“This being premised to find wherein personal Identity consists, we must consider what Person stands for…which I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places…” – Locke, 2000, p268.
- HUP-243 – Imogen Williams
Locke makes significant claims on the conditions of personal identity
within his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This essay will
discuss the plausibility of Locke’s arguments, and ultimately find it to be a weak
argument. Scenarios in which a person does not have memories of their life will
be employed to illustrate the variety of scenarios that Locke’s argument does not
apply to or lacks the detail to produce an explanation for. It will conclude that
Locke’s ideas are interesting but ultimately cannot be used as an explanation for
the identity of all.
Locke’s definition of personal identity is different to that of many other
philosophers as it has one key component – memory. To form a clear argument,
Locke provides his definition of ‘person’. Locke believes a ‘person’ to be an entity
capable of self-reflection, with knowledge and perception of itself as something
persisting through time and space. To Locke, a person can be sure of who they
are and who they have always been through their ability to think with reason
and their powers of “reflection” (Locke, 2000, p268). This is central to
understanding how Locke views a person’s identity. This power of reflection is
what allows a person to understand their continued existence as themselves.
Through reflecting on memories of life, Locke believes that an individual
acknowledges their own existence at the time of that memory and consequently,
a person can identify themselves throughout time.
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