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یک گفتوگو� سهنفر� درباره� هویت شخصی و جاودانگی
یک گفتوگو� سهنفر� دربارۀ هویت شخصی و جاودانگی گزارش گفت‌وگوی� خیالی میان یک فیلسوف در حال مرگ، یک کشیش و یک دانشجوی فلسفه است. ترس و اندوه فیلسوف از اینکه با مرگ قریب‌الوقوع� همه‌چی� پایان می‌یاب� دستمایۀ بحثی می‌شو� که به امکان بقا و حفظ هویت شخصی در طول زندگی دنیوی و اخروی می‌پرداز�. نویسنده از خلال این گفتوگو� که سه شب به طول می‌انجامد� می‌کوش� آرای موافق و مخالف با امکان بقا را بی‌طرفان� معرفی کند. بیان ساده، زبان روان و مثال‌ها� روشنگر نویسنده کمک می‌کنن� تا خوانندۀ علاقه‌من� به مباحث فلسفی درکی شفاف از مسئلۀ هویت و بقای آن در دیدگاه‌ها� فلسفی پیچیده‌تر� از جمله آرای جان لاک، فیلسوف تجربه‌گرا� سدۀ هفدهم، پیدا کند.
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1978
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About the author
John R. Perry
138books39followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the ŷ database with this name.
John R. Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, and self-knowledge.
John R. Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, and self-knowledge.
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October 10, 2024
- میلر: دِیو، دیگر دیر شده است؛
محاوره/دیالوگ قالبی فلسفی است؛ شاید اصلا قالبِ فلسفه است.
0- مسئلۀ هویت و شخصیت از مسائل اساسیِ فلسفه است. همین که من کیستم؟ اونی که دیروز بهش می‌گفت� «من» آیا امروز هم همان است؟ پیوستگیِ این «من» یعنی چه؟ و کلی سوال بغرنج دیگه.
این محاوره و دیالوگ نیز به این موضوع اختصاص دارد. به بیانی، این‌ج� مقالۀ فلسفی داریم که با میزان‌سن� گفت‌وگ� بین سه شخصیت تلاش می‌کن� به تنقیح و بررسی این مسئلۀ هویت بپردازد. یکی از شخصیت‌ه� [وایروب] درحال مرگ است و از دوستانش می‌خواه� توجیه‌ا� کنند که پس از مرگ خواهد ماند، یعنی این منی که هست بماند و جاودانگی را برایش شرح بدهند.
1- شفافیت استدلال‌ها� کتاب و چندصدایی بودن (یک فرد باورمندِ مسیحی، یک شکاکِ استاد دانشگاه و یک دانشجوی همان استاد) باعث می‌شو� با متنی عالی برای آشنایی با مباحثۀ فلسفی آشنا باشیم. برای همین است که این متن به عنوان متن آموزشی در ابتدای راه در دانشگاه‌ه� مورد استفاده است. البته باید قدم‌ر� با کتاب پیش رفت و نباید مانند من با سرعت کتاب را خواند؛ باید با چند نفر خواند کتاب را، یک نفر راهور باشد و قدم به قدم همانطور که شخصیت‌ه� در کتاب بحث می‌کنن� به دیالوگ با هم سعی کنیم دیالوگ کنیم تا کتاب را بفهمیم.
2- بیشترین چیزی که از کتاب برداشتم، همین بازگشت به فرم و قالبِ دیالوگ در نگارش فلسفی بود. اصلا همین مورد که مدیوم و فرم ارائۀ متن فلسفی چیست بسیار می‌توان� مهم باشد. اولین بار با تاکید دکتر معینی علمداری و اشاره‌ا� که کارهای اریک هولاک داشت اهمیت فرمِ فلسفه‌ورز� برایم جذاب شد. خیلی ساده در رُست‌گا� و آغاز فلسفه، سقراط دیالوگِ شفاهی داشت، پس از آن افلاطون دیالوگ را مکتوب کرد و ارسطو فلسفه را به بندِ جوهر درآورد و دیگر محاوره و دیالوگ را رها کرد، استدلال‌ورزی� دیالوگ‌پای� را رها کرد. یعنی از دیالوگِ شفاهی رسیدیم به دیالوگِ مکتوب و پس از آن دیالوگ رها شد.
این کتاب که به صورت محاوره نوشته شده است یادآور این سنتِ تاریخی در فلسفه است (البته در همان حوالیِ عصر روشنگری حتی آثار برخی فیزیک‌دان‌ه� به صورت دیالوگ نگارش می‌شد� است، یعنی لزوما اینگونه نبوده است که کلا محاوره از دایره خارج شود، بلکه صحبت از روندِ کلیِ نگارشِ علمی و اندیشگی است). رضا داوری اردکانی نیز در «فلسفه، سیاست و خشونت» همین قالبِ دیالوگ را پیش گرفته است (هنوز این اثر را نخوانده ام) ولی به صورت کلی همین قالب، تاثیری جدی روی محتوای بحث دارد؛ یعنی شاید بتوان ادعا کرد که فرم خنثی نیست.
خیلی ساده، همین که برای نگارش یه دیالوگ خوب باید به چند صدایی توجه کرد باعث می‌شو� سخت باشد که محاوره‌ا� نوشته شود که در آن به سان دادگاه مردمانی مجرم و نادان به بند کشیده شود، بلکه محاوره به ذات خود اشخاصی هم کف و اندازه (Peer) را به مقابل هم قرار میده� تا به یک مسئلۀ واحد بپردازند. البته همین تشخیص که «آیا واقعا در مورد یک مسئلۀ واحد دیالوگ می‌کنیم»� خود مسئله‌ا� اساسی است. البته این مورد که در محاوره و دیالوگ باید چندصدایی داشته باشیم و این چندصدایی جلوی جزمِ فلسفی را می‌گیر� بدین معنا نیست که در اثر صدای غالب نداشته باشیم، اما این صدای غالب در این قالبِ فسفه‌ورز� همواره هماوردهایی برای خود متصور می‌دان� و بدین علت است که کرنش عاقلانه‌تری� تصمیم ممکن در این شرایط است.
