Personal Identity

Catalog description

Taught by DSPT. This seminar addresses questions of personal identity within the tradition of Analytic Philosophy, as well as Personalism. While Analytic Philosophy tends to discuss personal identity as a matter concerning the individual by itself, Personalism emphasizes the relationality of the human person inherent in his or her own identity. Identity criteria in both traditions will vary with regard to the importance of consciousness. Each tradition is in its own way skeptical with regard to the notion of the "soul" as constitutive of a substantial unity and identity of the person. We will read and discuss texts from the Anglo-Saxon tradition (Locke, Hume, Kant, B. Williams, D. Parfit and others) as well as from the continental personalist tradition (such as M. Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrandt, Blessed John Paul II, John Crosby, Oliver O'Donovan). This seminar will engage invited outside speakers who are working in the field. This is a seminar required for those students involved in the common Philosophy Project "Person and Consciousness." Format: Seminar (lecture, discussion). Evaluation: Class participation, 15-20 page research paper. Intended audience: Philosophy MA students and interested PhD students.