Locke - Memory theory
- Memories make you, you
- Self is unified by consciousness
- Memory links to different stages of life of a person
- If you remember a certain part of your life, you are self-identical to the earlier person up experienced it
Hume - Bundle Theory
- Empiricist
- No self persists through time
- You canāt be the same person you were a second ago
- Self is an illusion
- Bundles of causes and perceptions are labelled and help identify a person
- Concept of self is fictional
Ricoeur - Narrative Theory
- Like a book
- People are storytellers, creating their own character
- Life is like a story, having narrative elements
- No hard line between mind and body
- Ethnicity, heritage and biological makeup are the only things that are enduring
Sartre - Project Theory
- Bridge theory
- We never stop making who we are
- Our bridge is never completed until the end (death)
- each person is responsible for giving meaning to their life. We are alone in this world
- Decisions are what make us who we are, not secondary people
- No enduring self, just different versions of a self
- No soul
- Know things through their opposites
Buddhism - Not Self Theory
- We trick ourselves into thinking selfishly that there is a self
- Ego forces us into a comparison of āMe vs. Youā
- Your goal in life is to break free from the illusion of self
Ship of Theseus
- If you replaced all the boards in a ship (thesusā ship)
- Would it still be the same ship?
- Would it have the same name?
- What part is the same?
- What if you replaced one rotten board on the ship
- Would it still be the same ship?