علاوه بر اریک هولاک (1957)، اشتاینر در The tyrant's writ(1994) به همین مسئلۀ اهمیت مدیوم در فلسفه‌پرداز� پرداخته است.
البته باید توجه داشت، منظور از دیالوگ در اینجا، واقعا همین دیالوگ به معنای تبادل جمله میان دو یا چند نفر است و نه دیالوگ به معنای استعاری کلمه. یعنی منظور بینامتنیت و این مورد نیست که همواره افراد و متون مختلف در صحبتِ صریح یا ضمنی با یکدیگرند، بلکه دقیقا منظور همان دیالوگی است که در ادبیات و نمایش سراغش را داریم.
3- اصلا همین مسئلۀ دیالوگ شاید توجیهی قوی باشد برای اینکه فیلسوف جماعت رو دعوت کنیم به جهان هنر و خواندن متون هنری و مشخصا نمایشنامه.
4- در مجموع کتاب بسیار خوبی بود و اگر مسئلۀ کتاب مسئلۀ شماست و دوست دارید متنی بخوانید که برایتان چالش‌برانگی� باشد و شما را به فکر و فلسفه‌ورز� اجبار کند، بسیار انتخاب خوبی خواهد بود.
ترجمۀ کاوه لاجوردی هم قند و نبات است. اصلا واقعا روان و درست و دقیق بود. البته باید متن رو تطبیقی با متن اصلی مقایسه کرد که داوری نهایی رو انجام داد (داوریِ ترجمۀ فلسفی هم کار هر بی‌سروپای� مثلِ متن نیست) ولی همین متنِ تمیز فارسی که روبروی من بود بسیار عالی بود. کلا دقت لاجوردی در ترجمه زبانزد است.
در آخر محاروه، وایروب (استاد دانشگاه) که دنبال تسکینی بود که آیا «من» خواهم ماند و پس از مرگ منی وجود خواهد داشت یا نه، با جهانی شکاکیت و پرسش، رفت.
- میلر: دِیو، دیگر دیر شده است [وایروب رفت].
محاوره/دیالوگ قالبی فلسفی است؛ شاید اصلا قالبِ فلسفه است.
0- مسئلۀ هویت و شخصیت از مسائل اساسیِ فلسفه است. همین که من کیستم؟ اونی که دیروز بهش می‌گفت� «من» آیا امروز هم همان است؟ پیوستگیِ این «من» یعنی چه؟ و کلی سوال بغرنج دیگه.
این محاوره و دیالوگ نیز به این موضوع اختصاص دارد. به بیانی، این‌ج� مقالۀ فلسفی داریم که با میزان‌سن� گفت‌وگ� بین سه شخصیت تلاش می‌کن� به تنقیح و بررسی این مسئلۀ هویت بپردازد. یکی از شخصیت‌ه� [وایروب] درحال مرگ است و از دوستانش می‌خواه� توجیه‌ا� کنند که پس از مرگ خواهد ماند، یعنی این منی که هست بماند و جاودانگی را برایش شرح بدهند.
1- شفافیت استدلال‌ها� کتاب و چندصدایی بودن (یک فرد باورمندِ مسیحی، یک شکاکِ استاد دانشگاه و یک دانشجوی همان استاد) باعث می‌شو� با متنی عالی برای آشنایی با مباحثۀ فلسفی آشنا باشیم. برای همین است که این متن به عنوان متن آموزشی در ابتدای راه در دانشگاه‌ه� مورد استفاده است. البته باید قدم‌ر� با کتاب پیش رفت و نباید مانند من با سرعت کتاب را خواند؛ باید با چند نفر خواند کتاب را، یک نفر راهور باشد و قدم به قدم همانطور که شخصیت‌ه� در کتاب بحث می‌کنن� به دیالوگ با هم سعی کنیم دیالوگ کنیم تا کتاب را بفهمیم.
2- بیشترین چیزی که از کتاب برداشتم، همین بازگشت به فرم و قالبِ دیالوگ در نگارش فلسفی بود. اصلا همین مورد که مدیوم و فرم ارائۀ متن فلسفی چیست بسیار می‌توان� مهم باشد. اولین بار با تاکید دکتر معینی علمداری و اشاره‌ا� که کارهای اریک هولاک داشت اهمیت فرمِ فلسفه‌ورز� برایم جذاب شد. خیلی ساده در رُست‌گا� و آغاز فلسفه، سقراط دیالوگِ شفاهی داشت، پس از آن افلاطون دیالوگ را مکتوب کرد و ارسطو فلسفه را به بندِ جوهر درآورد و دیگر محاوره و دیالوگ را رها کرد، استدلال‌ورزی� دیالوگ‌پای� را رها کرد. یعنی از دیالوگِ شفاهی رسیدیم به دیالوگِ مکتوب و پس از آن دیالوگ رها شد.
این کتاب که به صورت محاوره نوشته شده است یادآور این سنتِ تاریخی در فلسفه است (البته در همان حوالیِ عصر روشنگری حتی آثار برخی فیزیک‌دان‌ه� به صورت دیالوگ نگارش می‌شد� است، یعنی لزوما اینگونه نبوده است که کلا محاوره از دایره خارج شود، بلکه صحبت از روندِ کلیِ نگارشِ علمی و اندیشگی است). رضا داوری اردکانی نیز در «فلسفه، سیاست و خشونت» همین قالبِ دیالوگ را پیش گرفته است (هنوز این اثر را نخوانده ام) ولی به صورت کلی همین قالب، تاثیری جدی روی محتوای بحث دارد؛ یعنی شاید بتوان ادعا کرد که فرم خنثی نیست.
