scholarly journals Emergent Individuals and the Resurrection

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy O'Connor ◽  
Jonathan D. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Number Of Authors

We present an original emergent individuals view of human persons, on which persons are substantial biological unities that exemplify metaphysically emergent mental states. We argue that this view allows for a coherent model of identity-preserving resurrection from the dead consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, one that improves upon alternatives accounts recently proposed by a number of authors. Our model is a variant of the “falling elevator” model advanced by Dean Zimmerman that, unlike Zimmerman’s, does not require a closest continuer account of personal identity. We end by raising some remaining theological concerns. 

Vagueness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Fine
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Sorites Paradox ◽  
Local Phenomenon ◽  
Intrinsic Feature

The book is about the problem of vagueness. It begins by discussing some of the existing views on vagueness and then explains why they have not been thought to be satisfactory. It then outlines a new account of vagueness, based on the general idea that vagueness is a global rather than a local phenomenon. In other words, the vagueness of an expression or object is not an intrinsic feature of the object or an expression but a matter of how it relates to other objects and expression. The development of this idea leads to a new semantics and logic for vagueness. The semantics and logic are then applied to a number of issues, including the sorites paradox, the transparency or luminosity of mental states, and personal identity. It is shown that the view allows one to hew to a much more intuitive position on these various issues.

Composite Subjectivity and Psychological Subjects

2019 ◽  
pp. 229-269
Author(s):  
Luke Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Everyday Experiences

This chapter is about how to combine subjects of experience as they are understood by the psychological theory of personal identity (Neo-Lockeanism). On this theory subjects are not the systems which generate mental states, but are instead constructs defined by the patterns of continuity among mental states. This requires considering how component and composite subjects can be individuated from one another, how they can develop self-consciousness, and how they can display agency. This results in a combinationist account of what is going on in everyday experiences of inner conflict and in dissociative identity disorder—an account which can recognize the conflicting or dissociated parts as subjects in their own right, but also as forming a composite subject with a greater or lesser degree of unity.

Soul and Body

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-99
Author(s):  
Edward Slingerland
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Material World ◽  
Physical Body ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Afterlife Beliefs ◽  
Qualitative Distinction

This chapter presents traditional archaeological and textual evidence against the strong soul-body holist position—that is, the claim that the early Chinese lacked any sense of a qualitative distinction between an immaterial soul and a physical body. This evidence includes afterlife beliefs as gleaned from mortuary practices and textual evidence drawn from both the received corpus and archaeologically recovered texts. The early Chinese appear to have distinguished between a relatively corporeal, physical body and a relatively incorporeal soul (or set of souls). The former was part of a material, visible world and was viewed ultimately as peripheral to the essence of one’s personal identity. The latter was the focus of ancestor cults, sacrifices, and oracles, and partook of an invisible, numinous world, qualitatively distinct from our own. The “specialness” of the next world and the beings that inhabited it lent to them, and to items and practices associated with them, a degree of numinosity that is not at all alien to conceptions of the holy or sacred in Judeo-Christian traditions. The chapter concludes with the argument that soul-body dualism is ultimately parasitic on basic mind-body dualism, which sees mental states or consciousness as somehow qualitatively distinct from the material world of things.

Games of cricket and the General Resurrection

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD STURCH
Keyword(s):  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Resurrection Of The Dead ◽  
The Dead

AbstractIt is often objected to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead that if we reject dualism and disembodied existence there is no way even for God to bring it about that a resurrected person is identical with his or her supposed original, rather than just a duplicate. My response is that if God intended all along that people should have two periods of existence, the problem vanishes. In a Test Match, there are long periods when the ground and stands are empty and no play takes place, yet no-one says that the resumed game may only be a duplicate of that of the previous day. The same holds for a resurrection intended from the beginning.

Minding One's Cognitive Systems: When Does a Group of Minds Constitute a Single Cognitive Unit?

