s) at issue only. The realisation base is obviously way too 'big' in this case. Or we simply assume that the relevant physical events are mysteriously connected in a way that parallels the semantic connection between the two contents, in which case we have not succeeded in pinpointing a truly physical realisation base.

Mental descriptions of states or events, then, cannot be translated into physical descriptions because their 'temporal taxonomy,' as 1 will call it for lack of proper terminology, has no echo in physical theory, to use Davidson's phrase. This is the result, to summarise a part of Chapter 4, of the fact that a person's mentallife is set against the background of and is co-determined by a basic narrative which (in this world) reflects the career of an objective continuant in and through physical and social reality-the body. The connection, for instance, between my belief that my hair is too long and the series of experiences, at various distinct times, of looking into the mirror exists in virtue of the fact that these mental states are embedded in a continuous narrative whose 'temporal spine' is tied to one body: mine.

This way of securing the irreducibility of the mental resembles

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the way in which AM secures irreducibility. In both cases there is a difference in taxonomy that prevents translation. In Davidson's case the mental taxonomy is characterised by a largely synchronic holism according to which "beliefs and desires issue in behaviour only as modified and mediated by further beliefs and desires, attitudes and attendings, without limit" (Davidson [1970] 1980, 217). In any case no specific role is given to and no specific stress is laid on the fact that holistically related mental states or events occur at times that can be days, weeks, years, or even decennia apart.

One crucial difference between Davidson's holism­nonreductivism link and mine is that in my case the diachronic holism derives largely from the representative character of mental states. It is through the fact that a large part of a persons mental states reflect the doings and whereabouts of an objective being in physical and social reality that mental states acquire their full diachronic holism (see Chapter 4, especially Section 4). In Davidson's case the relation between holism and the representational character of the mental does not play as significant a role.

Having said this, though, 1 should stress that nothing in what Davidson and other advocates of mental holism say excludes a diachronic vers ion of holism such as it is implied by the content­oriented description of psychological continuity. Davidson even stresses the import of the history of a given system to its mentality (Davidson 1987) albe it that he stresses the role of a causal history rather than a narrative one. There is at least one further reason to as sume that the lack of attention for diachronic holism should not be considered to amount to a rejection of it but only to its being assigned an implicit status-though even that would be a mistake as 1 shall argue in the next section.

In order for holism to be an intelligible doctrine it must not just be stated that mental events modify and mediate each other. There must also be principles by which this mediation and modification is regulated (otherwise holism is simply not able to put constraints on our interpretation of someone's mind or even our own). These principles are normally summarised under the heading of 'rationality,' usually without much specification. But what does this amount to?

Clearly, rationality cannot mean strict rules of logic in this

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case. For our minds do not deal exc1usively in contents to which pure logic applies. Our minds contain contents that are about ourselves, our lives and the world in which we live them. Hence, in order for us to be rational or for the contents of our minds to relate rationally, they must refIect the 'logic' or the general principles governing the way we as embodied human beings live our lives in this world. 1 spelled out some of the most important of these principles in Chapter 4. What 1 labelled 'the basic narrative' consists of diachronically ordered mental events whose interrelation has ta comply ta the rules by which we comprehend aur bodies moving through space. 1 cannot now remember myself being in Paris a few minutes aga given that 1 am now in Amsterdam. The context of such a supposed memory would prevent me from regarding it as a veridical memory, if 1 am rational.

1 do not intend to repeat all 1 said in Chapter 4. But the principles by which we interpret the contents of our minds can generally be said ta refIect and make use of our knowledge of our being socialised aud embodied beings, and hence aur knowledge of the external social and physical world. The concept of N -continuous 'stream of consciousness', then, draws the rough outlines of some general principles governing the way mental contents interrelate and mediate each other that go way beyond an abstract or formal concept of rationality.

1 must add that there are numerous other of such principles that 1 did not discus in Chapter 4. It is not just knowledge of the external world and our place in it that counts. Knowledge of the social institutions of the society we live in also counts, for instance (e.g. 1 cannot rationally think that 1 am unemployed while expecting a pay cheque). 1 will not and cannot summarise all the principles at play here. But the point will be clear: the contents of our minds cohere holistically by representing the narrative of the life of an embodied socialised being in this world and this or that society. Being aware of the various principles that govern the interpretation of diachronically interrelated mental contents that follow from this allows us ta complement synchronic versions of mental holism in a way that presumably few advocates of holism would object to and that none of them has explicitly exc1uded sa far.

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7. THE RESUL TING PICTURE

Roughly speaking, the Davidsonian picture of the relation between the mental and the physical is that of causally interrelated-in an extensional sense-events that sometimes allow for mental descriptions and always allow for physical ones. In terms of the argument of Section 2, an event describable as M and as P causes an event describable as M* and as P*. The referents of M and Pare identic al, and so are those of M* and P*. Because of this, there is a degree of isomorphism between an explanation of the succes sion of events in terms of M being the antecedent of M* and in terms of P being the antecedent of p* (in the former case M might rationalise M *, in the latter case P * is the nomological consequent of P).

Recognition of the fact that physical events can, while mental events cannot truly be individuated by focussing at what is the case at one point in time-recognition, that is, of the fact that physical predicates are synchronic while mental predicates are essentially diachronic-Ieads to a model of the interrelation of the mental and the physical in which such isomorphism is in an important sense absent.

The key consideration here is that individual mental states-as tokens of a particular type-are abstractions from larger, diachronic mental processes Of narratives (see Chapter 4, Section 2). The reality of the mental concerns first and foremost narrative mental processes that extend over larger periods of time. Ones stream of consciousness is more real, in the sense of less manipulated by interpretation and conceptualisation, than separated-out beliefs, thoughts, intentions, etc.

If one stresses the diachronic nature of the mental, then there can be no 'mapping' of the mental onto the physical; there can be no physically specifiable substratum of a given (part of a) mental narrative. Mental processes have priority over their temporal parts. They supervene on a temporally extended series of brain states and their respective environments, to be sure. But no physical characterisation of such a supervenience base can capture the priority of the process over its temporal parts. This is simply not in the power of physical theory. Processes, in physical theory, are necessarily understood as being constituted by nomologically interrelated synchronically identifiable objects, states and properties. The temporal

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parts have priority over the process. While we can demarcate psychological narratives and sub­

narratives without much difficulty using our day-to-day knowledge of the basic regularities governing the careers of embodied, socialised (human) beings, a parallel demarcation of the supervenience bases of such processes is impossible. Demarcation of such large bundles of events in terms of physical theory would be entirely arbitrary; there are no grounds to be found in physics for singling out this bundle rather than that. Though the mental is realised-or whatever term one would like here-by the physical in the sense that this reali ser is not made of some non-physical stuJJ, it is not the case that such a realiser can be demarcated in terms of physical theory.

If one stresses the diachronic nature of the mental, the mental and the physical do not represent different orders in reality because of a difference in the way they relate extensionally identical events-in terms of laws, or in terms of coherence and rationality, roughly-rather, they represent different orders in reality because the units of one of these orders cut right across the boundaries of the units of the other. What is left is a kind of global supervenience of the mental on the physical. The mental life of a person supervenes as a whole on the temporally extended series of her brain states and respective (physical and social) environments.

However, as stressed in Section 2 of Chapter 4, there is nothing wrong with abstracting individual mental states from the psychological narratives of persons. In fact such abstractions serve a large number of practical purposes, not least of which are explanations through rationalisation of human actions. There is a great deal of practical truth in our every day roughly Humean belief-desire psychology with which we explain and predict our actions. As abstractions, sets of individual beliefs and desires are synchronically identifiable; right here and right now I can be said to have this or that belief and this or that desire. As abstractions, then, beliefs and desires can have referents that allow for alternative physical descriptions. The Davidsonian account of mental causation thus applies. Strictly speaking, however, individual mental sates do not supervene16 strongly or even weakly on particular brain states, because strict1y speaking there are no such things as individual mental states.

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The idea of the two distinct orders in reality-one which allows for synchronically identifiable states that are causally­nomologically connected through time, and one in which synchronically identifiable states are only abstractions from essentially diachronic processes that are govemed by principles determined by the fact that we are embodied, socialised beings-is intended to yield a kind of property dualism but not substance dualism. The two orders are like two sides of the same coin: one emphasises the fact that experienced psychological, social and physical (in a non-theoretical sense) reality presents itself to us as the live proof of Heraclitus' thesis that everything is in flux and one represents its opposite, the idea that at each moment in time we can describe objective reality using a finite numbers of categories.

The latter order-which is captured by a substance metaphysics-is eminent1y suited for linear causal-nomological explanations, the former-which is best captured by a process metaphysics-for conceiving the trans-temporal identity of entities whose various time-indexed stages differ qualitatively. Both substance metaphysics and process metaphysics are indispensable. 17 Arguments to the effect that nonreductivism leads to epiphenomenalism or even eliminativism force a substance metaphysics on the mental. Such arguments, consequently, can be countered by recognising that the mental belongs first and foremost to the realm of process metaphysics.

8. THE MENTAL AND ITS EXPLANANDA

It is a commonplace that due to-inter alia-the holistic character of the mental, a mental description of events discloses an ordering in reality that is not disclosed by a physical description. The mental can therefore be assigned a 'style of explanation' of its own. Or, if one doesn't consider the term 'explanation' to be appropriate, one can say with Dilthey that the mental helps us to a way of verstehen of (human) reality that contrasts with the erklăren of the physical sciences.