خیلی ساده، همین که برای نگارش یه دیالوگ خوب باید به چند صدایی توجه کرد باعث می‌شو� سخت باشد که محاوره‌ا� نوشته شود که در آن به سان دادگاه مردمانی مجرم و نادان به بند کشیده شود، بلکه محاوره به ذات خود اشخاصی هم کف و اندازه (Peer) را به مقابل هم قرار میده� تا به یک مسئلۀ واحد بپردازند. البته همین تشخیص که «آیا واقعا در مورد یک مسئلۀ واحد دیالوگ می‌کنیم»� خود مسئله‌ا� اساسی است. البته این مورد که در محاوره و دیالوگ باید چندصدایی داشته باشیم و این چندصدایی جلوی جزمِ فلسفی را می‌گیر� بدین معنا نیست که در اثر صدای غالب نداشته باشیم، اما این صدای غالب در این قالبِ فسفه‌ورز� همواره هماوردهایی برای خود متصور می‌دان� و بدین علت است که کرنش عاقلانه‌تری� تصمیم ممکن در این شرایط است.
علاوه بر اریک هولاک (1957)، اشتاینر در The tyrant's writ(1994) به همین مسئلۀ اهمیت مدیوم در فلسفه‌پرداز� پرداخته است.
البته باید توجه داشت، منظور از دیالوگ در اینجا، واقعا همین دیالوگ به معنای تبادل جمله میان دو یا چند نفر است و نه دیالوگ به معنای استعاری کلمه. یعنی منظور بینامتنیت و این مورد نیست که همواره افراد و متون مختلف در صحبتِ صریح یا ضمنی با یکدیگرند، بلکه دقیقا منظور همان دیالوگی است که در ادبیات و نمایش سراغش را داریم.
3- اصلا همین مسئلۀ دیالوگ شاید توجیهی قوی باشد برای اینکه فیلسوف جماعت رو دعوت کنیم به جهان هنر و خواندن متون هنری و مشخصا نمایشنامه.
4- در مجموع کتاب بسیار خوبی بود و اگر مسئلۀ کتاب مسئلۀ شماست و دوست دارید متنی بخوانید که برایتان چالش‌برانگی� باشد و شما را به فکر و فلسفه‌ورز� اجبار کند، بسیار انتخاب خوبی خواهد بود.
ترجمۀ کاوه لاجوردی هم قند و نبات است. اصلا واقعا روان و درست و دقیق بود. البته باید متن رو تطبیقی با متن اصلی مقایسه کرد که داوری نهایی رو انجام داد (داوریِ ترجمۀ فلسفی هم کار هر بی‌سروپای� مثلِ متن نیست) ولی همین متنِ تمیز فارسی که روبروی من بود بسیار عالی بود. کلا دقت لاجوردی در ترجمه زبانزد است.
در آخر محاروه، وایروب (استاد دانشگاه) که دنبال تسکینی بود که آیا «من» خواهم ماند و پس از مرگ منی وجود خواهد داشت یا نه، با جهانی شکاکیت و پرسش، رفت.
- میلر: دِیو، دیگر دیر شده است [وایروب رفت].
March 20, 2020
"Don't you recognize your own... MOTHER?", now articulated.
[Add a few depressive jokes in a leftist background with expensive costumes and Contrapoints will definitely approve.]
[Add a few depressive jokes in a leftist background with expensive costumes and Contrapoints will definitely approve.]
March 29, 2020
کتابی راجع به هویت و جاودانگی انسان، میدونم که از اسمش معلومه، ولی توضیح دیگه ای نمیشه بابتش داد. کتابیه که متنِ سختی نداره و تمامِ گفته ها و نظریه هایی که مطرح میشه در قالبِ یه گفتگو مطرح میشه و با اینکه نظریه های سنگینی شاید باشند، اما با روانترین نثر نوشته شده و کاملا همه چیز برای آدم جا میفته. پی به نظرم که به دردِ کسانی که تازه کار هستند توی فلسفه هم میخوره و خیلی هم مفیده.
کتابی که یادت میده به همه چی فکر کنی، زیاد هم فکر کنی. کتابی که یادت میده برای هر شرایطی که میبینی، چالش درست کنی. از هر وری که امکانش هست قضیه رو بررسی کنی. خودت رو بالا و پایین کنی. هر چیزی که گفته میشه رو صرفا چون فلانی گفته و تا حالا اینجوری بوده، نپذیری.
این کتاب رو انقدر دوست داشتم که خیلی بواش خواندمش. وسط خواندنم هم هی کتاب رو میبستم به این فکر میکردم که جوابِ این سوال رو من چی میدم؟ من اگه جای وایروب بودم قانع میشدم با این جواب؟ الان که به اینجا رسید بحثمون من باشم چه چالشی میتونم واسه ی فکر کردن بهش پیدا کنم.
خلاصه که لذت بردم بسیار زیاد.
کتابی که یادت میده به همه چی فکر کنی، زیاد هم فکر کنی. کتابی که یادت میده برای هر شرایطی که میبینی، چالش درست کنی. از هر وری که امکانش هست قضیه رو بررسی کنی. خودت رو بالا و پایین کنی. هر چیزی که گفته میشه رو صرفا چون فلانی گفته و تا حالا اینجوری بوده، نپذیری.
این کتاب رو انقدر دوست داشتم که خیلی بواش خواندمش. وسط خواندنم هم هی کتاب رو میبستم به این فکر میکردم که جوابِ این سوال رو من چی میدم؟ من اگه جای وایروب بودم قانع میشدم با این جواب؟ الان که به اینجا رسید بحثمون من باشم چه چالشی میتونم واسه ی فکر کردن بهش پیدا کنم.
خلاصه که لذت بردم بسیار زیاد.
