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This book discusses the themes of personhood and personal identity. It argues that while there is a metaphysical answer to the question of personal identity, there is no metaphysical answer to the question of what constitutes a person. The author argues against both body-mind dualism and physicalism and also against the idea that there is some metaphysically real category of persons distinct from the category of human beings or human organisms. Instead, the author presents neutral-monist, autopoietic-enactivist kind of metaphysics of the human being, and a relational, and completely human-dependent notion of a person.
The tools used in these arguments include conceptual argumentation and empirical case studies. Using both personal experiences and studies of cultures all over the world, the author examines dualism between mind and body. The author discusses real people who seem to live a Cartesian life, as somehow disembodied minds as well as the concept of theperson. The author uses the concluding chapters to present their own views arguing that questions about our identity should be separated from questions of our personhood as well as the concept of personhood. This volume is of interest to scholars of philosophy of mind.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Where was I? What am I?.- chapter 2. Life and Death, Soul and Body.- Chapter 3. Consciousness, Person and Self.- Chapter 4. Cartesian People 1: The Body a Machine.- Chapter 5. Cartesian People 2: The Body an Illusion.- Chapter 6. Lockean Persons 1. Living Without Memory.- Chapter 7. Lockean Persons 2. Persons and Organisms.- Chapter 8. The Gradual Origin of Self-Consciousness.- Chapter 9. Here I am.
About the author
Monica Meijsing (1954) studied psychology and philosophy. She obtained her Ph.D. in philosophy in 1986 on the mind-body problem in relation with cognitive psychology. She has held positions in the departments of philosophy and of cognitive science at the Universities of Amsterdam, Nijmegen and Tilburg. Her research focusses on (self)consciousness and the body, personal identity and perception.
