What makes you the same person over time?

Personal identity: What makes a person at one time the same person at another.

Numerical identity: Being one and the very same thing, rather than merely similar.

Bodily criterion: The view that continuity of the living body preserves personal identity.

Memory criterion: The proposal that remembered experience connects present consciousness to a past person.

Psychological continuity: Overlapping chains of memory, intention, belief and character across time.

John Locke: Locke ties personal identity to continuity of consciousness rather than sameness of substance. His prince-and-cobbler case separates the person from the body that carries them. Memory helps connect present awareness to past action, while apparent circularity and false memories complicate the criterion. David Hume: When Hume looks inward, he finds particular perceptions but no constant self observed alongside them. The person resembles a changing bundle linked by memory and imagination through time. His account questions whether an enduring owner of experiences is discovered at all. Derek Parfit: Parfit uses duplication and transport cases to argue that identity may not be what matters. Psychological continuity and connectedness can preserve much of our concern even where one-to-one identity fails. The view changes how we think about future responsibility, survival and self-interest.

David Hume: When Hume looks inward, he finds particular perceptions but no constant self observed alongside them. The person resembles a changing bundle linked by memory and imagination through time. His account questions whether an enduring owner of experiences is discovered at all. Derek Parfit: Parfit uses duplication and transport cases to argue that identity may not be what matters. Psychological continuity and connectedness can preserve much of our concern even where one-to-one identity fails. The view changes how we think about future responsibility, survival and self-interest. Buddhist no-self traditions: Anattā teachings reject a permanent, independent self and analyse persons through changing physical and mental processes. This need not deny ordinary persons or responsibility. It instead asks whether clinging to an unchanging essence mistakes a useful convention for an ultimate feature of reality.

Derek Parfit: Parfit uses duplication and transport cases to argue that identity may not be what matters. Psychological continuity and connectedness can preserve much of our concern even where one-to-one identity fails. The view changes how we think about future responsibility, survival and self-interest. Buddhist no-self traditions: Anattā teachings reject a permanent, independent self and analyse persons through changing physical and mental processes. This need not deny ordinary persons or responsibility. It instead asks whether clinging to an unchanging essence mistakes a useful convention for an ultimate feature of reality. John Locke: Locke ties personal identity to continuity of consciousness rather than sameness of substance. His prince-and-cobbler case separates the person from the body that carries them. Memory helps connect present awareness to past action, while apparent circularity and false memories complicate the criterion.

A conclusion needs support from the stated reasons. Here, an extra linking premise is required before the consequence follows.

Whether a thinker is likeable does not establish whether their argument is sound. The reasons themselves must be assessed.

The portrait belongs to the named philosopher. Follow the profile link in the feedback to revisit their central move.

The portrait belongs to the named philosopher. Follow the profile link in the feedback to revisit their central move.

The first pair develops “The continuing living body preserves the person.”; the second pair applies pressure from the rival position “Memory and character preserve the person.”.

The first pair develops “Memory and character preserve the person.”; the second pair applies pressure from the rival position “There is no unchanging self beneath experience.”.

The first pair develops “There is no unchanging self beneath experience.”; the second pair applies pressure from the rival position “The continuing living body preserves the person.”.