Questions tagged [identity]
The identity tag has no usage guidance.
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Curious about how people will respond to these thought-provoking questions [closed]
No right or wrong answer. Just curious about how different everyone’s response will be.
(Questions aren’t in relation with “identity”/American Identity)
1) How do you define what an American? Or in ...
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4answers
154 views
How can I maintain integrity when requested to use gender pronouns yet still be loving?
I have friends who request certain gender pronouns are used, which I do not believe to be correct. I have thought about this topic at some length and concluded that while using these pronouns would be ...
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70 views
Can any of Adorno's critical terms, including non/identity thinking, be defined?
A fundamental mistake in many interpretations of Dialectic of
Enlightenment occurs when readers take such theses to be theoretical
definitions of unchanging categories rather than critical ...
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1answer
78 views
Is there a logical fallacy to identity politics?
My understanding of Identity Politics goes as follows:
A is a member of/identifies with group X
B is not a member of/does not identify with group X
A frames challenge S in terms of X
Because B doesn’...
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1answer
202 views
Where can I learn about identifying and defining objects?
I guess I am asking a vague question about blurred lines in philosophy/language/actions and where/who I can learn more about this from.
here is the passage:
"A step further, existentialism says ...
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14answers
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What is the moral difference between abortion and infanticide?
Many people accept abortion on the grounds that foetuses aren't persons, and that personhood is what defines the right to life. I've always been intrigued about what defines personhood; obviously ...
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2answers
39 views
Use-mention distinction
Is it 1+1 or “1+1” that is a formula of addition?
To my intuition, it is the former, and the latter seems to be a name of the formula. The reason why I ask this question is that provided my intuition ...
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1answer
101 views
Why do we personally identify with our future selves, but not mental copies? [closed]
I'm sure this question has been asked somewhere before, but I don't know the name of this type of question, and so I've been unable to find it. Any pointer to literature written on the topic would be ...
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1answer
144 views
What determines a person's gender identity?
I've noticed that when many transgender allies and even some transgender people themselves have their claims investigated that they, in my estimation, can never really answer them too adequately: one ...
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2answers
112 views
Is the permanent self still tenable? [closed]
I wonder what a possible objection could be:
P1) The self is static in change;
P2) If P1 is true then change cannot be the self otherwise the self wouldn't be static;
C) Therefore, change is the ...
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0answers
64 views
What is it when someone from some group (ethnic, religious, disability, etc.) can automatically talk for others from it?
Is there a term for being for and against the view that (only) someone from some group (ethnic, religious, disability, etc.) can automatically talk for others from it?
It's kind of a political and ...
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1answer
58 views
Is there a branch of philosophy that rejects identity per se?
I see references to arguments against the concept of identity itself (Hegel, Wittgenstein) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_(philosophy). But based on discussions under my question here: ...
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4answers
540 views
The Immortal Jellyfish
I watched an episode of "The Blacklist" which is a popular show on the TV streaming service Netflix. In the episode, the main character refers to a very tiny marine creature commonly known as the "...
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1answer
173 views
Does the Law Of Excluded Middle Apply to the Principle Of Identity and Non Contradiction? [closed]
This argument will seem confusing, precisely because it observes the laws of identity being subject to equivocation. If this is kept in mind, the following should make more sense and explain why the ...
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0answers
105 views
How strong are arguments realting to cosmology in problems of personal identity?
Cosmology, with fairly low confidence, predicts that the universe (or multiverse) is infinite in both time and space. While this does not directly follow, it is also predicted that every possible ...
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1answer
121 views
Self contradictory things that can't really exist: can they be fully conceived of?
It seems like we can conceive of self contradictory things that can exist. e.g. the proposition expressed by "this sentence is false" is self contradictory but I don't seem to have any trouble ...
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58 views
Why is logical possibility relevant to the persistence questions of personal identity?
I can imagine splitting my brain in two and placing the individual hemispheres in individual bodies. This affects the psychological continuity view of personal identity because then I would not be ...
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1answer
66 views
What makes you, you? [closed]
Is it your name or your body or your mind?
Also, similarly, fans of a certain sports club will cheer for the sports kit and the name. The players change and so does their coach, but the name and kit ...
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4answers
144 views
Is a Reflection on a Bus, part of the Bus?
Riding the bus I wondered to myself what does it mean to be a part of this bus. From a physics/ computer vision interpretation one may collect all parts that are moving in unison with the larger whole ...
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1answer
60 views
Where does 'numerical' in 'numerical identity' come from?
L.S.,
the word numerical has several meanings. E.g. numerical in the meaning ''given by numbers', and when saying Numerical Identity, meaning 'only one'.
When was the first time the word was ...
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2answers
261 views
Where do thoughts come from?
When the next thought comes, try to catch its source.
Is there an entity "you" there? Or does the thought come from silence/nothingness? Is this "you" is just a thought that comes from this silence/...
2
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3answers
116 views
Circularity in identity definition
It is written in the SEP:
Identity is often said to be a relation each thing bears to itself and to no other thing (e.g., Zalabardo 2000). This characterization is clearly circular (“no other ...
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3answers
126 views
can you rationally believe in an ever changing identity, but also believe that parts of us persevere?
Is it possible to rationally believe that certain aspects of the identity don't change, while still acknowledging the fact that we are not the same person we were an instant ago? In other words, is it ...
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4answers
138 views
Can a reason cost 5 dollars?
Imagine a school where no one can wear a red hat. John goes to school with a red hat costing 5 dollars. Someone says John's red hat "is" the reason why he can't get into the school.
What is the ...
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1answer
59 views
Combining causal and identity relations
Suppose I have the causal relation C causes E, and the symmetric identity relation E is (E1 ^ E2 ^ E3), which have the following probability functions: E = bC and E = E1 * E2 * E3 where E, C, E1, E2 ...
