John Locke's Argumentative Analysis

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Locke was a philosopher who claimed that personal identity was independent of all substances, including immaterial substances. Locke says that we continue to be the same person over time if we have the same conscious experience over our lifespan, meaning psychological continuity is the criterion for personal identity. He actually has three different criteria for the continuity of people: psychological continuity, meaning the person at the later time is psychologically continuous of the person at the earlier time; consciousness criteria, meaning the person at the later time and the person at the earlier time have the same consciousness; and memory criteria, meaning the person at the later time must remember the experiences of the person at the …show more content…
To rely solely on memory being the cause of personal identity over time means that no one is the same person forever. No one can recall what they did and where they were on a random date ten years ago, meaning they were not the same person at that time even if they remembered it at some point. We can also bring in the case of a person who suffered some type of memory loss. They may not remember an exact memory, but remember memories from before that, meaning they were the same person as then, but not at the time in between. Can a person really have a gap in their life where they were not the same person as they are now? Also, say a man was on trial for a murder he committed and all of the evidence pointed to the fact that he did it, there is even video surveillance of him committing the heinous crime. Say now, that the man did not have any memory of committing the crime for some reason or another, according to Locke this man would therefore not be the same person, meaning he actually did not do it even though we know he did. There are too many instances where Locke’s criteria does not make enough sense, there needs to be more to go along with it. While our memories can help to prove our personal identity across time, it seems that they cannot prove it on their

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