The dominant way in which this commonplace is cast in holistically oriented analytical philosophy is to say that mentalistic descriptions allow us to predict fu ture behaviour from a rationalistic interpretation of preceding behaviour. Disregarding the previous

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criticism of the narrow conception of rationality holists generally use, the strategy is (1) to interpret a person's behaviour so that it can be conceived as being issued by as rational a frame of mind as the behaviour allows for, and (2) to consequent1y predict future actions on the basis of this frame of mind and the assumption that the agent will remain rational. The point is, this interpretive strategy works. It helps us to an easy and relatively accurate grasp of human behaviour. Thus, the mental is given a style of explanation-to use this phrase-of its own.

Thoughts to the effect that we actually do more with mentalistic descriptions than mere rationalisation and prediction are of ten defused by a remark amounting to the c1aim that all 'other' uses of mentalistic descriptions can be traced back to its predictive­rationalising use. The point, of ten made by Dennett, is that: "Folk­psychology helps us understand and empathize with others, organize our memories, interpret our emotions, and flavor our vision in a thousand ways, but at the heart of all these is the enormous predictive leverage of folk psychology. ( ... ) [O]ur power to interpret the actions of others depends on our power-seldom explicitly exercised-to predict them." (Dennett 1998, 97-8)

There is, as discussed, a version of nonreductive physicalism to be derived from the fact that the mental has an explanatory style that does not have a physical counterpart-Davidson generally stresses the nonreductivism and Dennett generally stresses the physicalism. It is, however, a vers ion of nonreductivism that is susceptible to Kim-style arguments, as 1 explained in Section 4. Although it can cope with the epiphenomenalism threat to nonreductive physicalism by focussing on the absence of nomological or systematic relations between the mental and the physical-due precisely to the fact that that the mental has a style of explanation that has no counterpart in physical theory-it faces the even more serious threat of eliminativism. The physical can explain what the mental explains in a much more accurate fashion by drawing on causal laws to which the mental cannot have recourse due to its distinctive style of explanation. In other words, what delivers the mental autonomy from the physical-its own style of explanation-at the same time threatens to make it superfluous, strict1y speaking.

But that can only be the case when and because the explananda of the mental are such that they allow for (complete)

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physical explanations as well (i.e. when presupposition 3 of Section 5 is violated). As is clear from the work of Davidson, Dennett, and many other philosophers, the main, in fact the only explananda that are found to be suitable for mentalistic explanations are human actions. And typically actions are physical events as well. Thus, even though a straightforward problem of explanatory exclusion can be circumvented because an action under a mental description cannot be translated into physical terms, there is superfluity (of the mental) because an action under a mental description is extensionally identic al with that action under a physical description.

This problem for nonreductive physicalism can be avoided, 1 shall claim, by an AM-like position based on the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity. As argued in the previous section, diachronic holism of the mental precludes re duct ion to the physical. But it does so in a way that-unlike the way Davidson and others argue for irreducibility on the basis of mental holism-allows the mental explananda of its own. Of course the mental helps to explain and predict our actions in a practical day-to-day manner. But on top of that the fact that psychological continuity can be analysed in terms of mental contents (Chapters 4 and 5) and not in terms of the causal relations between the physical substrata of mental states (Chapter 3) provides the mental with a set of explananda of its own, namely the items psychological continuity is supposed to explain in analysing personal identity: the 'four features' (see Chapter 2, Section2). The mental helps us explain what is involved in the special kind of concern we feeI for our own futures, it helps us explain what is involved in personal survival, it helps us explain why we compensate one person rather than another for e.g. work, and it helps us explain why and to what extent we can and should hold persons responsible for past actions.

All this requires that we view the mental from a more realistic angle than is of ten done in the philosophy of mind. We should, that is, look at the actual mental states people have and recognise that they are of ten highly idiosyncratic and complex states that are intertwined in various elaborate and personally tinted ways. Most of our thoughts are of the type '1 should get Andy to sign this contract' or 'maybe it is not such a good idea to invite so many people to our party next weekend'

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rather than 'it is raining now' or 'there is a red object in front of me.' By abstracting from our actual mental lives and oversimplifying our thoughts and their interconnections, it is quite easy to loose sight of their diachronic holism and indispensability in con cei ving personal identity. If, on the other hand, it is recognised that our mental states are determined by and refIect the actual lives we-as embodied and socialised beings-live, rather than a bunch of individual experiences and thoughts, the idea that the mental helps us to conceive the fact that we are continuous persons who care for their own future and who can be held responsible for their (past) actions more or less stares us in the face.

Personal identity or the four features, then, are explananda that allow for explanations in mental terms only. Thus, nonreductivism along broadly Davidsonian lines can be saved, I contend, from Kim' s eliminativism-attack (while this type of nonreductivism can in itself be considered to be an answer to Kim's epiphenomenalism-attack). Even though the causal efficacy of the mental is extensionally identic al with that of its physical realisation bases, Le. even though the mental has no autonomous causal efficacy and can only be considered to be 'causally relevant,' there is no harm done by this fact, since there is no need to think that the mental derives its indispensability from this non­autonomous efficacy or relevance. While causal relevance is enough to satisfy one requirement for mental realism-if the mental is real its existence should make a causal difference to the world-it derives its indispensability from a quite different non-causal explanatory function. Let me defend this claim by rejecting three of the most obvious objections to it.

First, it might be thought that although the mental appears to have a non-causal explanatory function of its own, this function can in fact be traced back to the predictive use we make of the ascription of mental states to people. In Dennett's terms, it may be thought that at the heart of the analysis of psychological continuity in terms of mental contents lies the predictive leverage of mentalistic interpretations of the behaviour of people. The explanatory function of the mental, then, can be reduced once again to the explanation of behaviour which does compete with physical explanations, so that Kim' s argument still applies.

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Here's a first reply. The objector must explain how the explananda 1 have mentioned above can be reduced to the behaviour of individual persons. Survival, self-interested concern, compensation, and responsibility are, it seems to me, quite impossible to reduce to mere behaviour. Rather, 1 would say, these explananda themselves are required to interpret and predict the behaviour of people-people may act so as to guarantee their personal survival in more than a mere biologic al sense, they may act so as to secure a good future for themselves, they may compensate each other and hold each other responsible. This is in fact the same point as 1 made at the end of the previous section.

But this does not save my point, yet. Even if these explananda cannot be reduced to rationali sed behaviour, the fact that they help to interpret and predict behaviour by complementing rationalisation may seem to confer to these explananda the status of 'mere interpretations,' or useful tools for prediction. And if their existence is exhausted by the fact that they allow us to predict behaviour, the point that mental explanation ultimately have human actions as their sole explananda stiH stands.

This objection boils down to the denial of the claim that personal identity or the four features is/are explananda in their own right-they are supposed to be mere explanans. But that, it seems to me, borders on the absurd. For this to be true, there would have to exist conceptual connections between the ascription of personal identity and behaviour in about the same way that there can be argued to be conceptual connections between the ascription of mental states and behaviour. While this may or may not go for self-interested concern or judgements to the effect that a person ought to be compensated for her work, it certainly does not seem to go for the other two features. No particular actions seem to be implied by the claim that a person survives as such under conditions Xl-Xn • Or take responsibility. There are no conceptual connections between holding a person responsible for a past action and treating that person in a particular way-as the differences between the legal systems employed in different countries show. Personal identity, 1 would maintain, is an explanandum in its own right.

Stil! this leaves room for a second, related objection. Is the autonomous explanatory function of the mental not simply the

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consequence of the fact that the explananda themselves already belong to the same 'realm' the mental belongs to? If so, there is little explanation involved here and it is an empty truism, a non-informative conceptual truth that these explananda aUow for mental rather than causal-physical explanations. In other words, isn't the non-causal explanatory function of mental simply a fake?

I don't think it is. It is not a truism that personal survival should be cast in terms of psychological continuity rather than in terms of, say, bodily continuity. The debate on personal identity is witness to that.

Take self-interested concern. Is this explanandum such that a non-mental explanandum is exc1uded a priori? I think not. The point is that although the having of such concern is obviously being in some mental state, what is explained is not so much the having of this concern but the object of this concern. We care for our own future states in a . special way, and it is not the care that requires mental explanation-caring is being in a mental state-but the meaning of 'our own' here. And there is no truism at aU in the c1aim that in order to explain the meaning of 'our own,' one should have recourse to mentalistic language or mental explanations.

As to compensation and responsibility, the case is even more c1ear: these are social rather than mental phenomena. And it is no conceptual truth that aU social phenomena should get a purely mental explanation (even if it may turn out that in fact aU social phenomena have mental explanations).

A nagging suspicion may remain, stiH, which can be translated into a third objection. Precisely because the explananda of the mental are of a 'higher order' character, the kind of explanation involved in the c1aim that these explananda require a mentalistic explanation is radicaUy different from robust causal-nomological explanation. There is no clear antecedent-consequent structure that paraUels . causes and effects. Instead, the mental appears to free the four features from their more or less obscure, unarticulated status and speU out what, exact1y, they involve. But that is quite another concept of explanation than the one involved in causal explanations. Given this, it doesn't seem fair to say that this loose kind of 'explanation' confers to the mental a degree of autonomy in precisely the way that causal-nomological explanations

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confer such autonomy to the physical. Answer: The role of this additional explanatory function is

merely to secure the indispensability of the mental on the grounds that the mental has an explanatory function on top of its causal efficacy­the causal efficacy being a necessary precondition for mental realism. There is no competition between causal explanation and mental explanation, since it has been shown, in Chapter 3, that psychological continuity/personal identity cannot be accounted for in terms of the causal connections between the substrata of mental states. Moreover, it is not claimed that the mental derives its relative autonomy from its capacity to explain the four features in exactly the same way the physical derives its autonomy from nomological explanation of a causally closed realm. The point is simply that mentalistic descriptions can do something physical descriptions cannot.

