Autoconciencia e identidad personal

Abstract

Lockean theories of personal identity claim that a person persists in time if her consciousness persists and the criteria for the persistence of her consciousness are primarily psychological. One possible motivation for such a theory is the idea that “a person’s identity ought not to be distinguished from what she takes it to be” (Rovane, 1990: 360). But is it possible for one’s identity to depend on what one takes it to be? In this paper, I investigate three possible ways of interpreting this claim: A person’s identity might depend (1) on her knowledge of her own identity, (2) on some belief of hers about this identity, or (3) on what she has decided it is. I argue that (1) is incoherent, (2) implausible and (3) incompatible with the logic of our concept of identity. As an alternative, I sketch an animalist account of personal identity through time.