![]() These are the famous ‘split-brain’ cases, in which surgeons severed the corpus callosum, the main bundle of nerve fibres connecting the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, as a treatment for epilepsy. Parfit begins this chapter by making a refreshing break from the philosophical practice of thought-experiments, building instead on actual cases documented in medical literature. In this post, I will review one of Parfit’s more important lines of argument in Chapter 12, “Why Our Identity is Not What Matters.” Brain-Splitting I will not try to restate all of Parfit’s arguments, or to comment on them all instead, I strongly recommend his book to anyone interested in this subject. ![]() Part Three of Reasons and Persons contains 150 pages of closely-reasoned arguments which are by and large original, compelling, and illuminating. ![]() And even they do not have exactly the same importance that we tend to believe personal identity has. What is important are the underlying, real relations of psychological continuity and connectedness. If I know that someone in the future will not be myself, that is not a good reason not to anticipate having that person’s experiences. ![]() In particular, it is not a rational justification for self-concern. What is important about being the same person at different times consists primarily in psychological continuity and connectedness.Īnother, related claim is that being the same person is not in itself very important. One of its central claims is what Parfit calls the Reductionist View: that persons are not “separately existing entities” over and above their brains and bodies. Part Three of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons is titled “Personal Identity”. ![]()
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