Still, mentalistic descriptions do not do this by invoking strict laws, but merely by drawing on general principles. Some of these principles are described in Chapter 4, but an are highly likely to be much too complex and much too much infused with cete ris paribus clauses to be spelled out in detail.

But an that would reduce the status of mentalistic explanation only if either (1) there is a better type of explanation available for the same explananda, or (2) the explananda themselves are not so indispensable that we should grant their explanans the status of indispensability purely on the basis of its being their explanans. As is elaborately argued in Chapter 3, again, (1) is out of the question. As for (2), this may seem open for discussion.

But in fact, 1 think, it is bizarre to claim that a phenomenon such as self-interested concern can be expelled from our picture of the world. Likewise for personal survival, compensation, and responsibility for (past) actions. We are not talking here about 'personal identity' in a sense in which every other culture can be said to have a different concept of it. The personal identity 1 am concerned with is the sameness of a person through time that is a basic precondition for a culturally determined 'identity.' Hence, there is no reason to think we might eliminate personal identity from our ontology on the basis of the 'fact' that we are talking about a concept that may figure in our culture but not in others.

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Though persuasive, the fact that every culture has or presupposes a concept of personal identity over time in this basic sense, is not logically speaking sufficient to conclude that elimination of that concept is impossible or absurd. Think, however, of the consequences of elimination. It is not 'just' the four features that are eliminated with the concept of personal identity, it is all that the four features make possible as well. Memory, for instance, depends on N-continuity, as I argued in Section 2 of Chapter 5, and hence on personal identity over time. So do personal projects-careers, plans for a holiday, the raising of ones children, etc. It surely borders on the absurd to suppose that the possibility to have such projects or to remember the past is open to discussion.

I conclude, then, that the mental does have an explanatory function of its own that does not compete with physical-causal explanations of their specific explananda, simply because no physical­causal explanations of these explananda suffice (Chapter 3). This function secures the indispensability of the mental. This means that the meagre kind of mental causation that is left in a roughly Davidsonian type of nonreductivism need not be thought to carry the weight of securing this indispensability. And that defuses Kim' s argument against nonreductivism, which is based on the claim-in itself correct-that whatever is left of mental causation is insufficient to grant the mental a place of its own in our picture of the world.

9. SUMMARY

The overall goal of this chapter was to show that the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity-contrary to the substratum­oriented conception-allows for a nonreductivist view on the interrelation between the mental and the physical that does not fall prey to standard arguments for the claim that nonreductivism leads to epiphenomenalism or eliminativism.

I tried to achieve this goal by first reconstructing the Kim­Davidson controversy as one which presents the nonreductivist with a dilemma: either she accepts nomological or systematic relations between the mental and the physical and falls prey to epiphenomenalism, or she denies such nomological or systematic

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relations and threatens to faH prey to eliminativism. Secondly, 1 tried to show how the insights of the previous chapters can be put to use to find a way of stopping the 'oscillation' caused by this dilemma at Davidson's end of the debate. Let me briefly summarise these two steps.

The oscillation induced by the Kim-Davidson debate stems from the assumption-mainly Kim' s-that the indispensability of the mental must be rooted in its causal efficacy. Kim claims that the idea that mental states possess causal powers of their own leads to insurmountable problems in the case of a nonreductivism that accepts systematic relations between the mental and the physical (e.g. functionalism or neo-emergentism). This nonreductivism-should it have been feasible-would have been compatible with the substratum­oriented conception of psychological continuity.

In the only feasible reading of Kim's argument, Davidson's AM is the perfect way out. According to AM, however, mental events do not strict1y speaking have causal powers of their own: every case of mental causation allows for a more informative physical redescription. And here Kim is eager to argue that this would render the mental dispensable.

1 argued that the way out of this catch is to deny the assumption that gets the dilemma going. If it can be shown that mental descriptions of events have explananda of their own that do not draw on the causal efficacy of the mental and that do not allow for competing physical-causal explanations, the mental might be granted indispensability regardless of its causal efficacy. In that case, Davidson' s views conceming mental causation need not be judged by their capacity to endow the mental with indispensability, but merely by their capacity to account for its causal efficacy or relevance (in a way that supports mental realism). Since an AM-like view can , as I have argued, be thought to account for mental causation to the required degree, a possible non-causal explanatory function of the mental would save a Davidson-style nonreductivism.

1 have tried to show how the mental can be assigned such a non-causal explanatory function if the AM-like view is accepted that follows from the content-oriented conception of psychological continuity. The diachronic holism of the mental that emerged from the

NONREDUCTIVISM 209

discussion of Chapters 4 and 5 is suitable for such an argument for irreducibility that, like Davidson' s, is based on the vastly different interrelation of mental events and physical events. It allows for a Davidsonian insistence on the fact that the ordering of mental events or states 'has no echo in physiCal theory.' Yet it does so in a way that stresses principles by which mental states are ordered over time and not just at one point in time. This allows for a non-causal explanatory function Davidson ignores.

The diachronic ordering principles of mental states-N­continuity-suffice, 1 argued in Chapters 4 and 5, to construe a concept of psychological continuity that analyses personal identity. The true explananda in the debate over personal identity are, as argued in Chapter 2, the four features, survival, self-interested concern, compensation, and responsibility. These features, then, are explananda of the mental. Moreover, these explananda do not allow for a physical­causal explanation that might compete with mental explanations the way physical explanations of actions compete with mental ones. For, as argued in Chapter 3, a physical-causal substratum-oriented conception of psychological continuity is not feasible.

Thus, we have a non-causal explanatory function of the mental that secures its indispensability and hence frees an AM-like account of mental causation-a necessary condition for mental realism-from the task of securing indispensability. The fact that this nonreducti ve account of mental causation cannot secure indispensability-as Kim correctly notes-, then, is no reason at all to hold that nonreductivism Davidson-style leads to the theoretical elimination of the mental.

-8-

APPENDIX:

INTERPRETA TIONISM AND MENTAL REALISM

There may seem to be a strong parallel between the position outlined in the latter half of the last chapter and a position known as 'interpretationism.' Interpretationism is widely considered to be at odds with mental realism. Since 1 want to defend the claim that my position is at least compatible with realism about the mental, it is imperative that the extent to which the parallel holds and the extent to which it doesn't are clearly stated. That is my first aim in this postscript. A second aim, equally important, is to give a further articulation of the view presented above through a comparison with a well known position.

According to interpretationism, a theory almost exclusively associated with Daniel Dennett, I mental states are not simply objective entities. Entities that are simply objective are either directly perceivable or are postulated to exist independently of interpretation by some theory. Physical entities are in this sense simply objective. Mental states, by contrast, can only be discerned by adopting a specific interpretive stance towards such systems as (e.g.) humans. When the behaviour of a given system can be interpreted as being issued by beliefs and desires, and when such an interpretat ion truly helps us comprehend that behaviour and adequately predict future behaviour, such a system can be said to have beliefs and desires.

This does not mean that the existence of mental states is exhausted by interpretations. The actual behaviour of what Dennett caUs 'intentional systems' must indeed be such that it validates such interpretations. Interacting human beings, for instance, instantiate elaborate patterns in reality2 that can only be discerned and put to (e.g.

IN1ERPRETATIONISM AND MENTAL REALISM 211

predictive and manipulative) use by interpreting them in terms of mental states. Hence, there is an objective component to the mental in that reality 'complies' with intentional, mentalistic interpretations of parts of it (Le. humans).

Mental states, in this sense, are not theoretical entities but are rather like what Reichenbach called 'logical constructs.'3 Compare for instance centres of gravity. Centres of gravity are not theoretical entities, they are not things that exist independent of interpretation. Yet they do help to grasp, explain, and predict the exact courses of objects in physical reality. Such courses are objective features of reality that we can get a grip on only by using a logical construct or abstractum­centres of gravity. Mental states, according to interpretationism, have a comparable status.

According to many, interpretationism boils down to anti­realism with regard to the mental. It is a version of interpretationism that Kim has in mind when he contrasts mental realism with the view that the mental is a 'heuristic overlay' (see Section 2 of the last chapter). Dennett rejects the charge of anti-realism, stressing the fact that this 'heuristic overlay' does allow us to access objective pattems in reality that would otherwise be out of our epistemic reach. But this defence does not address the real worry.

There is an unmistakable lack of ontological bite, so to speak, in the interpretationist rendering of mental states. This can best be brought forward by noting that Dennett's objective patterns-his defence against the anti-realism charge-are not intrinsically mental, ontologically speaking. They are pattems in and of a purely physical reality, according to Dennett, even though they can only be acces sed by treating this reality as if it is animated.4 Dennett seems to follow Wittgenstein when the latter stated that not regarding a person as an automaton does not imply that one is of the opinion that that person has a soul, rather it implies that one adopts an attitude towards a soul.5

All Dennett's 'realism' can amount to is the fact that reality rewards adopting this attitude. But clearly that is not enough for realism, since reality does not reward this attitude because minds (or souls) exist objectively, if Dennett is right, but merely because reality issues similar patterns in human behaviour than the ones that would have been issued had minds existed. And that can arguably count as mental anti-realism.

