PERSONAL IDENTITY
Philosophy 188
Stanford University, Fall 2005

Instructor: Luca FERRERO
Schedule: MW 3:15-4:30
Office: Building 90-92L
Lecture Room: Building 70-72a1
tel. (650) 724-8496
Office hour: W 2:00-3:00pm

email:

and by appointment

homepage: http://www.stanford.edu/~ferrero

Required Readings are available through Coursework. There is no book or coursepack.
Supplementary Readings will be made available through Coursework

N.B. You are required to read the assigned texts before the lecture

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SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READINGS

Date  Lecture

Topic

Readings
(required readings are in boldface)

  
09/26 I Introduction  
09/28 II Where Am I? Dennett "Where Am I?"  
10/03 III Identity Quine "Identity"
Chisholm "Identity Through Time" 		 
10/05 IV Locke Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Book 2: Chapter 27

Atherton "Locke's Theory of Personal Identity", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. VIII, 1983

 FIRST OUTLINE DUE
10/10 V Butler, Reid and Hume Butler, Joseph. 1900. "Of Personal Identity," The Works of Bishop Butler, Vol. II, ed. J. H. Bernard. London.

Reid, Thomas. 1785. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Edinburgh. Ed. A. D. Woozley. London: Macmillan, 1941; Especially Essay III; Chs. 4 and 6.

Hume "Personal Identity" Treatise of Human Nature, I, 4, vi, and the appendix 
(here is the complete volume 1 of the Treatise)

  
10/12 VI Identity and Memory

Shoemaker, Sidney. 1984. "Persons and Their Pasts," in S. Shoemaker. Identity, Cause and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Burge, TBA

McDowell, J., 1997, ‘Reductionism and the First Person’, in Reading Parfit, J. Dancy (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell
Hamilton, Andy. 1995. "A New Look at Personal Identity" Philosophical Quarterly 45 # 180
Shoemaker, Sydney. 1959. "Personal Identity and Memory," Journal of Philosophy 56: 868-882

  
10/17 VII The Psychological Criterion 1 Shoemaker ‘Personal Identity: a Materialist's account" in Shoemaker & Swinburne, Personal Identity, 1994, Oxford: Blackwell  pp. 89-97, 106-118, 130-132

Shoemaker, "Self and Substance", Philosophical Perspectives, 1997, vol. 11: 283-304

SECOND OUTLINE DUE
10/19 VIII The Psychological Criterion 2  
10/24 IX The Bodily Criterion Williams, Bernard. 1970. "The Self and the Future," Philosophical Review 79 (2): 161-180 THIRD OUTLINE DUE
Topics of first paper distributed
10/26 X Animalism

Snowdon - 'Persons, Animals and Bodies' in The Body and the Self, Bermudez, J., Eilan, N. and Marcel, A. (eds.), MIT Press, 1995, p. 71-86

Mark Johnston, "Human Beings," Journal of Philosophy  84 1987, pp.59-83
Wiggins, D.  Self and Substance, Renewed. Ch. 7 "Personal identity"
Noonan, ‘Animalism Versus Lockeanism: A Current Controversy’, Philosophical Quarterly 1998, 4 8: 302-318

  
10/31 XI Parfit 1 Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch. 12-13 FIRST PAPER DUE
11/02 XII Parfit 2  
11/07 XIII The Importance of Identity 1 Perry, John. 1975. "The Importance of Being Identical," in Amelie Rorty The Identities of persons (1975): 67-90

Wiggins "The Concern to Survive" in Needs, Values, Truth, Ch. IX

 FOURTH OUTLINE DUE
11/09 XIV The Importance of Identity 2 J. Whiting "Personal Identity"  in The Blackwell guide to metaphysics / edited by Richard M. Gale. 2002. Ch. 10  
11/14 XV Identity: Practical or Metaphysical? 1 Christine Korsgaard "Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency"
Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 2. (Spring, 1989), pp. 101-132 		 
11/16 XVI Identity: Practical or Metaphysical? 2 Velleman "Self to Self" The Philosophical Review, Vol.105, No. 1 (1996), pp. 39-76  
11/21      --- Happy Thanksgiving ---
11/23
11/28 XVII Identity Practical or Metaphysical? 3 Rovane, C., 1998, The Bounds of Agency, Princeton University Press Ch. 3 FIFTH OUTLINE DUE  
Topics of second paper distributed
11/30 XVIII The Narrative View 1 D. Dennett, "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity"
D. Velleman "The Self as Narrator"

D. Dennett & N. Humphrey, "Speaking for Ourselves," in Brainchildren  
Velleman "Narrative Explanation"

  
12/5 XIX The Narrative View 2  
12/7 XX Conclusion TBA SECOND PAPER DUE
 

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ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING POLICY

UNDERGRADUATES
5 Outlines (300-500 words each)

15%

First Paper (1500-2100 words / approximately 5-7 pages)

35%

Second Paper (1800-2400 words / approximately 6-8 pages)

40%

Class participation

10%

No incompletes will be granted, but for documented medical or family emergencies

GRADING GUIDELINES are to be found at http://www.uwm.edu/~ferrero/grading.htm

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