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Personal Identity and Narrative

Marya Schechtman

Every chapter in the course, with links to the moment it begins in the video and in the transcript. For topics across all courses, see the Topic Index.

Intro Two Questions of Who You Are

Introduction to Personal Identity
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
What Is an Identity Crisis?
▶︎ 0:26 transcript ↗︎
Finding Yourself Through Introspection
▶︎ 1:22 transcript ↗︎
Recognizing the Same Person Over Time
▶︎ 1:57 transcript ↗︎
Ethics vs. Metaphysics of Identity
▶︎ 2:54 transcript ↗︎
Why Is Personal Identity So Hard to Define?
▶︎ 3:26 transcript ↗︎
How the Two Senses of Identity Connect
▶︎ 4:16 transcript ↗︎
Roadmap: Psychological vs. Bodily Continuity
▶︎ 4:51 transcript ↗︎
Roadmap: The Narrative Approach
▶︎ 5:28 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 1 Are You Your Mind or Body?

Three Features of the Identity Question
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Identity Over Time vs. Identity at a Time
▶︎ 0:19 transcript ↗︎
The Ship of Theseus Paradox
▶︎ 1:21 transcript ↗︎
From Ships to People: The Persistence Problem
▶︎ 3:20 transcript ↗︎
Numerical vs. Qualitative Identity
▶︎ 4:52 transcript ↗︎
Metaphysical vs. Epistemological Questions
▶︎ 6:33 transcript ↗︎
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
▶︎ 8:30 transcript ↗︎
The Bodily Criterion: A Commonsense Answer
▶︎ 9:09 transcript ↗︎
Psychology Over Biology: The Dominant View
▶︎ 11:08 transcript ↗︎
Thought Experiments: Pulling Apart Two Criteria
▶︎ 14:22 transcript ↗︎
Freaky Friday and the Prince and Cobbler
▶︎ 15:42 transcript ↗︎
Out-of-Body Experiences and Vegetative States
▶︎ 18:26 transcript ↗︎
Moral Responsibility, Prudence, and Survival
▶︎ 21:40 transcript ↗︎
Practical Concerns Follow the Psychology
▶︎ 26:25 transcript ↗︎
The Evil Neurosurgeon Thought Experiment
▶︎ 28:43 transcript ↗︎
What Exactly Is Psychological Continuity?
▶︎ 30:47 transcript ↗︎
Why the Soul Can't Ground Identity
▶︎ 31:36 transcript ↗︎
Memory as a Criterion: Promise and Problems
▶︎ 35:40 transcript ↗︎
The Modern Psychological Continuity Theory
▶︎ 38:23 transcript ↗︎
Summary and Preview of Objections
▶︎ 41:44 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 2 When One Person Becomes Two

Review of Psychological Continuity Theory
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Sci-Fi Cases: A Double-Edged Sword
▶︎ 1:10 transcript ↗︎
The Teletransportation Thought Experiment
▶︎ 2:37 transcript ↗︎
The Branch Line Case: Two Points of View
▶︎ 5:15 transcript ↗︎
Is Psychological Continuity Deep Enough?
▶︎ 8:30 transcript ↗︎
The Fission Problem: One Person Becomes Two
▶︎ 15:30 transcript ↗︎
Triplets Thought Experiment: Jill, Lil, Till
▶︎ 19:20 transcript ↗︎
Why Identity Must Be One-to-One
▶︎ 22:55 transcript ↗︎
Three Bad Answers to the Fission Problem
▶︎ 25:00 transcript ↗︎
Identity Is Not What Matters in Survival
▶︎ 28:20 transcript ↗︎
Reductionism About Personal Identity
▶︎ 33:10 transcript ↗︎
Resolving Puzzles Through Reductionism
▶︎ 36:50 transcript ↗︎
The Return of the Biological Criterion
▶︎ 40:15 transcript ↗︎
Is 'Person' Really a Kind of Thing?
▶︎ 42:10 transcript ↗︎
Substances vs. Attributes: A Key Distinction
▶︎ 44:10 transcript ↗︎
The Too Many Thinkers Problem
▶︎ 49:20 transcript ↗︎
Personhood as a Phase of Being Human
▶︎ 57:20 transcript ↗︎
The Office Holder Analogy
▶︎ 1:02:30 transcript ↗︎
Problems for the Biological Approach
▶︎ 1:08:20 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 3 How Your Story Holds You Together

