Personal Identity: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry
16
October 23, 2014 ASU, Origins Project, OPTIM Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga Personal Identity: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry Melanie Swan [email protected]
-
Upload
melanie-swan -
Category
Technology
-
view
395 -
download
1
description
Overview of personal identity from a philosophical perspective as conceived traditionally and disputed by Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons; ‘personal identity is not required for the survival of the person’). An account of personal identity per philosophers Hume, Derrida, Deleuze, and Simondon. The evolutionary biological case for personal identity in humans. There is a large literature on the ability of members of many animal species (wasps for example) to distinguish specific individual others. I consider why and how personal identity might have evolved to bring adaptive fitness to humans, if the adaptation is still serving, and what forces might cause this to be different in the future.
Transcript of Personal Identity: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry
October 23, 2014
ASU, Origins Project, OPTIM
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Personal Identity: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry
Melanie [email protected]
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Personal Identity: Multidisciplinary Question
2
Philosophy of Mind Psychology
Evolutionary BiologyEvolutionary Psychology
Philosophy of Biology
Theoretical Biology
Social TheorySociology
SociobiologyBiology
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Hypothesis
If the evolutionary biological drivers that caused personal identity to develop as a fitness adaptation were to change, the need for personal identity too would change and perhaps disappear
Main evolutionary biological / cultural drivers: Resource acquisition, status garnering, mate selection, group
acceptance , gender roles (Hrdy) Absent these drivers, how would the adaptation benefit
conferred by personal identity change? Examples of shifts in social goals and outcomes
Worldwide birth rate declines Below replacement population declines (Japan, Italy)
3
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Philosophical Views of Personal Identity
Traditional ‘philosophy of mind’ view Assumes already-existing subject Personal identity needed for continuity
and persistence Personal identity is not required for
the survival of the person, relational experience between past/future selves and experience is (Parfit) fMRI studies: We procrastinate because
we think of our future selves as strangers Third persons no different than politicians
or celebrities
4http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/why-we-procrastinate citing van Gelder JL, Hershfield HE, Nordgren LF. (2013). Vividness of the future self predicts delinquency. Psychol Sci. 24(6):974-80, and Pronin, Emily. (2008). How we see ourselves and how we see others. Science. 320(5880):1177-80.
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Philosophical Views of Personal Identity
Self is a flux of unconnected perceptions (Hume, 1739)
Self as a constantly re-written, re-interpretable text, written in difference to the local relational context (Derrida)
Subjectivation is the important locus, facilitated by the movement-image and the time-image (Deleuze)
Individuation as a dynamic world process of which the subject is an effect not a cause; living beings exist on a capacity spectrum for individuation (Simondon)
5
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Literary View
6Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Within a Budding Grove, Seascape, with Frieze of Girls
Philosophical Issue:
Group, Individual, Particular
Proust, Albertine, the
‘little band’ of girls at Balbec
“…when I saw the little band again on the beach, and indeed long afterwards when I knew all the girls who composed it, I could never be absolutely certain that any of them — even she who among them all was most like her, the girl with the bicycle — was indeed the one that I had seen that evening , a girl who differed hardly at all, but was still just perceptibly different from her whom I had noticed in the procession”
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Biology Basics: Why do Individuals Exist?Classical Biological View: Kin Selection
Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favors the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction (Darwin, 1859)
Individuals are a mechanism for kin selection; individuals are able to identify their relatives (kin recognition) (Hamilton, 1964)
Evidence: red squirrel mothers adopted related orphaned squirrel pups but not unrelated orphans (2010)
7Gorrell JC et al. (2010). Adopting kin enhances inclusive fitness in asocial red squirrels. Nature Communications 1 (22): 1.
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Biological View: Distinguishing Individuals
8
Wasps wired to distinguish each other’s faces
Wasps identified colony facial images faster and more accurately than other types of images (2011)
Wasps developed better vision to identify others’ rank and possibly allegiance (fighting queens within colonies); scent only identifies the nest mate level
MJ Sheehan, EA Tibbetts. (2011). Specialized face learning is associated with individual recognition in paper wasps. Science 334 (6060), 1272-1275. http://www.livescience.com/17259-paper-wasps-facial-recognition.html
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Biological View: Dolphin ‘Identities’
Dolphins have a unique name in the form of a whistle
Dolphins responded when they heard the sound of their own signature whistle, repeating that whistle back in a way that seems to say, "Yes, I'm here - did you call me?"
Bottlenose dolphins can follow "recipes" in preparing mollusks, help other species in distress, and possibly do math
9Friedman, W. (2013). PNAS. Jul 23, 2013. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130722-dolphins-whistle-names-identity-animals-science/
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Theoretical Biological View: Groups and Individuals
10
Theoretical biology perspective of sociality “He who understands the baboon would do more towards
metaphysics than Locke” (Darwin 1838) Evolved biological individuals (not personal identity) Revisionary view of individuality, adequate definition Kin selection is insufficient to capture what is common
to all forms of groups evolving into individuals A theory of evolving individuality requires a
sophisticated variety of concepts that advocates some form of self-organization that supplements
natural selection, and accounts for the most complex forms of individuality
From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality. Eds. Frédéric Bouchard and Philippe Huneman. 2013. http://www.livescience.com/17259-paper-wasps-facial-recognition.html
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Psychological View: Personal Identity is…
A person's conception and expression of self-identity including with regard to others' individuality or group affiliations (Wikipedia; Psychology/Sociology)
The concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life (Education-Portal: Sociology)
Self-knowledge that derives from the individual’s unique attributes (U Twente)
The distinct personality of an individual; characteristics by which a person is recognized or known (IEP)
11
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Psychological View: Social Identity Theory
Multiple ‘levels of self’ A person has not one, personal self,
but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership
Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think, feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national ‘level of self’ (Turner et al, 1987)
Multiple social identities Self-concept derived from perceived
membership in social groups (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002)
12http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/theory%20clusters/interpersonal%20communication%20and%20relations/social_identity_theory/
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Social Theory
Identity Politics Political attitudes regarding the
concerns of social groups based on identifications such as gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
Anti-identity movement, text without author “Do not ask who I am and do not ask
me to remain the same, leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order” – Foucault, 1982
13Foucault, Michel. (1982). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Vintage Books: New York, NY. Page 17.
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Evolutionary Biology View
Adaptation/fitness benefit conferred Co-evolution of culture and personal
identity Drivers of identity and social behavior:
Resource acquisition, status garnering, mate selection, group acceptance, gender roles
“Apart from economic payoffs, social status, seems to be the most important incentive and motivating force of social behavior” - John Harsanyi, Nobel Laureate economist
14http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-social/
October 23, 2014Personal Identity
Multidisciplinary Conclusion: Personal Identity is Ephemeral and Constructive
Hypothesis is supported by these four fields If the evolutionary biological drivers that caused personal
identity to develop as a fitness adaptation were to change, the need for personal identity too would change/disappear
Biology Individuality is not personal identity
Psychology/Sociology Malleability of self
Philosophy Relationality and subjectivation
Evolutionary Biology Fitness adaptation
15
October 23, 2014
OPTIM
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie [email protected]
Thank You! Questions?
Personal Identity: A Multi-disciplinary Inquiry
