The Search of Criteria for Personal Identity: Conflict of Intuitions

Öz

How we maintain the continuity of our personal identity, that is, how we stay the same person throughout our lives – if we do – is one of philosophy’s toughest problems. Overcoming this difficulty, which is called the problem of personal identity, requires giving necessary and sufficient conditions or determining a criterion that connects the existence of the person at different times in a way that protects his/her identity. However, the criteria that are thought to ensure the continuity of personal identity generally seem to draw their strength from our intuitions, which we do not have clear and precise knowledge about the reliability of their sources. Especially thought experiments, which are fictions of imagination, are used effectively as tools that probe our intuitions. Thus, the discussions on the subject are carried out in an environment of thought where intuitions collide to a degree that we have not seen in other philosophical problems, and this situation appears as a methodological weakness besides the specific metaphysical difficulty of the problem.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• person
• identity
• the problem of personal identity
• psychological continuity
• animalism

KİŞİSEL KİMLİK İÇİN KRİTER ARAYIŞI: SEZGİLERİN ÇATIŞMASI

Öz

Kişisel kimliğimizin sürekliliğinin nasıl sağlandığı, yani hayatımız boyunca nasıl aynı kişi olarak kaldığımız – eğer kalıyorsak – felsefenin en zorlu problemlerinden biridir. Kişisel özdeşlik problemi denilen bu zorluğun aşılması kişinin farklı zamanlardaki var oluşunu kimliğini koruyacak şekilde birbirine bağlayan zorunlu ve yeterli koşulların verilebilmesini veya bir kriterin tayin edilmesini gerektiriyor. Ancak kişisel kimliğin sürekliliğini sağladığı düşünülen kriterler genellikle güçlerini kaynağının güvenirliği hakkında açık ve net bilgilere sahip olmadığımız sezgilerimizden alıyor görünmektedir. Özellikle hayal gücünün kurguları olan düşünce deneyleri sezgilerimizi yoklayan araçlar olarak etkin bir şekilde kullanılmaktadır. Böylece konu hakkındaki tartışmalar diğer felsefi problemlerde örneğini görmediğimiz derecede sezgilerin çarpıştırıldığı bir düşün ortamında yürütülmekte ve bu durum problemin özgül metafizik zorluğunun yanında metodolojik bir zayıflık olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• kişi
• kimlik
• kişisel özdeşlik problemi
• psikolojik süreklilik
• animalizm

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