212 APPENDIX

There are more or less conspicuous parallels between interpretationism about the mental and the view 1 have proposed in the second half of the last chapter. 1 have presented the difference between the mental and the physical as a difference between orders in reality. It is a small step from the claim that the mental distinguishes itself by the specific ordering of reality it yields to the idea that mentalistic predicates apply to specific patterns in reality-or so it may seem. An even more conspicuous parallel might seem to emerge when the fact that 1 have claimed that individual mental states are abstractions is compared to Dennett's claim that mental states are logical constructs or abstracta. In both cases, it is claimed that we make and use such abstractions for practical purposes-the explanation and prediction of human action mainly.

Despite these seemingly overt parallels, 1 do not wish to defend a mental anti-realism of the kind implied by Dennett's views.6

So what are the differences between the view presented in the previous chapter and interpretationism? 1 will start with the parallel between a mental ordering of events and Dennett' s pattems. The parallel is only superficial, and exposing this will point out why my point about mental states being abstractions does not imply anti-realism.

Despite the fact that the step from a mental ordering of reality to 'intentional' pattems appears to be a small one, there are crucial differences between them. The main difference concems the 'parts' of reality that exhibit pattems or a specific order. Dennett focuses on patterns that are discemible in human behaviour mainly. These patterns are discernible from a third-person point of view.

By contrast, the diachronic order in reality that 1 have c1aimed is characteristic of the mental concems physical (in a non-theoretical sense) and social reality as it is experienced by persons. It is discemible from a first-person point of view only. Now it is important to stress that 1 do no want to present this third-person/first-person difference as a deep metaphysical difference. 1 do not want to stress the non­reducibility of a first-person point of view by c1aiming that such a point of view is ultimately unanalysable. Rather, my aim in stressing the first­person character of the mental is to focus on the fact that the mental states of a person reflect the physical and social reality she lives in in an order thal is determined by the fact thal she is an objective continuant

INIERPREfATIONISM AND MENTAL REAUSM 213

in it. This order is-as argued in Section 6 of Chapter 7-of such a nature that it does not paralle1 the way the physical world is ordered from a 'view from nowhere,' to borrow Nagel's term.

Mental reality, then, is for a large part physical and social reality from the narrative viewpoint of a 'representer' that is itself part of this reality and has an objective career in and through it. It is important to stress the fact that the reality that is represented by a psychological narrative inc1udes the representer, the person, herself. Thus, mental states such as desires and emotions, states that do not represent the 'outside' physical or social reality, are nevertheless accounted for: they are perceptions/representations of states the representer herself is in.

Briefly put, then, Dennett's patterns cover a tiny part of reality-human behaviour-while the mental ordering in reality I am concerned with covers the whole of experienced reality-the 'manifest image,' in Sellar's terms. Dennett's patterns are interpretable in terms of mental states that focus on their behaviour-issuing capacity. I am concerned mostly with the representative aspects of mental states.

These differences account for a further difference, one that is crucial. Dennett' s patterns contain 'noise,' 7 the order I am focussing on does not. Let me explain.

The 'noise' in Dennett's patterns stems from their imperfection. Our folk-psychological predictions and renderings of human behaviour are far from flawless. In most cases adopting the intentional stance works, but we can sometimes be wrong in our predictions, according to Dennett. This 'noise' stems from the fact these patterns are not 'given,' they require interpretation. The tools for this interpretation are provided by our folk-psychology. But this folk­psychology is only a limited resource; it gives us a handle on most behavioural patterns, but not on an of them. This can be so because these patterns are not intrinsically mental; they are only suitable for mentalistic interpretat ion to a very large extent.

This explains why Dennett can so easily assert that, even though reality contains patterns that allow for the usefulness of the intentional stance, these patterns are nevertheless a hundred percent physical. The point is that contrary to intentional explanations physical explanations of human behaviour are in principle completely accurate,

214 APPENDIX

because they are interpretation-free. The physical stance does not allow for flaws like the intentional stance; whatever happens in this world has a complete physical-causal explanation, because everything i s objectively physical-whether we interpret it like that or not.

Though every intentional pattern has a complete physical explanation in theory, in practice such explanations can very of ten not be provided. We cannot predict a person's behaviour by deduc ing a future action from the massive amounts of physical data about this person' s brain. For we are not, and to all likeliness never will be, capable of accessing that much information. In practice, therefore, adopting the intentional stance is our best bet. There is a simple trade­off between accuracy and usefulness.

Dennett's views on the relation between the physical stance as disclosing objective reality and the intentional stance as merely providing an interpreted or projected heuristic overlay are linked to the facts, mentioned above, that his intentional pattems take up a relatively small part of reality which is accessible from a third-person point of view. Compare, by contrast, the mental order in reality I have argued for. This order is only accessible from a first-person point of view and it encompasses all of experienced reality. Can this order be a mere heuristic overlay? Can it be a matter of interpretation or projection?

The answer to these questions should be negative. The diachronic order that is discernible in the successive contents of the mental states of persons and that is determined by the fact that a substantial part of these mental states reflect the Iives we live as embodies and socialised beings cannot be a matter of interpretation or projection. If it could, we would have been free to discern another order, not on top of this one but instead of it. We do not possess such freedom.

If the order in experienced reality is not subject to interpretation or projection in Dennett' s sense, and if this order has no echo in physical theory, then there is no reason to hold that this order, still, is at bottom physical the way Denneu's intentional patterns are at bottom physical. They might be 'made of' physical stuff-though I am of the opinion that this phrase is in the end much less intelligible than it is commonly taken to be-but they are not describable in terms of physical theory. And that, finally, explains why my Dennett-like

IN1ERPRETATIONISM ANO MENTAL REALISM 215

c1aim that individual mental states are abstractions does not amount to mental anti-realism.

In the case of interpretationism, mental states are abstractions in the sense that they are idealisations that are projected onto pattems that are in reality not ideal and physical. This arguably amounts to mental anti-realism. In my case, there is an intrinsically mental order in reality-the first-personal order of the 'logic' of the succes sion of mental representations of the 'outside' physical and social world that functions as a structuring background against which thoughts, beliefs, desires, etc. can occur-that is fundamentally diachronic. Mental states can be ascribed to persons at one point in time by abstracting from this order. The degree to which such an abstraction yields distortion depends on how much reference is made to other mental states, at the same time and at others, by which this one is shaped. Precisely because there is an objective diachronic order to answer to, we can and should aim for accuracy in ascribing individual mental states to a persons at a specific time.

My mental realism, then, concems the diachronic order, not individual mental states. A similar move is not open to Dennett, since his pattems are only mental in our interpretations of them.

NOTES

CHAPIER2

1 Locke ([1690] 1974). 2 Baillie (1993, p. 193); Partit (1984, p. 202). 3 Noonan (1989, p. 2). 4 1 am referring to that aspect of Leibniz' identity definition according to which identity is a relation an object can bear only to itself. 5 E.g. Butler ([1736] 1975); Reid ([1785] 1941); Swinburne (1973, 1976, 1984); Chisholm (1976); Madell (1981, 1985, 1986, 1988). 6 E.g. Lewis (1976, 1986); Perry (1975b, 1976); Parfit (1971, 1976, 1984); Shoemaker (1970, 1984); Noonan (1989); Nozick (1981). 7 This is basically Parfit's (1971, 1984) strategy. 8 The idea is derived from Geach (1962, 1967). The connection with personal identity is made by e.g. Noonan (1989, p. 107). 9 Cf. e.g. Quine (1976). 10 As Perry (1976, p. 67) vividly puts it: "You learn that someone will be run over by a truck tomorrow; you are saddened, feei pity, and think reflectively about the frailty of life; one bit of information is added, that someone is you, and a whole new set of emotions rise in your breast." Il Like Schechtman, 1 am talking here about pre-philosophical intuitions. 1 will therefore disregard for the moment Parfit's (1984) claim that the asymmetry between self-concern and other-concern is irrational. Likewise, 1 will disregard Parfit's hesitance about the other three features. 12 Strict identity explains why we shou1d care for our future experiences: they will be had by the same subject that has these experiences now. It also explains survival. Survival is, in terms of this explanans, strict identity of a subject over time. Similarly we can hold a person-stage responsible for past actions, according to the strict-identity theorist, because the agent is strict1y identical with the responsible subject. Finally the phenomenon of compensation can be explained in a similar fashion: we compensate a person-stage whose subject is identical with the agent who worked overtime. 13 Cf. Noonan (1989, pp. 105-6). 14 Cf. e.g. Lewis (1986, pp. 192-3). 15 Noonan (1989, p. 108). 16 This way of introducing the perdurance-endurance distinction is borrowed from Schechtman (1996). 17 Lewis (1986, pp. 202 ff). 18 Cf. Quine (1976). 19 1 will use the term 'reductionism' to refer to Parfit-like views on personal identity. In Chapter 7, 1 shall be discussing the mind-brain relation. 1 shall designate views to the effect that the mind can be reduced to the brain with the term 'reductivism,' just to keep the two views on two distinct issues apart. 20 Cf. e.g. Perry (1976), Lewis (1976). 21 Cf. Doepke (1996). See Slors (1998b) for criticism. 22 E.g. the idea that one body 'describes' one path through space-time. 23 Williams (1956, 1970) is one of the few and most prominent defenders of this theory.