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Why am I this particular human being?
Some philosophers dismiss this as a question about a tautology: when Alice asks "Why am I Alice?", this is equivalent to her asking "Why is Alice Alice?", which is not an interesting question. But ...
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Are there any arguments for why something past-eternal must necessarily be future-eternal as well?
If we assume that something has always existed in the past, what reason is there to assume that it won't perish in the future?
I pondered on it and I wondered whether the following argument works: ...
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2answers
110 views
Conundrum of the self?
I've been thinking about this topic in relation to artificial consciousness. Specifically self-awareness.
(I can define terms precisely if requested, but usually prefer to be as general as possible:)...
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1answer
79 views
Constitutive Identity
What is the term for the alteration or change in self-indentification consequent to interaction with an authority or professional? For example, you are stopped on the street by a policeman. By his ...
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3answers
188 views
Dawkins' gene-centered view on personal identity
Looking at the following quote by Richard Dawkins:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential ...
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0answers
38 views
Does anyone say that mind/brain type identity theory is just vacuous without scientific evidence that some part brain state is always the exact same?
Does anyone say that mind/brain type identity theory is just vacuous without scientific evidence that some part brain state is always the exact same experience? I think that's what type identity ...
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3answers
106 views
Has anyone claimed that any eternal return is not for and to me, because “a perfect repletion is the same”?
Has anyone claimed that any eternal return is not for and to me, because "a perfect repletion is the same"?
I use quotes cos it's something a friend said, and I reckon that (if their original ...
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1answer
172 views
Questions about personal identity and materialism with QM and spacetime
Let's assume for a moment that the materialistic view of the universe is correct. There exists a universe that contains energy in various states spread out in the dimensions of space and time that is ...
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2answers
339 views
Is there any evidence for 'identity epistomology'?
Thomas Chatterton Williams writes:
For having the temerity to defend himself, Mr. Packer was accused on social media of “excusing racism” and “whitesplaining.” Such logic extends a disturbing trend ...
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0answers
29 views
Is my personal identity physical? [duplicate]
In the context of physicalism, Is it consistent to think that I am what I experience and also the physical processes which give rise to my experiences?
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2answers
279 views
What's an intuitive way of thinking about type versus token identity?
What's an intuitive way of thinking about type versus token identity?
I have read and understand the difference between those two terms: tokens are things in space and time; types are abstract and ...
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1answer
173 views
What areas within philosophy look at continuity of personality and self-hood?
I'm sure these kinds of questions fall within some fairly central fields of philosophy: what makes "me now" and "me 10 seconds, months, or decades ago", the same person? In what sense are these "the ...
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39 views
Examples of known or fallow existential symbioses between different scientific disciplines (in an essential, not merely engineering, sense)
The film “The Proud Rebel” plays in the time after the American Civil War, featuring a father (John Chandler) who travels with his son David (that is also in real life actor Alan Ladd's son) who is ...
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1answer
594 views
Historiography of the Ship of Theseus
Does anybody know of a historiography or review of the discussion of the idea of the Ship of Theseus and things related thereto (I suppose this might also include Alan Gibbard's discussion of the ...
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246 views
Axiomatic Proof of Symmetry and Transitivity of Identity
Given the axioms below and the rules of Modus Ponens and Universal Generalization, how can you prove that t=s → s=t for any terms s and t? Additionally, how do you prove that t = s → (s = r → t = r) ? ...
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1answer
153 views
Could Napoleon have been born to different parents?
According to Kripke, things get their identities by being "baptized" with a rigid designator, and we refer to them by way of a causual chain. So it is not the case that Napoleon had to become Emperor ...
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3answers
872 views
Does a transgender person become a different person after transitioning?
Perhaps this is an odd question, but...
Question: Does a transgender person become a different person after transitioning?
I'm seeking an answer from a philosophical point of view (hence why I ask ...
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1answer
373 views
Are the laws of thought still accepted as the basis of logic?
The "laws of thought" refers to the three traditional principles said to underlie logical reasoning: identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle. Are these principles still generally accepted? Is ...
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4answers
1k views
Why am I myself rather than someone else?
Why am I myself rather than someone else?
I think I read something like this in an encyclopedia; that it's a question in philosophy.
Not asking what makes me myself, my body, psychology, and ...
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2answers
72 views
Can fictional entities have capacities?
Can fictional entities have capacities?
I think in Buddhism there is a definite trend to claim that every entity is fictional, but has causes and effects. i wouldn't really assent to the idea that ...
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2answers
115 views
What are objections to personality-theoretic identity branching? [duplicate]
I am currently watching the Yale open course "Philosophy of Death" with Shelly Kagan. So far he has made the case that there is not good enough reason to believe in the existence of an immaterial soul....
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1answer
454 views
Is your memory what makes you yourself? [closed]
Pardon if this sounds like one of those "Jaden Smith tweets"
Say when you go to sleep all your conscious activities cease. Many times you won't even know how much time has passed since you went to ...
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4answers
733 views
What would be the implications if the equality of opposites was true?
Heraclitus famously believed in the equality of opposites, as do I. Would the truth of the equality of opposites have any significant implications for reason and logic?
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1answer
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Mind-body problem: supervenience vs dependence vs realisation
Could someone shed some light on the differences of these 3 hypotheses?
For me, it seems all 3 relations mean the same.
I can't seem to grasp the difference between supervenience physicalism and ...
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24 views
Does every occurring type have at least one token?
Do all types which occur have tokens?
It is that between a thing, or type of thing, and (what is best called) an occurrence of it—where an occurrence is not necessarily a token.