January 23, 2020
my guy just went and did Phaedo 2
November 25, 2018
کتاب را هدیه گرفتم. فروردین ۹۷. تا امروز تقریبا سه بار کتاب را خواندها�. فارسی روان و ترجمه دقیق (متن انگلیسی را هم دیده‌ا�) جذابیت اول کتاب است. بار اول کتاب را سخت خواندم، هر شب نهایتا دو صفحه، در پایان شب دوم از دست گرچن حرص خوردم که چرا به هیچ صراطی مستقیم نیست. سالهاست این آرزو را با خودم حمل می‌کن� که دو نفر از مُردگان این سال‌ه� را دست‌ک� یک بار دیگر آنطور که در زمان زنده بودنشان دیده بودم ببینم. کتاب اول از همه برایم روشن کرد که اساسا چنین آرزویی دارم و بعد بارها سرسختانه آن را به چالش کشید. دفعه دوم و سوم در یک ماه اخیر کتاب را خواندها� زمانی که دوستی درگیر یک عمل مغز بسیار جدی بود. بارها خودم را جای گرچن گذاشتم و سعی کردم تصمیم بگیرم و همه آن بارها نتوانستم تصمیم بگیرم.
«گمان می‌کن� هیچ انگیزه‌ا� به من داده نشده تا واضح‌تری� و سرراست‌تری� نظر در این موضوعات را رها کنم. من یک بدن زنده هستم، و وقتی که این بدن بمیرد، وجود من در پایان راه خواهد بود»
«گمان می‌کن� هیچ انگیزه‌ا� به من داده نشده تا واضح‌تری� و سرراست‌تری� نظر در این موضوعات را رها کنم. من یک بدن زنده هستم، و وقتی که این بدن بمیرد، وجود من در پایان راه خواهد بود»
December 27, 2018
After stuffing my face with home-made renditions of cheesy gordita crunch tacos and mulled wine at a friend’s place, I got a ride to a GO station and we were discussing Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Marx, when my friend grabbed a book lying on his back seat and said I should read it. It was this book, and I did read it, mostly in a shopping mall where my parents go to get their winter exercise, haha. While there, it was one of the very few times someone inquired about a book I was reading. Apparently, my friends have much more appealing taste in books than I do. No one ever asks about the books I choose for myself to read.
Anyways, John Perry wrote this on a Guggenheim fellowship while on sabbatical from his teaching duties at Stanford, where he was a philosophy professor at the time. I don’t read a lot of stuff related to analytic philosophy or metaphysics, but this was an interesting read for me because it touched on a number of things I was thinking a lot about two Advents ago after my grandfather died. A lot of this review will simply be a repetition of stuff I directly discussed in , the first of which being what Bertrand Russell famously asserted in his essay “Why I Am Not a Christian�, establishing two basic tenets which he thought essential for identifying who counted as a Christian: (1) a belief in God and (2) a belief in immortality. You can decide after reading this review, whether I meet Russell’s criteria.
I should also point out this book makes fairly appropriate Advent reading on two accounts. Firstly, the issue of “immortality� is an eschatological question, which is traditionally a theme of Advent, as this liturgical season is about the anticipation of the Kindom of God’s arrival. I learnt all this from a Polkinghorne book which I will discuss below. Secondly, the questions of identity which come up in this book are very relevant to theological questions concerning Christ’s identity as both human and divine, and what it would take philosophically for that paradox to be at all meaningful (that is meaningful within a framework of analytical philosophy).
Anyways, when Mary Oliver was asked about what she thought about life after death on the radio show “On Being�, she appealed to the materialist idea of Lucretius, saying that everything is a little energy and the parts out of which we are made do not go away, such that flowers will bloom out of the soil in which we bury the dead. She insisted that this is a continuance of sorts. Oliver said she wasn’t sure if angels and golden roads would be involved in this whole affair as well, even still that beautiful naturalist idea of resurrection is the least we can expect from our passing, and that’s still pretty wonderful.
The philosophy professor Gretchen Weirob, a dying patient in this dialogue by John Perry, would not have patience for Mary Oliver and, more generally, a poet’s plasticity with language, although I think she would do well to savour Laozi’s version of “returning to roots�:
“I am at rest to watch their return.
The heavenly Way is flourishing;
Each thing returns to its roots.�
Anyways, Weirob says to her friend Sam Miller (a college chaplain):
“I have no doubts that I shall merge with being; plants will take root in my remains, and the chemicals that I am will continue to make their contribution to life. I am enough of an ecologist to be comforted. But survival, if it is anything, must offer comforts of a different sort, the comforts of anticipation... And the only relation that supports anticipation and memory in this way, is simply identity... So don’t give me merger with being or some such nonsense. Give me identity, or let’s talk about baseball or fishing—but I’m sorry to get so emotional. I react strongly when words which mean one thing are used for another... It’s such a sham!�
I am more more sympathetic to the poetic than the analytical, but sometimes it does one some good to wander down the analytic path. So what does immortality require for Weirob? Certainly some sense of continuity of consciousness seems necessary for her. Roberto Unger when discussing death in his book “The Religion of the Future� says as much:
“Continuity of consciousness, embodied in an individual human organism, is what we mean by a self. The experience of selfhood is the experience of consciousness associated with the fate of the body and persistent over time, until the body fails and dissolves.�
The whole time the dialogue between Weirob and Miller was unfolding I was thinking of the physicist and priest John Polkinghorne’s book “Living With Hope� which I read two Advents ago. It discusses the sort of continuity required for some sort of life after death to be imaginable. Before going into that I should point out that in the first Weirob quote, she uses the word “survival�, and she will continue to use it on a number of occasions throughout the dialogue � a reference to the Socratic “survival of the soul�. This is precisely the notion of the afterlife that Polkinghorne is trying to distinguish the Christian resurrection from.
