First published in 1997, this volume addresses the issue of personal identity by examining the possibility that a person is ascribed identity on the basis of having a supervenient self. Ronald G. Alexander uses the methods of non-eidetic phenomenology and analytic ontology to argue that the self is supervenient on the physical and psychological properties of the human being. Understood through the manner Alexander advocates, the self is not a statis entity, but reflects the temporal nature of the person. Alexander argues that the self is the ‘pattern’, ‘character’, or ‘narrative identity’ that is the outcome of a person’s decision-making and actions.
1. Introduction. 2. A Brief Look at the Problem of Personal Identity. 3. Searching for the Proper Kind of Supervenience. 4. The Supervenient Self and its Relationship to Tropes. 5. Supervenience and Action. 6. The Self, Time, and the Community. 7. The Self and Narrative Identity. 8. Consciousness and the Self. 9. A Major Problem with Parfit. 10. Conclusion.
Biography
R. Alexander