218 NOTES TO CHAPfER 2

24 Adherents include: Locke ([1690] 1974); Shoemaker (1963, 1970, 1984); Perry (1975b, 1976); Lewis (1976, 1986); Nozick (1981); Parfit (1971, 1984); Noonan (1989). 25 Obvious objections to this definition of strong connectedness are (1) that the number of connections that define strong connectedness is rather arbitrarily chosen, and (2) that it is artificial to say that we can in fact count psychological connections. 1 will set these objections aside for the moment, for the objection 1 am about to raise to Parfit's proposal is much more serious. 1 will return to the first objection in Chapter 4. The second objection will be a recurrent theme in Chapters 2 and 3, even though 1 will not explicitly mention it after this. 26 Cf. Schechtman (1990b, 1994a). 27 Noonan (1989, p. 68). 28 As Don Locke (1971) argued, it is by no means easy to determine what exactly it is that turns a given 'introspective' experience into a seeming memory, rather than, say, a daydream. 1 will disregard this problem here. 29 Cf. Schechtman (1996, pp. 26-50), see also Wiggins (1980) and Noonan (1989, pp. 104-48). 30 1 am disregarding the 'discount rate' (Parfit 1984) by which the further away a future state is from my present one, the less 1 will care for it. This is because concern for future states of oneself is distinguished not by quantity, but by quality; concern for our own future states may be less than concern for the fu ture states of, say, a loved one, but it has got a quite different 'feei' to it. 31 Cf. e.g. Oaklander (1987). 32 Cf. e.g. Strawson (1959); Schechtman (1990a, 1996). 33 Lewis (1976); Perry (1976); Mills (1993). 34 The definition of psychological connectedness-relation in terms of qualitative similarity only might have been a third feature. This definition, however, is not strictly speaking accepted by most philosophers. As 1 will argue in Chapter 3, however, the one-sided focus on relations of qualitative similarity is as responsible for the failure of the neo-Lockean paradigm that 1 will sketch in Chapter 2 as the other two features and the three physicalist doctrines. 35 Analytic functionalists such as Shoemaker (e.g. 1984) are obvious exceptions. 36 It may be thought that when one psychological person stage could have been co­personally related to various other psychological states than the ones it is actually co­personally related to, holism as such is already precluded. However, holism comes in various forms and in various strengths. Depending on the amount of incoherence and irrationality we are willing to condone, a loose form of holism does allow one mental state to be co-personally related to a host of other mental states than the ones it is actually co-personally related to. Thus, holism can be allowed for when it is not held to constitute co-personality relations. 37 Nozick (1981) may seem to be an exception. His closest continuer view allows for cases in which person-stages can be co-personal due to circumstances that have nothing to do with these person-stages (Le. cases in which the 'only X and Y principle' does not hold, see Noonan 1989, pp. 152-4, pp. 234-41). While in such cases there are direct causal relations between these person-stages, these relations may turn from non­sufficient to sufficient conditions for co-personality due to external circumstances. Causal relations are not ali there is to connections of co-personality, according to Nozick. Nevertheless he certainly does not reject the idea that person-stages are connected by causal Iinks. 38 See also Kolak (1987) and Ehring (1987). Elliot concludes his rejection of CCR by arguing for the need of a radically new conception of psychological continuity without really pointing at the direction such an account may take. 1 tend to agree with his

NOTES TO CHAPfERS 2 AND 3 219

criticism of CCR-based theories. But, as 1 will argue in the next chapter, the real problem with these theories is not so much CCR as the psychological atomism that is responsible for an appeal to. CCR. 1 think it is because Elliot does not question atomism that he cannot find the alternative for CCR-based theories that, according to him (and me), the debate on personal identity so desperately requires. 39 Cf. e.g. McGinn (1991). 40 The classical texts in which this thesis is proposed are Putnam (1975) and Burge (1979). 41 Nozick (1981) and Noonan (1989) are the most notable exceptions.

CHAPfER3

I 1 will use the terms 'psychological states' and 'mental states' when 1 do not want to refer specifically to such states in either their content- or their substratum aspect. In other cases 1 will speak either of 'brain states' or of 'mental or psychological contents'. Thus, to give an example of the way 1 will use these terms, while contemporary philosophy of personal identity of ten individuates mental states in terms of brain states, 1 will claim that instead they should be indi viduated in terms of mental contents. 2 In this chapter, page number references without a year will refer to this book. 3 Pp. 231-3, the argument is borrowed from Williams (1970). 4 In normal human beings the two hemispheres perform distinct functions. This thought-experiment is based on an idealisation of rare but actual cases of persons whose different hemispheres are capable of performing the same tasks. In such cases each hemisphere is more or less like a complete brain, function-wise. 5 Cf. Sperry (1966). 6 Parfit adds that "Two other relations might have some slight importance: physical continuity, and physical similarity." In his theory, these other relations do not play a major rale. We may ignore them here. 7 Cf. Nagel (1971). 8 Noonan (1989, pp. 198-201); Nozick (1981, pp. 60-1). 9 See Le,wis (1976), Mills (1993), and in one reading also Perry (1976). 10 There is a more difficult way of showing Parfit to be committed to psychological context type atomism. Let me give an abbreviated version of this line of argument.

In order to advance his theory, Parfit makes use of the so-called impersonality thesis, which asserts that every state of a person, psychological or otherwise, can be described without presupposing personal identity. While he has distinguished this thesis fram what he calls 'the complex view' -which says that personal identity is constituted by ali the facts that make up a person' s life and not by an entity external to these facts-(Parfit 1982, p. 227) he does not seem to hold on to that distinction in his Reasons and Persons. In that book he seems to conflate the two views. Consequently he claims that either one accepts them both, in which case one is a reductionist, or one rejects them both. A middle position comprising the complex view and the rejection of the impersonality thesis/reductionism is not possible:

"[W]hen we ask what persons are, and how they continue to exist, the fundamental question is a choice between two views. On one view, we are separately existing entities, distinct from our brain and bodies and our experiences. and entities whose existence must be all or nothing. The other view is the reductionist view. And l claim that, of these, the second is true." (Parfit 1984, p.273)

The distinction between the complex view and the impersonality thesis, though, is at least conceivable (as both Noonan (1989) and Shoemaker (1985) argue). What Parfit

220 NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

seems to reject is the feasibility, not the conceivability of a third position comprising the complex view and the rejection of the impersonality thesis. My claim is that it is precisely the conceivability of this third position that forces us to acknowledge that the impersonality thesis-the truth of which will imply the falsity of this third position-must at least have one interpretation that implies psychological atomism. Let me explain this briefly.

Parfit describes the impersonality thesis as the conjunction of three claims. A description of an experience, according to him, "can be described without either presupposing the identity of this person, or explicitly claiming that the experiences in this person's life are had by this person, or even explicitly claiming that this person exists." (Parfit 1984, p. 210) Two things should be noted about this conjunction. The first is that if any one of the three options fails, the whole thesis fails. 1 will concentrate on the first. Thus, if a description of an experience presupposes personal identity, it cannot be considered an impersonal description. Secondly, Parfit does not mention which specific conception of personal identity he has in mind. From the context we can infer that he means a theory of personal identity according to which egos or immaterial substances constitute personal identity. But there are other possible theories of personal identity, most prominent among which is the theory, propounded by the likes of Perry, Lewis, Noonan, Shoemaker, ano Nozick, according to which personal identity is constituted by psychological continuity (the possibility of branching is denied by Perry, Lewis, Noonan and Shoemaker).

Parfit espouses the impersonality thesis as a prerequisite for his arguments purporting to set apart personal identity and psychological continuity. Thus, he could not have rejected the psychological continuity criterion of identity in advance, on pain of vicious circularity of his argument. Thus, we may in principle read 'psychological continuity' instead of 'personal identity' in his formulation of the impersonality thesis, if Parfit is read as not ruling out possibilities in advance. Consequently, it is possible to read the impersonality thesis as saying that no description of an experience requires reference to the psychological states it is continuous or connected with. And this is psychological context type atomism.

The impersonality thesis directed at ego theories, then, must be read as saying that no description of an experience presupposes its being had by an ego. The impersonality thesis directed at psychological continuity theories of personal identity should be read simply as advocating psychological atomism. II Cf. Schechtman (1990a, 1994b); see also Slors (forthcoming). 12 Cf. Schechtman (1990a, pp. 79-86). 13 Cf. e.g. Dennett (1982, pp. 168-9) 14 It need not count against a theory of memory to drop the requirement that an experience-memory should resemble an original experience in its entirety. In fact, the requirement is too strong anyway. If my recollection of seeing a bear last summer vacation was accompanied by the thought I had then-"J am seeing a bear now"-J am not remembering that event but having an illusion. If, on the other hand, my memory is accompanied by the thought "1 saw this bear so many months ago," 1 am having a memory of that event even though the contents of my mind do not completely resemble those at the time when J saw the bear. 15 Cf. e.g. McDowell (1997, pp. 240-1). 16 See the next chapter for reasons why perceptual states cannot be isolated from their contexts without loosing content. 17 Cf. e.g. Fodor & LePore (1992). 18 Cf. e.g. Block (1981), Dennett (1981b), Tye (1991).