Polkinghorne believes that Socrates stoically confronting his death by hemlock relies on this notion of a “survival of the soul� which is in fact a repression of death and not a true confrontation. Polkinghorne suggests that the manic response of Jesus before his crucifixion is in fact the true confrontation with death, because Christ does not imagine the survival of his soul as something distinct from his body which will be destroyed. Instead, the body and soul, as neuroscience anachronistically suggests, are deeply entangled in an inseparable unitary whole. Therefore it is the destruction of both body and soul that Christ mourns in Gethsemane, and it is only by way of death’s assertive finality, that resurrection makes any sense and garners such a miraculous place in Christian theology. It is almost a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, because death is such a final end, as is the heat death of the universe as Polkinghorne points out, it seems absurd that something as small as a human body would be resurrected after the complete dissolution of the cosmos.
Polkinghorne then points out how the body is constantly cycling through particles, atoms, molecules such that it is not inconceivable that in one’s older years, not a single atom remains in one’s body that would have been there when one was a child. Therefore, Polkinghorne argues that continuity cannot be located in the physical matter and the individual components of matter that constitutes us, but rather in some ‘pattern� which constitutes our identity. This notion of ‘pattern� unbeknownst to me was in fact an idea that goes at least as far back as Locke as I learned in this dialogue by John Perry. Miller, the chaplain in the dialogue, returns a second night to Weirob’s bedside after reading up on Locke, and presents this case to Weirob.
Miller expresses continuity of a body’s ‘pattern� as analogous to a river, in that it is always different water that is in the river, yet it retains a particular form or ‘pattern�. And what connects one part of river to another very distinct segment of the same river, is some type of causal continuity, just like our body through time. However, there remains the question regarding how an event as discontinuous as death could allow for an afterlife.
Polkinghorne proposed the precious idea that humans are too wonderfully crafted products of evolutionary processes exhibiting the wonderful creativity of God, that God could not forget the precious patterns of human beings She so carefully crafted, and therefore would one day resurrect human beings somehow after the heat death of the universe. Until then, we are kept in the memory or mind of God. That is one notion of ‘merger with Being� that Weirob and Miller are quite distasteful of. Death as a return to the memory of God is the language Kahlil Gibran actually uses to describe what happens after death.
Polkinghorne emphasizes bodily continuity, I suppose because resurrection is a significant Christian tenet, and he does not agree with the Cartesian split between mind and body. However, one hypothetically could still appeal to a transfer of ‘mind� or brain to another body or host (like a computer lol), especially in the growing domain of artificial intelligence, which I find a somewhat neurotic endeavour.
This relies on the notion that identity can be constituted by some continuity of memory. This idea is also dismantled within the dialogues, as it was in John Locke’s essay/chapter “Of Identity and Diversity�. Weirob’s first argument in the dialogue is basically that deluded people could think they are some famous historical person and have their memories, but not in fact be those famous people (like when someone believes they're Joan of Arc or something). I think this raises a broader issue that memory is notoriously unreliable, as is our access to memory.
Speaking of how fallible human memory is, the editorial grooming of the book was hilariously equally as fallible. I believe the editor of this book was wagering on John Perry turning in a spotless manuscript, because it seems like no one proofread the manuscript before it went to print. There are countless typos throughout. If we think of written documents like books as a form of memory, we would do well to note how this book is a perfect example of how fallible memory can be, even starting from the point of transcription.
There was that talked about how each act of memory was in many ways an act of imagination. We must ‘imagine� some past moment each time we recall the past, constructing what amounts to a stage, and often filling in the blanks with extraneous details that might be convenient to our own purposes and pleasure. However, often times memory is not about being factually correct as much as it is about crafting narratives and dealing with trauma.
I met an artist named Eduardo Martinez at an OCAD grad show who had a fantastic installation that explored the traumatic memories of colonialism in the Dominican Republic. I was asking if he was reading anything at the time he made that installation and he mentioned a neuroscientist named Daniela Schiller whose research was about how we can use imagination to deal with traumatic memories, and I think that gets at a lot of what is occurring in biblical narratives. Walter Brueggemann is a fantastic expositor of this sort of theology.
The second argument Weirob uses to dismantle the memory-based notion of identity is the “duplication� argument. If someone can perfectly duplicate your brain shortly before you die and transpose it into another body (on this or another side of eternity lol), will that brain still be you. It seems like the reasonable answer would be yes, you would have all your memories, and could continue living and experiencing everything. However, what if they made multiple duplicates of your brain. Would only one of those be you, or would they all be you at the same time, or would none of them be you. You have basically split into multiple people. This is a divided self, not in the psychoanalytic sense, but in a spatiotemporal sense.
This idea of memory and identity was explored brilliantly in Atwood’s “Alias Grace�, which came out around the same time of Ian Hacking’s book “Rewriting the Soul� where he wrote:
“My chief topic, toward the end of the book, will become the way in which a new science, a purported knowledge of memory, quite self-consciously was created in order to secularize the soul. Science had hitherto been excluded from study of the soul itself. The new sciences of memory came into being in order to conquer that resilient core of Western thought and practice... But we have learned how to replace the soul with knowledge, with science. Hence spiritual battles are fought, not on the explicit ground of the soul, but on the terrain of memory, where we suppose that there is such a thing as knowledge to be had."
Hacking’s book was about the medical history of multiple personality disorder, which was at the heart of Alias Grace. This notion of the divided self and multiple identities is in fact at the heart of analytic debates over Christology, very much at the heart of theological themes related to Christmas. I have been reading John Hick’s book “The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age�, and it spends a chapter on one attempt to solve the philosophical quandary of Christ being fully God and fully human using what is sometimes called ‘two-minds theory� (it was one of the most boring things I’ve ever read, and why I generally avoid analytic philosophy and its theological counterpart like the plague).