Why Current Identity Theories Fall Short
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Introducing the Narrative Approach
▶︎ 0:22 transcript ↗︎
Teletransportation and the Branch Line Case
▶︎ 1:19 transcript ↗︎
Sameness of Consciousness vs. Mere Similarity
▶︎ 2:33 transcript ↗︎
Parfit's Radical Rejection of Identity
▶︎ 3:40 transcript ↗︎
Narrative as a Response to Parfit
▶︎ 6:15 transcript ↗︎
How Narratives Are Holistic
▶︎ 7:51 transcript ↗︎
Organisms as a Model for Holistic Identity
▶︎ 10:50 transcript ↗︎
How Does Self-Narration Create a Person?
▶︎ 12:05 transcript ↗︎
Self-Constitution: Persons as Living Organisms
▶︎ 14:13 transcript ↗︎
Self-Narration Is Mostly Implicit
▶︎ 16:12 transcript ↗︎
Same Moment, Different Story, Different Experience
▶︎ 18:15 transcript ↗︎
We Can Access Our Narratives When Asked
▶︎ 20:25 transcript ↗︎
Extended Consciousness Through Narrative
▶︎ 22:50 transcript ↗︎
How Children Learn to Narrate Themselves
▶︎ 25:57 transcript ↗︎
Building a Personal Timeline Through Stories
▶︎ 30:27 transcript ↗︎
Why Your Future Matters: Narrative and Self-Interest
▶︎ 33:42 transcript ↗︎
Moral Responsibility as Part of Your Story
▶︎ 37:59 transcript ↗︎
Death as the End of Your Story
▶︎ 42:55 transcript ↗︎
Challenges Facing the Narrative Approach
▶︎ 44:01 transcript ↗︎

Lecture 4 Is Your Life Story a Fiction?

Recap: The Narrative View of Identity
▶︎ 0:00 transcript ↗︎
Fiction vs. Fact: The Core Objection
▶︎ 0:20 transcript ↗︎
Stories Have Different Logic Than Lives
▶︎ 2:32 transcript ↗︎
Selectivity and Spin in Self-Narration
▶︎ 4:12 transcript ↗︎
Self-Deception and Biased Storytelling
▶︎ 6:56 transcript ↗︎
Scientific Modeling: Curves Through Data Points
▶︎ 10:13 transcript ↗︎
Good vs. Bad Principles of Selection
▶︎ 13:54 transcript ↗︎
Reconstruction and Prediction in Models
▶︎ 16:50 transcript ↗︎
Applying the Analogy to Self-Narrative
▶︎ 19:16 transcript ↗︎
Four Questions the Narrative View Must Answer
▶︎ 23:47 transcript ↗︎
How Children Learn to Narrate a Life
▶︎ 27:50 transcript ↗︎
Universal vs. Culturally Specific Life Templates
▶︎ 32:44 transcript ↗︎
Flexible Guides, Not Rigid Scripts
▶︎ 35:48 transcript ↗︎
Why We Self-Narrate: Social Coordination
▶︎ 37:48 transcript ↗︎
Re-identification and Practical Intelligibility
▶︎ 42:46 transcript ↗︎
How Your Self-Narrative Can Go Wrong
▶︎ 48:14 transcript ↗︎
Your Human History as the Dataset
▶︎ 55:09 transcript ↗︎
Beyond Animalism: A Biopsychosocial Account
▶︎ 57:34 transcript ↗︎
Practice Before Metaphysics
▶︎ 1:04:18 transcript ↗︎