IB Philosophy HL - Term 1 Being Human

Socrates, Plato and Augustine - Personal Identity

Socrates, Plato and Augustine - Personal Identity

The self is an immortal soul that exists over time.

Descartes - Personal Identity

The self is a thinking thing, distinct from the body

John Locke - Personal Identity

Personal Identity is made possible by self consciousness

David Hume - Personal Identity

There is no “self”, only a bundle of constantly changing perceptions passing through our minds.

Immanuel Kant - Personal Identity

The self is a unifying subject, an organizing consciousness that makes intelligent experience possible.

Sigmund Freud - Personal Identity

The self is multi-layered.

Paul Churchland - Personal Identity

The self is the brain. Mental states will be supersede by the brain states.

The Ship of Theseus

A thought experiment about if an object is still the same after all its parts were replaced over time.

Personal Identity

Identity is your beliefs, qualities, personality traits and appearance that characterizes you as a person.

The Enduring Self

We stay the same person overtime because our body does not change day to day.

Qualitative

Something measured by its quality rather than quatity

Quantitative

Measuring something by quantity

A necessary condition

A condition that must be satisfied before being classes in a way

A sufficient condition

A condition that is enough to refer to something as being a part of a class.

Individualism

Material substance - bodily criterion of identity

Immaterial substance - soul theory of identity

Immaterial Non-Substance - psychological continuity theory

Communitarianism

Identity in context - sociocultural identity

Material substance

Strict materialistic position and only focuses on the body

bodily criterion of identity / physical criterion

The identity of a person over time that is only in relation to the physical. Body or brain.

The brain criterion / brain theory

Continuity of a function brain means there is personal identity

The Cartesian soul / soul theory

The soul exists itself without the body and is responsible for changes in identity

Psychological continuity theory

Overlapping chains of psychological connections between beliefs, desires, intentions and traits. (pearls on a necklace)

consciousness

State of being in which you are aware of your external and internal existence.

Parfit - Personal Identity

Believes in mental continuity and the connectedness, essentially a non-branching psychological continuity theory

memory theory

Your identity only reaches as far as your memory does

introspection

the examining of your own mental and emotional process

sociocultural identity

Identity coming from social class, religion, language or social values

Existentialism

The belief that we are all responsible for our own purpose and meaning

Analysis

A detailed examination of something’s structure

Evaluation

The making a judgement or assessment of something

Assumptions

Something that is accepted as true without proof

Rationalism

The basing of one‘s opinions on reason and knowledge instead of religion or emotions

Empiricism

The theory that all knowledge is based on the experience of the senses. Developed by Hume and Locke

Introspection

The examination of ones mental and emotional process

Extrospection

The examination of what is outside one’s self

Authority

The power and right to give orders and force obedience.

Intuition

The ability to understand something without reasoning but just instinct

Revelation

In reference to the supernatural connection to human existence

Essence

The intrinsic nature of something, in an abstract sense, in relation to their character.

Illusion

A misleading vision

Concept of Self - Plato, Aristotle (ancient positions)

Self as a soul is the rejection of the body and seeing the self as a metaphysical. Plato argues that the soul is the source of the rational and moral self. Dualistic views of the metaphysical and physical world. The soul is the ruler of the body. Includes Plato’s tripartite soul where desire and spirit are ruled by the rational self. Contrastly, Aristotle believed the body was the soul and not something to be ignored, he believed in substance.

Concept of Self - Augustine, Aquinas (Christian)

This position emphasises the difference between body and soul and how the soul has a connection to the spiritual world. Augustine believed in the tripartite soul and that when you reached the afterlife you are only a soul.

Concept of Self - Descartes, Hume (Enlightenment)

Descartes was a dualist and believed in the immaterial soul and sees it as the self. He sees this self in the metaphysical world and it requires a consciousness. Hume was an empiricist so he did not believe is the idea of the self. He believed you are just made of impressions and your experiences. He did not believe is consciousness so you could never experience the self.

Concept of Self - Locke, Kant (Modernity)

Locke believed in personal experiences making up your identity and that you cannot experience substances. He believed the self comes from introspection. Locke believed the self and the soul are interlinked and can exist in any substance.

Concept of Self - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche (Postmodern)

Kierkegaard held the belief that you should forego the illusion of modern life. Believed you had to laugh at your regrets because it is inevitable. Nietzsche believed that the self and soul were one but that the soul was still a part separate, he saw the soul in every part of the body. Said the self was shown through personality and creates action. Also believed in introspection.