Episteme ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Rupert
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Tentative Conclusion ◽  
Group Minds ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Mind ◽  
Number Of Authors

The possibility of group minds or group mental states has been considered by a number of authors addressing issues in social epistemology and related areas (Goldman 2004, Pettit 2003, Gilbert 2004, Hutchins 1995). An appeal to group minds might, in the end, do indispensable explanatory work in the social or cognitive sciences. I am skeptical, though, and this essay lays out some of the reasons for my skepticism. The concerns raised herein constitute challenges to the advocates of group minds (or group mental states), challenges that might be overcome as theoretical and empirical work proceeds. Nevertheless, these hurdles are, I think, genuine and substantive, so much so that my tentative conclusion will not be optimistic. If a group mind is supposed to be a single mental system having two or more minds as proper parts, the prospects for group minds seem dim–or so I will argue.

Are there dead persons?

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 755-775
Author(s):  
Patrick Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Vegetative State ◽  
Ethical Judgment ◽  
Unexpected Result ◽  
Ethical Practices ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Permanent Vegetative State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Way

AbstractSchechtman’s ‘Person Life View’ (PLV) offers an account of personal identity whereby persons are the unified loci of our practical and ethical judgment. PLV also recognises infants and permanent vegetative state patients as being persons. I argue that the way PLV handles these cases yields an unexpected result: the dead also remain persons, contrary to the widely-accepted ‘Termination Thesis.’ Even more surprisingly, this actually counts in PLV’s favor: in light of our social and ethical practices which treat the dead as moral patients, PLV gives a more plausible account of the status of the dead than its rival theories.

Hell

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn McCord Adams
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Recent Discussion ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Dead

The ancient idea that the dead go to a dark subterranean place gradually evolved into the notion of divinely instituted separate postmortem destinies for the wicked and the righteous. If the former lies behind the Psalms, the latter version appears in apocalyptic works, both canonical and deutero- or non-canonical, and is presupposed by numerous passages in the New Testament. Through the patristic and medieval periods the doctrine gradually achieved ecclesiastical definition, stipulating eternal torment (both physical and spiritual) in a distinctive place for those who die in a state of mortal sin. Most reformers recognized biblical authority for this doctrine. Philosophically, the notion of postmortem survival raises many questions in the philosophy of mind about personal identity. Recent discussion, however, has concentrated on the specialized version of the problem of evil to which the doctrine gives rise.

Personal identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-170
Author(s):  
Georges Dicker
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
John Perry

This chapter analyzes Locke’s seminal treatment of personal identity and examines objections to it and replies to them. It (1) discusses his sharp divorce between a person’s identity and the identity of any substance, (2) formulates in analytical style his definition of personal identity in terms of memory, and (3) explains his view that personal identity is a “forensic” notion. Regarding (1), it argues that although Locke’s same substance/different person scenario makes sense, his same person/different substance scenario crosses the bounds of sense. Regarding (2), it shows how a definition of personal identity in terms of memory can be refined so as to avoid counterexamples proposed by Berkeley, Thomas Reid, and John Perry. Regarding (3), it argues that such a refined definition is incompatible with Locke’s forensic view of personhood, unless one appeals to Christian doctrine about the afterlife and about Judgement Day—as indeed Locke was prepared to do.

The Hellhound of the Qur'an: A Dog at the Gate of the Underworld

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
George Archer
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Sleep State ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Soul Sleep

Q. 18:9–26 tells the story of the ‘Sleepers of Ephesus’/‘Companions of the Cave’. Unique to this version of the legend, the Qur'an mentions the presence of a dog alongside the Sleepers: this dog has long been understood as the Sleepers' pet, yet it can be read as much more than this. Many other sources of the Sleepers' legend equate the mysterious sleeping figures to the sleeping dead awaiting resurrection, and the Qur'an offers many clues that its account of the Sleepers' story serves as a warning against the worship of the dead, as this confuses God's signs with the divine reality that sends them. By positing the saintly dead in a sleep-state (e.g. the Syriac Christian doctrine of soul-sleep; the Islamic barzakh), their cults are rendered useless. In this light, the dog in the Qur'anic account can be read not as just a simple pet, but as a guardian over the dead in symbolic continuity with figures such as Anubis and Cerberus. Thus the Sleepers' dog can be read as simultaneously functioning as an underworld guardian that protects the departed, and a fearful creature that warns Muslims not to worship deceased human beings.

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