Human Person

This page is related to the course on the Human Person. The basic text book for this course is: K. Pandikattu, The Human Search: Issues in Philosophical Anthropology, Saar-bruecken: LAP, 2011.

Ch 14: The Personal Identity

Questions

1. What is the problem connected with the ship of Theseus?

2. What are some of the issues related to personal identity, that we can learn from the example of the ship of Theseus?

3. Who is Pythagoras and how is he important for modern philosophy?

4. "All things are numbers." Comment.

5. According to Bertrand Russell whom do we owe pure mathematics?

6. Are the laws of the mind related to the laws of reality? Why?

7. Enumerate one issue related to personal identity and explain it briefly.

8. What is John Lock's contribution to personal identity?

9. Lock says that personal identity is not based on substance or soul. Do you agree with it?

10. Most of our bodily cells are replaced in 7-10 years. What is its significance for our understanding of identity?

11. How do you relate the soul to Centre of Gravity?

12. CG is real but not an empirical thing. Comment.

13. CG may lie outside of the body. What is its significance for our understanding of the soul?

14. What is a "category mistake"?

15. CG is a concept (or abstraction). But it has real empirical consequences! Related it to soul.