Concept of Self - Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucian (Eastern perspective of self)

Hinduism sees the self as a substantial but non-material. There are seen to be many selves like bodily, dream and dreamless, but none of these are seen to be the real self. The true self is the deathless self which controls the others. Buddhism believes in no self, only five different dispositions for you to act. Confucianism believes in introspection and is unlike a western view of self. Has many hearts that work toward excellence and purpose.

Essence - Soul

The body is changing and corruptible as the soul is constant and pure. Tripartite soul is the rational self controlling the appetitive and the spirit self. Plato says the body and the soul are in conflict and the soul could exist without the body. Aristotle thought the soul acted through the body and couldn‘t exist without it so it had to be substantial.

Existence

Can be defined as our actions and experiences. This authority over them can come from a religious figure as the collective view of the soul or from yourself as the individual view of the soul. Locke, Hume and Kant were essentialists and saw the soul as a defining trait between humans and animals. Locke did not believe in the cartesian soul. Descartes looked at how people interacted with the spiritual world and was a dualist. He believed the self was necessary for consciousness. The self and identity depend on consciousness. Self is seperate from the body and immaterial substance, it is the source of being human.

Illusion

Self does not exist because it cannot be proved through scientific methods.

Personhood - Consciousness and self-conscious

Consciousness is an aware state of being and is shared by most living beings. Nagel believed it was the way a person perceives the world so it can never be shared because it is different for everyone. Consciousness in relation to personhood is can anything be a person just because it is conscious. At what point does a person stop being conscious and therefore, stop being a person. Is consciousness even a sufficient condition for personhood. There are different levels of self-consciousness with a basic level being knowing you exist and are different from others and a deeper understanding is being able to evaluate your own personality and values.

Personhood - Agency

Agency is the right to self determination and the ability to make choices freely. It is directly related to freedom. Hard determinism does not believe is agency, all your actions come from a chain of events interacting with your body. Most philosophers do believe that there is some kind of outside influence on human agency. Frankfurt believed in human will and second-order desires which are desires to do good things for others. This excludes many people from being a person when you connect agency to personhood. This is because babies and mentally impaired people do not have capacity to make decisions.

Personhood - Morality and moral responsibility

Morality are your beliefs in what is right and wrong and its application in real life situations. Moral responsibility is a quality where someone is able to decide between right and wrong, it assumes consciousness, self-consciousness and agency. These ideas are directly linked to personhood. These ideas of morality depend on agency. Hard determinism is critiqued in the way that morality has to be a free choice and does come from a chain of events. In order for morality to become personhood, they need to have developed a sense of agency first. This excludes children from personhood.

Personhood - Responsibility and authenticity

Existentialist use the term responsibility to define how people have a duty to exercise their freedom and live their life with authenticity. They believe humans are essentially free to find their own purpose in life. Most people do not fulfill this responsibility because they want to conform to the normal. Existentialists also believe in this idea of project and living your life according to a passion. Because this idea of deep purpose is very complex, it cannot be felt by animals and most children. Using this idea of responsibility as a condition for personhood bars many people from being a person so it is not plausible.

Personhood - Anthropocentrism

Anthropocentrism is the theory that humans are the center of the universe and are the most advanced and important species. This comes with the assumption that personhood is something uniquely human. Aristotle sets humans apart of the basis of their ability to be politically social and intelligent. Descartes believed that the human should be placed higher than that of animals because he defined the human soul as a unique entity. In opposition to this view you could argue that animals have personhood because, like humans, they have a distinct body, social and individual behaviour and respond to stimuli.

Personhood - Evolutionary Perspectives

Descartes was one of the first to try to define distinctions between humans and animals. He used rationalism to do this, but his idea was doomed to fail because categorical distinctions were overruled by the natural sciences like the theory of evolution. This is because it links the human species to the Homo sapiens. Darwin presented his theory of evolution on the basis that organisms develop overtime and adapt to their surroundings. The organisms best suited for the environment survive and the others die, this is natural selection. Because these distinctions are no different than that of animals, personhood cannot be seen as exclusively human.