But I think a more interesting angle on this question comes through in what Hacking and Atwood do with the subject. Lacan has stated that the unconscious presents a problem for ethics and individual responsibility. The anomalies of memory, identity, and the brain are maybe part of the reason why death and the afterlife are of such deep interest to so many people. Anyways, this dialogue by John Perry had me thinking through a lot of things. Fairly good Advent reading.
Anyways, John Perry wrote this on a Guggenheim fellowship while on sabbatical from his teaching duties at Stanford, where he was a philosophy professor at the time. I don’t read a lot of stuff related to analytic philosophy or metaphysics, but this was an interesting read for me because it touched on a number of things I was thinking a lot about two Advents ago after my grandfather died. A lot of this review will simply be a repetition of stuff I directly discussed in , the first of which being what Bertrand Russell famously asserted in his essay “Why I Am Not a Christian�, establishing two basic tenets which he thought essential for identifying who counted as a Christian: (1) a belief in God and (2) a belief in immortality. You can decide after reading this review, whether I meet Russell’s criteria.
I should also point out this book makes fairly appropriate Advent reading on two accounts. Firstly, the issue of “immortality� is an eschatological question, which is traditionally a theme of Advent, as this liturgical season is about the anticipation of the Kindom of God’s arrival. I learnt all this from a Polkinghorne book which I will discuss below. Secondly, the questions of identity which come up in this book are very relevant to theological questions concerning Christ’s identity as both human and divine, and what it would take philosophically for that paradox to be at all meaningful (that is meaningful within a framework of analytical philosophy).
Anyways, when Mary Oliver was asked about what she thought about life after death on the radio show “On Being�, she appealed to the materialist idea of Lucretius, saying that everything is a little energy and the parts out of which we are made do not go away, such that flowers will bloom out of the soil in which we bury the dead. She insisted that this is a continuance of sorts. Oliver said she wasn’t sure if angels and golden roads would be involved in this whole affair as well, even still that beautiful naturalist idea of resurrection is the least we can expect from our passing, and that’s still pretty wonderful.
The philosophy professor Gretchen Weirob, a dying patient in this dialogue by John Perry, would not have patience for Mary Oliver and, more generally, a poet’s plasticity with language, although I think she would do well to savour Laozi’s version of “returning to roots�:
“I am at rest to watch their return.
The heavenly Way is flourishing;
Each thing returns to its roots.�
Anyways, Weirob says to her friend Sam Miller (a college chaplain):
“I have no doubts that I shall merge with being; plants will take root in my remains, and the chemicals that I am will continue to make their contribution to life. I am enough of an ecologist to be comforted. But survival, if it is anything, must offer comforts of a different sort, the comforts of anticipation... And the only relation that supports anticipation and memory in this way, is simply identity... So don’t give me merger with being or some such nonsense. Give me identity, or let’s talk about baseball or fishing—but I’m sorry to get so emotional. I react strongly when words which mean one thing are used for another... It’s such a sham!�
I am more more sympathetic to the poetic than the analytical, but sometimes it does one some good to wander down the analytic path. So what does immortality require for Weirob? Certainly some sense of continuity of consciousness seems necessary for her. Roberto Unger when discussing death in his book “The Religion of the Future� says as much:
“Continuity of consciousness, embodied in an individual human organism, is what we mean by a self. The experience of selfhood is the experience of consciousness associated with the fate of the body and persistent over time, until the body fails and dissolves.�
The whole time the dialogue between Weirob and Miller was unfolding I was thinking of the physicist and priest John Polkinghorne’s book “Living With Hope� which I read two Advents ago. It discusses the sort of continuity required for some sort of life after death to be imaginable. Before going into that I should point out that in the first Weirob quote, she uses the word “survival�, and she will continue to use it on a number of occasions throughout the dialogue � a reference to the Socratic “survival of the soul�. This is precisely the notion of the afterlife that Polkinghorne is trying to distinguish the Christian resurrection from.
Polkinghorne believes that Socrates stoically confronting his death by hemlock relies on this notion of a “survival of the soul� which is in fact a repression of death and not a true confrontation. Polkinghorne suggests that the manic response of Jesus before his crucifixion is in fact the true confrontation with death, because Christ does not imagine the survival of his soul as something distinct from his body which will be destroyed. Instead, the body and soul, as neuroscience anachronistically suggests, are deeply entangled in an inseparable unitary whole. Therefore it is the destruction of both body and soul that Christ mourns in Gethsemane, and it is only by way of death’s assertive finality, that resurrection makes any sense and garners such a miraculous place in Christian theology. It is almost a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, because death is such a final end, as is the heat death of the universe as Polkinghorne points out, it seems absurd that something as small as a human body would be resurrected after the complete dissolution of the cosmos.
Polkinghorne then points out how the body is constantly cycling through particles, atoms, molecules such that it is not inconceivable that in one’s older years, not a single atom remains in one’s body that would have been there when one was a child. Therefore, Polkinghorne argues that continuity cannot be located in the physical matter and the individual components of matter that constitutes us, but rather in some ‘pattern� which constitutes our identity. This notion of ‘pattern� unbeknownst to me was in fact an idea that goes at least as far back as Locke as I learned in this dialogue by John Perry. Miller, the chaplain in the dialogue, returns a second night to Weirob’s bedside after reading up on Locke, and presents this case to Weirob.
Miller expresses continuity of a body’s ‘pattern� as analogous to a river, in that it is always different water that is in the river, yet it retains a particular form or ‘pattern�. And what connects one part of river to another very distinct segment of the same river, is some type of causal continuity, just like our body through time. However, there remains the question regarding how an event as discontinuous as death could allow for an afterlife.