NOTES 1'0 CHAPrERS 4 AND 5 221

CHAYfER4

E.g. Noonan (1989), Shoemaker (1984), (1985), Schechtman (1990a, 1994a, 1994b), Lewis (1976), and occasionally even Parfit (1984) himself. 2 Or, to include unconscious psychological contents, 'of mind'. 3 The term is Davidson's. It was suggested to me in an interchange with Igor Douven, although he had a slightly different use in mind. See-in this order-Slors (1998a), Douven (1999) and Slors (1999). 4 Consider e.g. the following quote from Maclntyre: "Empiricists, such as Locke and Hume, tried to give an account of personal identity solely in terms of mental states or events. Analytical philosophers, in so may ways their heirs as well as their critics, have wrestled with the connection between those states and events and strict identity understood in terms of Leibniz's Law. Both have failed to see that a background has been omitted, the lack of which makes the problems insoluble. That background is provided by the concept of a story and of that kind of unity of character which a story requires. Just as a story is not a sequence of actions, but the concept of an action is that of a moment in an actual or possible history abstracted for some purpose from that history, so the characters in a history are not a collection of persons, but the concept of a person is that of a character abstracted from a history" (MacIntyre 1981, p.217). Maclntyre's emphasis on the relevance of stories for personal identity raises the question whether the stories or narratives he speaks of are mere constructions or whether they are real (cf. Maclntyre's (1981, p.212) siding with Hardy (1968) against Mink (1970». My use of the term 'narrativity,' by contrast, avoids this question by concentrating mainly on mental states and their interrelation. The narrative background which such an approach lacks, according to Maclntyre, is largely made up for by introducing narrativity at a 'sub-personal' mentallevel and connecting it at least partly with what goes on in a person's social and physical surroundings. 5 C. Pallisser, The Quincunx, Penguin Press, (1989, resp. pp. 39-40 and p. 479). 6 Note that Parfit's teletransportation allows for patchy perceptual sequences: one moment 1 am here, the next 1 am on Mars. Therefore 1 am inclined to be somewhat sceptical with regard to the idea that teletransportation can preserve psychological continuity. See the end of this section for more on this. 7 This does not preclude our misconstruing perceptual narratives or our misrepresenting them when we remember (part of) our past narratives. The point here is merely that any interpretation of a string of consecutive perceptual contents requires them to be taken as subjective counterparts of an objective story. A misconstrual of such a string of contents simply misrepresents an objective story. It is impossible to see how any interpretation of a string of perceptions could do without the supposition that there is at least an objective story to be told that connects these perceptions with a certain well determined set of sense organs. 8 Evans stresses the non-conceptual character of memories. My talk of beliefs here is not meant to deny his claims about the (non-)conceptual character of memories. Nor do 1 necessarily have to endorse it. My point is neutral with regard to the issue of the possibility of non-conceptual contents.

CHAYfER5

1 This is in fact an example of condensed memory. See Chapter 3, Section 5. 2 Where 'being' is not synonymous 'body.' As argued in the previous chapter, 1 am leaving open the possibility that persons are able to change bodies. 1 am aware that this makes it harder to identify the referent of 'being.' See on this matter Section 6 of

222 NOTES TO CHAPTERS 5, 6 AND 7

this chapter. 3 There is no conflict between this and the thesis that person-stages are continuous in virtue of the fact that earlier stages provide the background against which a present stage becomes intelligible and against which the epistemic entitlements of a present stage can be assessed. For we might define this kind of connectedness in counterfactual terms: if one remembers these earlier stages, then one's present stage would be fully intelligible and one would be able to assess it's epistemic entitlements. 4 For a somewhat more detailed discussion of this issue, see Slors (2000). 5 Strawson (1959); Williams (1957, 1973); see also Schechtman (l990a, 1996) and Cuypers (1994, pp.35-50). 6 See e.g. Perry (1975a) and Dennett (1981). 7 The claim that one body can generate numerically distinct, qualitatively identica! contents is made also by those who defend the so-called cohabitation or multiple occupancy thesis (Lewis (1976), Perry (1976), Noonan (1989), Mills (1993». This thesis is meant to avoid the counterintuitive consequences of fis sion (see Chapter 2). Rather than construing fis sion cases as cases in which one stream of conscious contents divides into two, the cohabitation thesis construes them as cases in which there already are two numerically distinct but qualitatively identica! streams befare fission (which merely become qualitatively distinct after fission).

CHAPTER6

Of course there is the possibility of contradictory verbal behaviour. But it is quite clear that we cannot-indeed would not know how to-ascribe meaning to a persons utterance "1 believe that p and 1 believe also that -,p." 2 The Humean philosopher of motivation would cast this addition in terms of the strengths of the desires by means of which beliefs are tumed into action. 1 have no serious objections against this view. However, since 1 do not want to corn mit myself to a Humean theory of motivation and since a characterisation of the addition at issue in terms of weights better allows me to make the connection between personal identity and the identities of persons later on (Section 5), 1 shall continue to use the weight­terminology.

CHAPTER7

1 The argument from these sections is taken largely from Slors (1 998c). 2 The fact that no mental state can be cast in terms of its physical reali ser does not preclude the possibility that we might be able to infer the existence and nature of a mental state from information conceming the realiser, as some analytical fUIlctionalists think is possible. The absence of classical mental-to-physical bridge laws, then, does not imply the absence of I1omological relatioIls between physical states and mental states. 3 Baker (1993) makes a similar point, showing the iIlcompatibility of mental causation with the conjunction of strong supervenience (which is akin to the physical realisation thesis) and the causal closedness of the physical. Her point, unlike Kim's, is that we should regard this as a reductia ad absurdum of a metaphysics consisting of strong supervenience and the causal closedness of the physical, given the fact that we cannot do without mental causatioIl. Obviously, the untenability of reductivism is a premise of Baker's.

N01ES 1'0 CHAPfER 7 223

4 Roughly speaking there are two types of objection against it. On the one hand, there are objections that ciaim that Hume did not succeed in establishing a necessary connection between causation and time's passage. These objections ciaim that the argument is logically invalid (e.g. Stroud (1977, pp.253-4); Beauchamp and Rosenberg (1981, p.192». On the other hand, there are objections against the idea of a full analysis of causal asymmetry in terms of time's passage. Metaphysically minded philosophers tend to look for a more substantial asymmetry between cause and effect than the bare fact that a cause precedes its effect (Papineau (1985». 5 It has been shown to be possible, for instance, to interpret the relevant fragment of text as a logically valid argument (Costa (1986». See for criticism of the metaphysical argument e.g. Ehring (1987). 6 Note that multiple realisation is not preciuded by a nomological characterisation of realisation. It is perfectly possible for one type of mental state to be realisable by various physical state types while each of the reali ser state types nomologically implies, under appropriate circumstances, the same mental state type. 7 Davidson ([1970] 1980, pp.2l5-6): "( ... ) [I]f anomalous monism is correct, not only can every mental event be uniquely singled out using only physical concepts, but since the number of events that falls under each mental predicate may, for ali we know, be finite, there may well exist a physical open sentence coextensive with each mental predicate, though to construct it might involve the tedium of a lengthy uninstructive alternation." 8 Davidson (lbid. P.214): "Anomalous monism resembles materialism in its ciaim that alt events are physical, but it rejects the thesis, usually considered essential to materialism, that mental phenomena can be given a purely physical explanation." 9 Kim (1984, 1989, 1993a, 1993b), Honderich (1982), Sosa (1984), Johnston (1985), Fodor (1989), Dretske (1989), and McLaughlin (1993). 10 Jackson and Pettit (1988, 1990), Pettit (1993a). Kim (1998) takes causal relevance to be more or less identical with what he has labelled 'supervenient causation' (Kim 1984). The difference, however, is that in supervenient causation, if a base-level state A causes a base-level state B, ali properties that supervene on A appear to superveniently cause ali properties that supervene on B. In the case of causal relevance, by contrast, one is able to single out the higher-Ievel properties that are causally relevant from those that aren't. 11 I am avoiding the term 'nomological' since the connections at issue are at least parti y conceptual. 12 The reasoning behind this is in fact more complex than I make it appear. The point is that since mental states are multiply reali sabie, mental laws are in fact nomologicalty heterogeneous. That is, they consist of disjunctions of bits and pieces of various physical laws. This is why even mental regularities can be better explained in physical terms. (See Kim (1997), see for criticism Slors (1997». 13 Although one may welt argue that even such a thought requires reference to the events of learning the meaning of 'raining,' etc. The point is, of course, that such reference can be implicit or abstract for the largest part. However different your experience of learning the meaning of 'raining' is from mine, there will be little difference between our respective thoughts with the content 'it is raining now.' 14 One thing in Einsteinian physics that might be considered to counter my contention here is the relativity of time indexes of objects, states or events. It should not be thought, however, that this relativity leads to the rejection of the claim that alt properties that figure in physical theory can be assigned to objects at one particular time in abstraction from whatever el se happens at other times. For it is not the case that an assigned property's time index requires reference to objects and events at other (relative) times. Ali the relativity amounts to is that the being co-temporal of property

224 NOTES ro CHAPIER 7 ANO APPENDIX

instantiations is dependent upon ones description and frame of reference. 15 Heisenberg's uncertainty relation is not a counter-example to this as long as it is given an epistemic reading. That is, as long as it is read as saying that we cannot know the specific time an electron exists when we know the exact place it exists at and vice versa (and not that when an electron exists at a particular place, it does so .at no particular time or something along likewise absurd lines), nothing 1 said is contradicted. Thanks to Florian Bekkers. 16 1 am using the term 'supervenience' in the standard analytical sense (there can be no change in the supervening domain unless there is change in the subvening domain), not in Davidson's slightly idiosyncratic sense. 17 The terms are taken from Rescher (1996). Apart from the terminology, not much else is taken from it. Rescher, for instance, describes process metaphysics as the view that in physical reality the process has priority over its temporal parts.

APPENDIX

l The theory is elaborately expounded in Dennett 1978, 1987. 2 Dennett 1991 b. 3 Dennett 1987, pp. 43-68. 4 Cf. e.g. Dibrell (1988) on the 'as if character of interpretationism. 5 Philosophical Investigations, Part II, p.iv. 6 See for further criticism of Dennett my Slors 1996. 7 See Dennett, 1991 b.

