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UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Matter and Form: Towards an Animalist Conception of Personal Identity Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2hk26956 Author Hess, Keith Allan Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Matter and Form: Towards an Animalist Conception of Personal Identity A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Keith A. Hess Committee in charge: Professor Aaron Zimmerman, Chair Professor Anthony Anderson Professor Sonny Elizondo Professor David Hershenov, University at Buffalo Professor Anthony Brueckner, in memorium September 2017 The dissertation of Keith A. Hess is approved. ________________________________________________ Professor Anthony Anderson ________________________________________________ Professor Sonny Elizondo ________________________________________________ Professor David Hershenov, University at Buffalo ________________________________________________ Professor Aaron Zimmerman, Committee Chair July 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without support from various scholars in the philosophical community. In particular, I would like to thank Professors Robert Pasnau, Eleonore Stump, and Patrick Toner for their guidance via email. I would also like to thank Professors Brian Morley and J. P. Moreland for encouraging me to enter academia and for believing that I had the ability to obtain a PhD. In addition, I would like to thank each member of my dissertation committee. Professors David Hershenov, Anthony Anderson, and Sonny Elizondo provided crucial guidance through the entire process. They gave of their time and energy to help me succeed. The late Professor Anthony Brueckner, my former advisor, assisted me in the early stages of the process and showed excitement for my project. I miss him greatly. Finally, my advisor, Professor Aaron Zimmerman, provided invaluable encouragement and advice on the dissertation. He helped me believe that I could finish well. I will never forget his kindness. I would like to thank my family as well, who provided much help and encouragement. My parents-in-law and parents lovingly encouraged and supported me each step of the way. My wife, Lorna, and my daughters, Allie, Sophie, and Zoey, stood beside me through my entire education. My daughters loved me, encouraged me, and brought joy to my heart. And my wife sacrificed greatly so that I could write my dissertation. She never gave up and believed I could finish, even when I had my doubts. She is my best friend and will be always. I am deeply grateful for her. Finally, and above all, I would like to thank God for giving me guidance and strength. As I continue my career in academia, may I trust in Him with all my heart. iii VITA OF KEITH A. HESS July 2017 EDUCATION PhD in Philosophy – Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, 09/2017 (expected) MA in Philosophy – Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, 12/2012 MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics – Biola University, 05/2008 BA in Biblical Languages – The Master’s College, 12/2005 PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS Philosophy Instructor – Department of Social Sciences, College of Southern Nevada, 08/2016 - Present Philosophy Instructor/Teaching Assistant – Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, 9/2010 – 06/2016 Adjunct Professor – Department of Philosophy, Biola University, 08/2014 – 0 5/2015 PUBLICATIONS “Sure It’s Alive, but Does It Have a Soul?” In Frankenstein and Philosophy: The Shocking Truth. Vol. 79. Popular Culture and Philosophy. Open Court Publishing Company, 2013. SELECT CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION/PRESENTATIONS Workshop on Teaching and Learning in Philosophy, American Association of Philosophy Teachers and American Philosophical Association, 6/2016 (accepted) “Animalism and the Incarnation” Presented at the Personhood, Possession, and Place graduate student conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 05/2013 “How Significant is Religious Disagreement?” Presented at the Imagining the Good Life Conference at California Baptist University, 04/2013 SELECT HONORS/AWARDS Academic Senate Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (university-wide award), University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013, 2014 (nominated twice) Graduate Collaborative Award, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2013 R. W. Church Fellowship, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2012-2013 Graduate Opportunity Fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009-2010 Elected to Kappa Tau Epsilon, the Talbot School of Theology Scholastic Honor Society, 2008 iv ABSTRACT Matter and Form: Towards an Animalist Conception of Personal Identity by Keith A. Hess In this dissertation, I defend an answer to the following question in the diachronic personal identity debate: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for our persistence over time? Two popular approaches to answering this question are the psychological and the somatic approach. On the former approach, we persist in virtue of some sort of psychological continuity. So, some proponents of the psychological approach think that we cease to exist if we lose certain features of our psychology such as our memories, beliefs, and rationality. On the latter approach, we persist in virtue of some sort of physical continuity. Eric Olson defends a version of the somatic approach called animalism. On his view, we are numerically identical to biological organisms and we persist if and only if the organisms we are persist. Although Olson’s animalism has some benefits, it also faces some challenges. For example, many people would say that we go wherever our brains go (if we go anywhere at all) because our brains (more specifically, our cerebra) realize the aspects of our psychology traditionally associated with persons, such as memories, beliefs, rationality, and self-awareness. But on Olson’s animalism, our psychology has nothing to do with our persistence and we go wherever our bodies go rather than our cerebra. Following Aristotle and Aquinas, I lay out an animalist view of v our persistence called hylomorphic animalism. On this view, we are numerically identical to rational animals, which are living bodies composed of prime matter and a rational soul. Furthermore, we persist if and only if the composite of matter and rational soul persists. I claim that hylomorphic animalism makes better sense of certain contemporary personal identity thought experiments than Olson’s animalism. For example, contra Olson, I argue that our psychology does have something to do with our persistence and that we go wherever our brains go. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Animalism.... ....................................................................................................22 Chapter 2: Hylomorphic Animalism ................................................................................. 69 Chapter 3: Hylomorphic Animalism Retains the Benefits of Animalism .......................101 Chapter 4: Hylomorphic Animalism and Transfer Problems ..........................................132 Chapter 5: Hylomorphic Animalism and Multiplication Problems .................................154 References ........................................................................................................................188 vii INTRODUCTION The diachronic personal identity debate in philosophy centers on finding necessary and sufficient conditions for our persistence over time. The notion of identity involved is numerical identity rather than qualitative identity. The latter notion concerns similarity between objects. Object X and Object Y can be more or less similar and they are exactly similar if and only if every property that one object possesses the other possesses. Numerical identity concerns numerical sameness. Object X and Object Y are numerically identical if and only if they are one and the same object. Applied to persons, person1 is numerically identical to person2 if and only if person1 and person2 are one and the same person.1 If the personal identity debate centers around our persistence conditions, what is meant by our persistence? Simply put, the debate concerns human persons like you and me and Donald Trump.2 In specifying the debate in this way, I do not intend to say that it only concerns our persistence qua persons. That is, the central question of the diachronic personal identity debate is not the following: (1) If a [human] person x exists at one time and a [human] person y exists at another time, under what possible circumstances is it the case that x is y?3 1 Throughout this dissertation, unless specified otherwise, when I speak of identity, I mean numerical identity. 2 Eric Olson, What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 8. But what is a human person? See Jens Johansson, “What Is Animalism?,” Ratio 20, no. 2 (2007), 202 – 204 for discussion. In addition, some philosophers distinguish between animals and organisms. See Mark Johnston, “‘Human Beings’ Revisited: My Body Is Not an Animal,” in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics,
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