To begin the inquiry of the possibility of there being and enduring self, the argument that J. David Velleman holds against the enduring self, will be evaluated. In the beginning of Velleman’s paper, So It Goes, he asserts that the enduring self is an illusion. Velleman is helped by another philosopher, Derek Partif, in establishing his claim that anything enduring seems false in claiming that, “connections of memory do not necessarily trace out the career of a single, enduring object, and they are unsuited to serve as the integuments of an enduring self” (Velleman, 2). In the quote listed above, it helps to grasp the idea that an enduring self does not come together just because the object or person is able to remember their memories and
…show more content…
Velleman is using this example to try to further his claim that a self does not endure. Velleman describes a situation that anyone could imagine, a birthday party, where you can see a person that is being sung happy birthday waiting to blow out their candle. This situation should not be to abstract to grasp because almost everyone has experience something like this. Velleman asks to think of his specific birthday in 1957, with a five-year-old boy, cake, and some candles, and then asks for you to imagine yourself as that five-year-old boy. This is where the thought experiment becomes somewhat complicated; he begs the question of if “I am the birthday boy” (Velleman, 5). The reason that is a difficult to answer is because you have imagined the whole scenario, and if Velleman asked if you were the birthday boy, you would only be able to respond that you had the idea of being the child with the birthday, but it was not actually you within that situation, it was a falsified memory that you forced into your imagination. In Velleman’s case though he would be super-imposing that memory on his prior experience, where he would be thinking of that same memory twice, both being Velleman in the present and Velleman as his former five-year-old self blowing out the candles. Velleman would claim that the child and himself now would not be the exact same self
Velleman is using this example to try to further his claim that a self does not endure. Velleman describes a situation that anyone could imagine, a birthday party, where you can see a person that is being sung happy birthday waiting to blow out their candle. This situation should not be to abstract to grasp because almost everyone has experience something like this. Velleman asks to think of his specific birthday in 1957, with a five-year-old boy, cake, and some candles, and then asks for you to imagine yourself as that five-year-old boy. This is where the thought experiment becomes somewhat complicated; he begs the question of if “I am the birthday boy” (Velleman, 5). The reason that is a difficult to answer is because you have imagined the whole scenario, and if Velleman asked if you were the birthday boy, you would only be able to respond that you had the idea of being the child with the birthday, but it was not actually you within that situation, it was a falsified memory that you forced into your imagination. In Velleman’s case though he would be super-imposing that memory on his prior experience, where he would be thinking of that same memory twice, both being Velleman in the present and Velleman as his former five-year-old self blowing out the candles. Velleman would claim that the child and himself now would not be the exact same self