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anomalous monism 179-89, 196, 208, 222

atomism, psychological -diachronic atomism in general 29-38, 43-45, 51-2, 56, 61-8, 72, 74-5, 77, 80, 112, 114-5, 117, 140, 169, 218-9 -objective context type-atomism 59, 61-3, 67-8 -psycho10gical context type­atomism 59-63, 67-8 -token-atomism 58-60, 62, 67

basic narrative 95, 99, 101-4, 107, 110,112,119,128-30,132, 134-6, 146, 195, 197

Baillie, J. 216 Baker, L. Rudder 221 Barclay, C.R. 108 Barsalou, L.W. 108 Beauchamp, T.L. 222 BermUdez, 1.L. 98 Block, N. 219 body

-and the individuation of persons, 26-8, 41, 78, 135-8 -bodily criterion of personal identity 13-5, 23-4, 41, 103 -the role of, in N-continuity 86, 89,93-105, 108-110, 127-31, 195, 216 -the role of, in reidentification 23-5, 40-1, 78, 126-31

Burge, T. 59, 218 Butler,1. 17,19,113,118,216 Cassam, Q. 97 causal efficacy/causality

-causal continuity requirement (CCR) of psychological continuity 31-6, 38, 43, SI, 62-4,74, 112, 169,217 -causal relevance 183-8, 203 -characteristics of causality 175-7 -in virtue of specific properties 182-3

INDEX

-mental causation 166-85, 203-4 Chisholm, R.M. 216 Churchland, P. 148 circularity objection 19-21. 36-8, 61-

2, 64, 74, 80, 112-9 closest continuer view 55, 217 compensation 9, 14, 22, 204-9 connectionism 149 content-oriented conception of

psychological continuity 182-110,111-2, lIS, 127-9, 132, 135, 138, 167-8, 189, 196,202, 207-8

context-continuity requirement 72-3, 80, 113-5

Costa, M.J. 222 Cuypers, S.E. 221 Davidson, D. 33, 69, 167, 178-85,

187, 189-90, 195-6, 198, 201-3, 207-9, 220, 222, 223

DeCooke, P.A. 108 Dennett, D.C. 69,91,94, 136-8,201-

3,210-5, 219, 221, 223 degree, connectedness admits of 22-3,

29, 39, 120-5, 138 Dibrell, W. 223 Doepke, F.C. 216 Douven, 1. 220 Dretske, F. 222 Eagle, M. 94 Ehring, D. 217, 222 eliminativism 167, 179, 184-5, 187-

9, 200-1, 203, 207-9 endurance/perdurance 11 epiphenomenalism 167-9, 173, 179,

182-6, 200-1, 203, 207 epistemic entitlements of mental

states 62, 70-1, 73-4, 80, 114, 189-90

erklăren/verstehen 200 Evans, G. 97, 106 explanatory exclusion 173, 202 Fodor, J. 69, 149, 219, 222 folk-psychology

-in general 134, 140-65, 166,

232

201 -simulation theory 142, 150-3, 161 -theory theory of 142, 148-53, 161

four dimensionalism 10-1, 13, 18, 27, 44, 56, 126

functionalism 69, 86, 149, 169, 177, 183, 187, 195, 208

Geach, P. 216 Goldman, A. 151 Gordon, R. 151 Hardy, B. 220 holism

-common sense holism 45, 64, 68, 70-3, 217 -constitutive holism 69, 72-3, 180 -diachronic holism 32, 113, 116, 140-1, 164, 166, 168, 189-97, 202-3, 208 -synchronic holism 29-30, 39, 115-6

Honderich, T. 222 Hume, D. 12,33, 126, 175, 177, 179,

199, 220, 221, 222 identities of persons 142, 161-4 identity

-relative identity 8 -strict/Leibnizian 7-12, 17, 21-2,25

idiosyncratic practical reasoning 146-61

individuation of persons 26-8, 41, 134-8

internalism 34-5, 51-2, 59, 63, 100 interpretationism 170, 210-5 irreducibility of the mental 189-97 Jackson, F. 33, 149, 183, 222 Johnson, M. 108 Johnston, M. 222 Kim, J. 33, 167-79, 181, 184-5, 188,

201, 203, 207-9, 221, 222 Ko1ak, D. 217 Lakoff, G. 108 LePore, E. 1.70, 177, 219 Lewis, D. 11, 51, 216, 217, 218, 219,

220, 221 Locke, D. 217 Locke, J. 6-7, 16-21,31,33,41,53,

113, 118-9, 134, 216, 217, 220 Loewer, B. 170, 177

INDEX

Ltiw-Beer, M. 95 MacIntyre, A. 91,220 Madell, G. 216 McDowell, J. 97, 219 McGinn, C. 218 McLaughlin, B. 182, 222 memory

-Q-memory 38-41, 45, 76-9 -Q-memory and the Neo-Lockean paradigm 61-63 -the failure of Q-memory 63-74 -the context continuity requirement for memory 72-3, 80, 114 -memory and N-continuity 112-9

mental imagery 73 mental realism 170, 184-5, 187-9,

203, 206, 208-15 Mills, E. 217, 218, 221 Mink, L.D. 220 motivational profile 154-61, 163-4 multiple occupancy

thesis/cohabitation thesis 55-6, 221

multiple realisation 35, 52, 63, 169 Nagel, T. 75, 218 narrativity 88-9 N-continuity

-and folk-psychology 140-64 -and logical form 119-27 -and memory 105-9 -and the circularity objection 112-9 -and the identities of persons 161-4 -and the individuation of persons 134-8 -and the irreducibility of the mental 166, 190-7 -and the unity of mind 131-4 -and third-person reidentification 127 -31 -as distinct from connectedness' 83-90 -as intertwining with connectedness 105-9 -awareness of 105-6 -levels of 90-3 -unity of 93-105

Neisser, U. 108 neo-Lockean paradigm 16-9, 28-35,

38, 40, 42, 44-5, 51-6, 58-9,

61-4 Noonan, H. 18, 26, 35, 51, 54-55,

118, 132, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221

Nozick, R. 54-5, 216, 217, 218, 219 Oaklander, R 121,217 Papineau, D. 222 Parfit, D. 10-11, 17, 19,21,23,38,

43-56, 64-5, 69, 72-6, 79, 81, 83-4, 86, 102, 105, 108-9, 113, 117, 121-3, 133, 169, 216, 217, 218-9, 220

perceptions, sequences of 26, 86-7, 95-105, 113, 129-30, 132-3, 220

Perry, J. 51, 126,216,217,218, 219, 212

Pettit, P. 33, 149, 176, 183, 222 phenomenal vs. conceptual content

73 physicalism

-as presupposed by neo­Lockeans 28-35 -nonreductive 166-209

process metaphysics 200 psychological connectedness

-in general 10, 17,22-3,28,31-2,34-5,38-9,41,43-4,46-7, 52,55,61,76-7,82-6,88,97, 105-9, 111, 113-6, 119-25, 129, 138, 217, 221 -strong/weak connectedness 17, 22, 217 -overlapping connectedness 17-9, 22-3, 120-4

psychological continuity -analysed in terms of connectedness, see psychological connectedness -as N-continuity, see N­continuity

Putnam, H. 59, 218 Quine, W.V.O. Il, 216 rationality 146, 164, 196-7, 199, 201 reductionism

-about personal identity 11-13, 19,44 -about mind 216

Reid, T. 17,216 reidentification 23-7, 40-1, 127-31 relation R 45-57, 59, 75, 79-80 Rescher, N. 89, 223

INDEX 233

responsibility for past actions 9, 15, 22, 125-6

Ricoeur, P. 90 Rorty, A.O. 161 Rosenberg, J.F. 97, 222 Ross, M. 108 Schechtman, M. 9, 65, 67, 84, 108,

111, 120, 124-5, 162, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221

self-interested concern 9, 14, 22, 125, 168, 202, 204-6, 209, 217

Shoemaker, S. 19-20, 36, 38-9, 51, 54, 84-7, 106, 113, 118-9, 169, 216,217, 218, 219, 220

Slors, M.V.P. 220, 221, 222, 223 Smart, J.J.e. 69 Sosa, E. 222 Sperry, RW. 218 Strawson, P.F. 97, 99-10 1, 217, 221 Stroud, B. 222 subject of experience 7, 10, 12-3, 25 Substance metaphysics 200 substratum-oriented conception of

psychological continuity 28-42, see also neo-Lockean paradigm

supervenience 33-5, 71, 175, 198-9, 221, 222, 223

survival 9, 14, 22, 125, 168, 202, 204-6, 209, 216

Swinburne, R.G. 216 Taylor, e. 75, 90, 105, 126, 161, 163 thought-experiments

-teletransportation and the branch-line case 49, 52, 54, 57-9 -psychological spectrum 48-9, 60 -brain bisection/commisurotonomy 50, 53-4 -Q-memory, see memory -mechanisms underlying fission and fusion 52-4 -and imaginability 52-4 -and atomism 56-6

token identity 33, 180-1, 194, transitivity (of identity) 22, 39, 120-

3 Tye M. 219 unity of a life, see N-continuity, unity

of unity of mind

234

-at one point in tirne 17-9; 22-3, 25-6, 121, 131-4, -bundle theory vs. ego theory 25-6, 131-4

Williarns, B.A.D. 24, 54, 129, 216, 218, 221

Wittgenstein, L. 211

INDEX

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

1. Jay F. Rosenberg: Linguistie Representation. 1974

2. Wilfrid SeJlars: Essays in Philosophy and Its History. 1974

ISBN 90-277-0533-X

ISBN 90-277-0526-7

3. Dickinson S. Miller: P hilosophieal Analysis and H uman Welfare. Selected Essays and Chapters from Six Decades. Edited with an Introduction by Lloyd D. Easton. 1975