Personhood - sentience and suffering

Bentham argued according to his principle of utilitarianism how most human values can be traced back to hedonism because humans only seek pleasure. Therefore personhood can be linked back to the sentience of beings. Peter Singer holds a similar view but places more of a view of preferences of a person with goodness not just coming from pleasure but from having choice. This plays into the exclusion of animals in this theory. In the ideas of sentience and suffering you can look at personhood on a spectrum. Humans have a high degree of rational thought as dogs have less.

Rationality

It is the capacity for logical reasoning and critical thinking. A key component of rationality is the ability to view the world objectively, without desire, impulse or instinct. Rationality allows you to justify your opinions and strengthens your self control. This is a traditional western view held by Plato and Descartes. Example could the ability to justify a choice in trolley problem.

Rationality - Plato

He said that man is a creature who is dominated by our ability to reason and grasp the defining characteristics of humanity. He said all humans have a soul which is the mind and thoughts. This is split into three parts, one is unique to humans, the tripartite soul. It has the ability to view the world objectively.

Rationality - Descartes

Descartes was a mathematician and believed the ability to unlock Galileo’s language of the universe and do math was what makes us human. Descartes was a rationalist and believed these laws to be self-evident: Law of identity - a thing is always itself, Law of non-contradiction - nothing can be both true and false, Law of excluded middle - everything is either true or false and Principle of sufficient reason - there is an explanation for everything that occurs or exists.

Tabula rasa

Is the idea that people are born with no mental content so all knowledge comes from experiences

Counter Tabula rasa - Kant and Noam Chomsky

Kant said aid “experience alone is insufficient to explain thought”. The example of learning to play sports can be used because it requires a lot of understanding and learning. This becomes a paradox of learning to learn. This comes with the understanding of some bare minimums of the mind. Chomsky said that a capacity to learn language is required for a child to learn how to speak so there must be some information there.

Fate

Example of the story of Oedipus who was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother. His father then left that baby is the woods but these two things happened anyway meaning fate is inescapable.

Libertarian free will

The belief that metaphysically, there is nothing stopping us from acting freely. These actions are defined by the principle of alternate possibilities which is the idea that an action is only free is the person had the option to do something else. Example of choosing to eat oatmeal just because you want to. This idea includes two kinds of causation. Event causation which means that no event can happen without a previous event causing it so in this sense the world is deterministic. There is also agent causation which means a mind can cause a chain of events. This view sees personal experiences as a justification.

Hard Determinism

All effects have causes and all things that have happened are the only possibility of what could happen. Determinism does not allow the idea of options so you can never be free. Baron D’Holbach believed that everything that has happened is part of an unbroken chain of events with an inevitable result. This view is called reductionism which is the belief that all parts of the world can be traced back to one thing. What we think are decisions is just different mental aspects combining.

Existentialism and freedom

There are many different schools of existentialism but Sartre’s atheist existentialism is one of the most common because it is so radical in the sense of freedom. It is a postmodern movement that criticizes modern philosophy. It is a move away from absolute claims like in Plato’s philosophy. Existentialists see humanity as abandoned because of this lack of absolute claims. Identity is not defined and they see freedom as a burden because of the responsibility that comes with it. Sartre was an atheist which meant since there was no God, there was no human nature and life was absurd. Instead he believed in a human condition which is that humans are condemned to be free and the we are responsible for our own destiny. This freedom is supreme and we cannot make any excuse not to exercise it. Making this excuse is called bad faith which is when we lie and say we are not free.

Biological determinism

This the theory where our choices are determined by aspects of biology. This can be the function of our brains, hormones or genes. Also our evolutionary traits. Discoveries in modern medicine make this theory hard to deny. Darwin believed is this theory based on his theory of evolution. However this theory is heavily focused on the species and not the individual. This uniqueness comes from our genetics. This suggest we do not build our personalities and that they are predetermined. This brings up issues of freedom for people who may be neurologically impaired. They may have different biological tendencies that are violent or different that usual which make sit harder for them to exercise their free will. This is also an issue with criminal behaviour because if people have no choice in their behaviour then why is it ok to punish criminals if they were going to act like that in the first place.

Social determinism

The theory that individual behaviour is determined by social interactions. This considers customs, culture, education and personal interactions into human behaviour. Feminist Kate Millet wrote about the power disparity between men and women and how that could not have come from biology so it must have come from society. She says many social institutions come into play when shaping gender like the education system, religion, the family and laws that favour men.