Can thought experiments solve problems of personal identity?
Authors
Publication Date
2022-05-12Journal Title
SYNTHESE
ISSN
0039-7857
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
200
Issue
3
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Meier, L. (2022). Can thought experiments solve problems of personal identity?. SYNTHESE, 200 (3) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03637-7
Description
Funder: Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004350
Funder: Churchill College, University of Cambridge; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000742
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Good physical experiments conform to the basic methodological standards of experimental design: they are objective, reliable, and valid. But is this also true of thought experiments? Especially problems of personal identity have engendered hypothetical scenarios that are very distant from the actual world. These imagined situations have been conspicuously ineffective at resolving conflicting intuitions and deciding between the different accounts of personal identity. Using prominent examples from the literature, I argue that this is due to many of these thought experiments not adhering to the methodological standards that guide experimental design in nearly all other disciplines. I also show how empirically unwarranted background assumptions about human physiology render some of the hypothetical scenarios that are employed in the debate about personal identity highly misleading.</jats:p>
Keywords
Original Research, Objectivity, Personal identity, Reliability, Scientific method, Thought experiments, Validity
Identifiers
s11229-022-03637-7, 3637
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03637-7
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/337134
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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