ISBN 90-277-0566-6

4. Keith Lehrer (ed.): Analysis and Metaphysies. Essays in Honor of R. M Chisholm. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0571-2

5. CarI Ginet: Knowledge, Pereeption, and Memory. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0574-7

6. Peter H. Hare and Edward H. Madden: Causing, Pereeiving and Believing. An Examination ofthe Philosophy ofC. J. Ducasse. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0563-1

7. Hector-Neri Castafieda: Thinking and Doing. The Philosophical Foundations of Institutions. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0610-7

8. John L. PoJlock: Subjunetive Reasoning. 1976

9. Bruce Aune: Reason and Aetion. 1977

10. George SchIesinger: Religion and Scientijie Method. 1977

ISBN 90-277-0701-4

ISBN 90-277-0805-3

ISBN 90-277-0815-0

Il. Yirmiahu Yovel (ed.): Philosophy ofHistory andAetion. Papers presented at the First Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter (December 1974). 1978 ISBN 90-277-0890-8

12. Joseph C. Pitt (ed.): The Philosophy ofWilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0903-3

13. Alvin 1. Goldman and Jaegwon Kim (eds.): Values and Morals. Essays in Honor of William Frankena, Charles Stevenson, and Richard Brandt. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0914-9

14. Michael J. Loux: Substanee andAttribute. A Study in Ontology. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0926-2

15. Emest Sosa (ed.): The Philosophy ofNieholas Reseher. Discussion and Replies. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0962-9

16. Jeffrie G. Murphy: Retribution, Justiee, and Therapy. Essays in the Philosophy of Law. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0998-X

17. George S. Pappas (ed.): Justijieation and Knawledge. New Studies in Epistemology. 1979 ISBN 90-277-1023-6

18. James W. Comman: Skepticism, Justijieation, and Explanation. With a Bibliographic Essay by Walter N. Gregory. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1041-4

19. Peter van Inwagen (ed.): Time and Cause. Essays presented to Richard Taylor. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1048-1

20. Donald Nute: Topies in Conditional Logic. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1049-X

21. Risto Hilpinen (ed.): Rationality in Scienee. Studies in the Foundations of Science and Ethics. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1112-7

22. Georges Dicker: Pereeptual Knowledge. An Analytical and Historical Study. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1130-5

23. Jay F. Rosenberg: Dne World and Dur Knowledge of It. The Problematic of Realism in Post-Kantian Perspective. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1136-4

24. Keith Lehrer and CarI Wagner: Rational Consensus in Scienee and Society. A Philosophical and Mathematical Study. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1306-5

25. David O'Connor: The Metaphysies ofG. E. Moore. 1982 ISBN 90-277-1352-9

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

26. John D. Hodson: The Ethics of Legal Coercion. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1494-0

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

Robert J. Richman: God, Free Will, and Morality. Prolegomena to a Theory of Practical Reasoning.1983 ISBN 90-277-1548-3

Terence Penelhum: God and Skepticism. A Study in Skepticism and Fideism. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1550-5

James Bogen and James E. McGuire (eds.): How Things Are. Studies in Predication and the History ofPhilosophy of Science. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1583-1

Clement Dore: Theism. 1984

Thomas L. Carson: The Status ofMorality. 1984

ISBN 90-277-1683-8

ISBN 90-277-1619-9

Michael J. White: Agency and lntegrality. Philosophical Themes in the Ancient Discussions of Determinism and Responsibility. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1968-3

33. Donald F. Gustafson: lntention and Agency. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2009-6

34. Paul K. Moser: EmpiricalJustijication. 1985 ISBN 90-277-2041-X

35. Fred Feldman: Doing the Best We Can. An Essay in Informal Deontic Logic. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2164-5

36. G. W. Fitch: Naming and Believing. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2349-4

37. Terry Penner: The Ascent from Nominalism. Some Existence Arguments in Plato's Middle Dialogues. 1987 ISBN 9O-277-2427-X

38. Robert G. Meyers: The Likelihood ofKnowledge. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2671-X

39. David F. Austin (ed.): Philosophical Analysis. A Defense by Example. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2674-4

40. Stuart Silvers (ed.): Rerepresentation. Essays in the Philosophy of Mental Representation. 1988 ISBN 0-7923-0045-9

41. Michael P. Levine: Hume and the Problem ofMiracies. A Solution. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0043-2

42. Melvin Dalgamo and Eric Matthews (eds.): The Philosophy of Thomas Reid. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0190-0

43. Kenneth R. Westphal: Hegel's Epistemological Realism. A Study of the Aim and Method of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0193-5

44. John W. Bender (ed.): The Current State of the Coherence Theory. Critical Essays on the Epistemic Theories of Keith Lehrer and Laurence BonJour, with Replies. 1989

ISBN 0-7923-0220-6

45. Roger D. Gallie: Thomas Reid and 'The Way of ldeas'. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0390-3

46. J-C. Smith (ed.): Historical Foundations of Cognitive Science. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0451-9

47. John Heil (ed.): Cause, Mind, and Reality. Essays Honoring C. B. Martin. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0462-4

48. Michael D. Roth and Glenn Ross (eds.): Doubting. Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0576-0

49. Rod Bertolet: What is Said. A Theory of Indirect Speech Reports. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0792-5

50. Bruce Russell (ed.): Freedom, Rights and Pornography. A Collection of Papers by Fred R. Berger. 1991 ISBN 0-7923-1034-9

51. Kevin Mulligan (ed.): Language, Truth and Ontology. 1992 ISBNO-7923-1509-X

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

52. Jesus Ezquerro and Jesus M. Larrazabal (eds.): Cognition, Semantics and Philosophy. Proceed­ings of the First International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1538-3

53. O.H. Green: The Emotions. A Philosophical Theory. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1549-9

54. Jeffrie G. Murphy: Retribution Reconsidered. More Essays in the Philosophy of Law. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1815-3

55. Phillip Montague: In the Interests of Others. An Essay in Moral Philosophy. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1856-0

56. Jacques-Paul Dubucs (ed.): Philosophy ofProbability. 1993 ISBN 0-7923-2385-8

ISBN 0-7923-2438-2 57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

Gary S. Rosenkrantz: Haecceity. An Ontological Essay. 1993

Charles Landesman: The Eye and the Mind. Reflections on Perception and the Problem of Knowledge. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2586-9

Paul Weingartner (ed.): Scientific and Religious Belief. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2595-8

Michaelis Michael and John O'Leary-Hawthorne (eds.): Philosophy in Mind. The Place of Philosophy in the Study of Mind. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-3143-5

William H. Shaw: Moore on Right and Wrong. The Normative Ethics of G.E. Moore. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3223-7

T.A. Blackson: Inquiry, Forms, and Substances. A Study in Plato's Metaphysics and Epistem-ology.1995 ISBN 0-7923-3275-X

Debra Nails: Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3543-0

Warren Shibles: Emotion in Aesthetics. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3618-6

John Biro and Petr Kotatko (eds.): Frege: Sense and Reference One Hundred Years Later. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3795-6

Mary Gore Forrester: Persons, Animals, and Fetuses. An Essay in Practical Ethics. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3918-5

K. Lehrer, B.J. Lum, B.A. Slichta and N.D. Smith (eds.): Knowledge, Teaching and Wisdom. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3980-0

Herbert Granger: Aristotle's Idea ofthe Soul. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-4033-7

Andy Clark, Jesus Ezquerro and Jesus M. Larrazabal (eds.): Philosophy and Cognitive Sci­ence: Categories, Consciousness, and Reasoning. Proceedings of the Second International Colloquium on Cogitive Science. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-4068-X

J. Mendola: Human Thought. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4401-4

J. Wright: Realism and Explanatory Priority. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4484-7

X. Arrazola, K. Korta and EJ. Pelletier (eds.): Discourse, Interaction and Communication. Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. 1998

ISBN 0-7923-4952-0

E. Morscher, O. Neumaier and P. Simons (eds.): Applied Ethics in a Troubled World. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-4965-2

R.O. Savage: Real Alternatives, Leibniz's Metaphysics ofChoice. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5057-X

Q. Gibson: The Existence Principle. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5188-6

E Orilia and W.J. Rapaport (eds.): Thought, Language, and Ontology. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5197-5

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES

71. J. Bransen and S.E. Cuypers (eds.): Human Aetion, Deliberation and Causation. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5204-1

78. R.D. Gallie: Thomas Reid: Ethies, Aestheties and the Anatomy ofthe Self. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5241-6

79. K. Korta, E. Sosa and X. Arrazola (eds.): Cognition, Agency and Rationality. Proceedings of the Fifth International CoIloquium on Cognitive Science. 1999 ISBN 0-7923-5973-9

80. M. Paul: Sueeess in Referential Communieation. 1999 ISBN 0-7923-5974-7

81. E. Fischer: Linguistie Creativity. Exercises in 'Philosophical Therapy'. 2000

82. R. Tuomela: Cooperation. A Philosophical Study. 2000

83. P. Engel (ed.): Believing and Aeeepting. 2000

84. W.L. Craig: 1ime and the Metaphysics of Relativity. 2000

85. D.A. Habibi: lOM Stuart Mill and the Ethie ofHuman Growth. 2001

ISBN 0-7923-6124-5

ISBN 0-7923-6201-2

ISBN 0-7923-6238-1

ISBN 0-7923-6668-9

ISBN 0-7923-6854-1

86. M. Slors: The Diaehronie Mind. An Essay on Personal ldentity, Psychological Continuity and the Mind-Body Problem. 2001 ISBN 0-7923-6978-5

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