Polkinghorne proposed the precious idea that humans are too wonderfully crafted products of evolutionary processes exhibiting the wonderful creativity of God, that God could not forget the precious patterns of human beings She so carefully crafted, and therefore would one day resurrect human beings somehow after the heat death of the universe. Until then, we are kept in the memory or mind of God. That is one notion of ‘merger with Being� that Weirob and Miller are quite distasteful of. Death as a return to the memory of God is the language Kahlil Gibran actually uses to describe what happens after death.
Polkinghorne emphasizes bodily continuity, I suppose because resurrection is a significant Christian tenet, and he does not agree with the Cartesian split between mind and body. However, one hypothetically could still appeal to a transfer of ‘mind� or brain to another body or host (like a computer lol), especially in the growing domain of artificial intelligence, which I find a somewhat neurotic endeavour.
This relies on the notion that identity can be constituted by some continuity of memory. This idea is also dismantled within the dialogues, as it was in John Locke’s essay/chapter “Of Identity and Diversity�. Weirob’s first argument in the dialogue is basically that deluded people could think they are some famous historical person and have their memories, but not in fact be those famous people (like when someone believes they're Joan of Arc or something). I think this raises a broader issue that memory is notoriously unreliable, as is our access to memory.
Speaking of how fallible human memory is, the editorial grooming of the book was hilariously equally as fallible. I believe the editor of this book was wagering on John Perry turning in a spotless manuscript, because it seems like no one proofread the manuscript before it went to print. There are countless typos throughout. If we think of written documents like books as a form of memory, we would do well to note how this book is a perfect example of how fallible memory can be, even starting from the point of transcription.
There was that talked about how each act of memory was in many ways an act of imagination. We must ‘imagine� some past moment each time we recall the past, constructing what amounts to a stage, and often filling in the blanks with extraneous details that might be convenient to our own purposes and pleasure. However, often times memory is not about being factually correct as much as it is about crafting narratives and dealing with trauma.
I met an artist named Eduardo Martinez at an OCAD grad show who had a fantastic installation that explored the traumatic memories of colonialism in the Dominican Republic. I was asking if he was reading anything at the time he made that installation and he mentioned a neuroscientist named Daniela Schiller whose research was about how we can use imagination to deal with traumatic memories, and I think that gets at a lot of what is occurring in biblical narratives. Walter Brueggemann is a fantastic expositor of this sort of theology.
The second argument Weirob uses to dismantle the memory-based notion of identity is the “duplication� argument. If someone can perfectly duplicate your brain shortly before you die and transpose it into another body (on this or another side of eternity lol), will that brain still be you. It seems like the reasonable answer would be yes, you would have all your memories, and could continue living and experiencing everything. However, what if they made multiple duplicates of your brain. Would only one of those be you, or would they all be you at the same time, or would none of them be you. You have basically split into multiple people. This is a divided self, not in the psychoanalytic sense, but in a spatiotemporal sense.
This idea of memory and identity was explored brilliantly in Atwood’s “Alias Grace�, which came out around the same time of Ian Hacking’s book “Rewriting the Soul� where he wrote:
“My chief topic, toward the end of the book, will become the way in which a new science, a purported knowledge of memory, quite self-consciously was created in order to secularize the soul. Science had hitherto been excluded from study of the soul itself. The new sciences of memory came into being in order to conquer that resilient core of Western thought and practice... But we have learned how to replace the soul with knowledge, with science. Hence spiritual battles are fought, not on the explicit ground of the soul, but on the terrain of memory, where we suppose that there is such a thing as knowledge to be had."
Hacking’s book was about the medical history of multiple personality disorder, which was at the heart of Alias Grace. This notion of the divided self and multiple identities is in fact at the heart of analytic debates over Christology, very much at the heart of theological themes related to Christmas. I have been reading John Hick’s book “The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age�, and it spends a chapter on one attempt to solve the philosophical quandary of Christ being fully God and fully human using what is sometimes called ‘two-minds theory� (it was one of the most boring things I’ve ever read, and why I generally avoid analytic philosophy and its theological counterpart like the plague).
But I think a more interesting angle on this question comes through in what Hacking and Atwood do with the subject. Lacan has stated that the unconscious presents a problem for ethics and individual responsibility. The anomalies of memory, identity, and the brain are maybe part of the reason why death and the afterlife are of such deep interest to so many people. Anyways, this dialogue by John Perry had me thinking through a lot of things. Fairly good Advent reading.
January 28, 2023
I do not know why I read this, or how I found it. It has some interesting concepts, but I am confused as to why it is written as a dialog and do not have a large enough brain to understand all of it.
June 24, 2019
Since this is a philosophical text, it brings up a lot of interesting concepts about life after death and what comprises someone's personality. I wanted to focus on two of these concepts for my review: body-swapping and brain transplants. The body-swapping conversation arises when main character Gretchen Weirob asks one of her friends, Sam Miller, how he knows he's talking to her and not someone else in her body. In an odd analogy, she contrasts people's souls with candies; you can bite into a candy to determine its flavor, but you can't use your five senses to determine whose soul you're dealing with. Miller responds by saying you can observe someone's personality traits to learn who you're talking to.
As for the brain transplant conversation, that occurs near the end of the story, when the dying Gretchen refuses an opportunity to put her brain inside a new body. She worries that the survivor of the operation will not be her. She also criticizes how the Supreme Court ruled on a similar case:
"If I were correct, in the first place, to anticipate having the sensations and thoughts that the survivor is to have the next day, the decision of nine old men a thousand or so miles away wouldn't make me wrong. And if I was wrong to so anticipate, their decision couldn't make me right."
This book is only 50 pages long, but it contains plenty of entertaining philosophical ideas - not to mention Gretchen's wit.
As for the brain transplant conversation, that occurs near the end of the story, when the dying Gretchen refuses an opportunity to put her brain inside a new body. She worries that the survivor of the operation will not be her. She also criticizes how the Supreme Court ruled on a similar case:
"If I were correct, in the first place, to anticipate having the sensations and thoughts that the survivor is to have the next day, the decision of nine old men a thousand or so miles away wouldn't make me wrong. And if I was wrong to so anticipate, their decision couldn't make me right."
