Philosophy 232-002 Fall 04

 

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR SECOND TEST

 

These are the actual questions that you have to answer in the in-class test on Thursday Oct 21. You have to answer ALL the following questions. The test lasts for the entire class period.

 

There is a total of 5 questions. You should devote a roughly equal amount of time to answer each question (approximately 15 minutes each). You are expected to use all of this time to answer each question. Articulate your answers, do not just give a one-sentence response.

 

Please notice that this is NOT an open-book test. No books or notes are allowed during the test.

 

 

1. PERRY:  What is Weinrob's reaction to the possibility of her brain-rejuvenation? Does she take to support or undermine the bodily criterion of identity? Why? Do you find her argument convincing?

 

2. ROSENBERG; Rosenberg claims that there are three different customary ways to speak of the relations between the soul, the body and the person. Outline these three ways. Indicate what Rosenberg takes to be the main problem for each of these views.

 

3. CLARK: Discuss Clark’s thesis that “our sense of personal location has more to do with this sense of an action-space than with anything else” (p. 94). How does this thesis affect the way in which we determine the boundaries of our own body?

 

4. NAGEL: Nagel presents several ways of answering the question of how many minds are present in cases of brain bisection. Which of these answers do you find most plausible? Why?

 

5. DENNETT: To be distributed in class on Tuesday.

Dennett and Humphrey claim that the existence of multiplicity of selves in the same human being (like in alleged cases of MPD) is not philosophically absurd. Do you agree with their claim? Why? Explain how the idea of the self as a fictive entity, as a center of narrative gravity might help to understand MPD. Do you find this idea plausible? Why? (Please note that I am NOT asking you whether you believe that there is sufficient evidence for the actual existence of MPD. I am only interested in the question of the conceivability of the disorder, which is D&H’s concern in the first part of the paper).