This book is only 50 pages long, but it contains plenty of entertaining philosophical ideas - not to mention Gretchen's wit.
January 21, 2020
Fantastic little booklet. I first read this in my first year studying philosophy at undergrad many many years ago and re-read it after finishing the rather unsatisfactory Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho. Perry’s book covers similar ground but is more succinct, explicit, and thought provoking, in my opinion. Dense, though. Not a casual read although not strictly academic either.
May 5, 2020
Accessible, clear, and fun to read. Dialogues are an enjoyable way to introduce philosophically complex subjects to persons that have no background in philosophy.
November 18, 2024
This simple book indirectly suggests why most people find philosophy pointless. It reminded me of the opening pages of the Jewish Talmud: does extension discussion over when the day starts genuinely matter?
In this case, the last paragraph shows how the discussion on identity in life after death creates a "closed" problem; if you want to believe, find joy in the possible outcomes instead. Now that resonates.
Professor Perry wrote this small work after/during a sabbatical. Not enough. I read it when it was initially published; since he uses some references to Bernard Williams.
Focusing on what Personal Identity means and its relation to Group Identity Politics would be particularly useful today.
In this case, the last paragraph shows how the discussion on identity in life after death creates a "closed" problem; if you want to believe, find joy in the possible outcomes instead. Now that resonates.
Professor Perry wrote this small work after/during a sabbatical. Not enough. I read it when it was initially published; since he uses some references to Bernard Williams.
Focusing on what Personal Identity means and its relation to Group Identity Politics would be particularly useful today.
November 14, 2017
Besides the editing issues (shame on the editor) this is a great format for presenting the arguments. Of course when set beside a Platonic dialogue there is no comparison but style and theatrics are not its focus. It certainly shows the silly position of those pure materialists but I’m surprised philosophy hasn’t seen through the fallacy of the materialist position yet - maybe it has since this was writen (1978)
February 28, 2025
An excellent introduction to the modern debate on personal identity, clearly and cleverly communicates the basic thrust of many different arguments over the centuries in a way that your average introductory student will understand. My one concern is that students who start off with a soul view of personal identity will be put off by the main proponent of the view being made out as something of a buffoon.
April 13, 2020
An entertaining read that dives into the details of what it might mean for the continuation of personal identity and what it could mean to survive the death of one's body. Offers a variety of arguments and counter-arguments and is easy to follow the logic of all characters involved.
October 24, 2020
Thought provoking
I find that for me philosophical texts written in dialogue form are much easier to read and more engaging than conventional texts. This dialogue is well written and covers one of my favourite topics in philosophy. I just wish it were not so very short.
I find that for me philosophical texts written in dialogue form are much easier to read and more engaging than conventional texts. This dialogue is well written and covers one of my favourite topics in philosophy. I just wish it were not so very short.
August 20, 2018
The ideas are interesting. But what's the point of writing philosophy in the form of dialogue if you suck at storytelling?
March 23, 2020
I enjoyed reading the discussions about "body transplant" and "brain rejuvenation".
September 15, 2020
Anglos frustrate me
May 28, 2021
boring story
January 27, 2022
When I am mortally injured in a motorcycle accident, please note that I would prefer not to argue about the nature of personal identity. Just bliss me out on morphine and let jesus take the wheel.
December 21, 2022
cursory overview - good for introductory purposes or for a refresher of some of the dominant positions, but nothing beyond that
October 11, 2023
Omg I’m back bc I read this in Phil. Very frustrating yet thought provoking, as I’ve learned all philosophy is.
December 7, 2023
Views on personal identity and morality did make me ponder on what is to be and what’s ought to be. Decent book
August 6, 2024
Tuesdays with Morrie but instead of trying to understand and appreciate life, it’s two philosophers talking over each other until someone died
Read
October 2, 2024Was literally falling asleep during the last few pages. Idk what to think
October 16, 2024
4.5*
i LOVE over analyzing death and the existence of God
i LOVE over analyzing death and the existence of God
November 25, 2024
read for college class. my brain kinda not big enough lowkey
November 23, 2019
Interesting..
January 13, 2025
The Case of The Missing Person
There is a strange argument offered based on the hypothetical brain/body transplant scenario. The question asked in the text is: is the surviving person the one who donated the body or the one who dominated the brain? The first problem that I see here is that a third possibility is not considered; that of a new composite person, this is not discussed or considered in the text. In any case, the answer offered in the text is that the person donating the body is the surviving person. Thus, personal identity is tired exclusively to the body and not to the memories, or psychology of the brain that is to be found within this ‘surviving� body. I think that we should consider the possibility that a whole new person based on a newly created asymmetry of brain and body, one who is neither the body donator nor the brain donator, is created � that neither of the donors can be thought of as having survived. Rather, each of these donators should be thought of as having made an essential contribution to the creation of a whole new person. In any case, the argument in the text that the body donator is the surviving entity is based on the rather torturous theory that the memories of this survivor, which are those of the brain donator, are only ‘seemed� and not actual memories. What is the difference between identical ‘seemed� and actual memories? We are told that the ‘seemed� memories are a delusion and the actual memories are real, but in both cases it is admitted that memories are the same. This looks like a distinction without a difference but this is the basis upon which this entire argument rests. I think the argument for the brain donator being the ‘survivor�, if we are to talk about there being any ‘survivor�, based on the continuity of memory and psychology, is actually the stronger argument. However, I think it is possible that both arguments are in error. A person with a mixed brain/body combination is most likely to forge a whole new identity based on a new brain/body combination; a new awareness; a whole new conception of themselves; a whole new psychology, all of this different from those of both the body and brain donators. The inherited memories from the transplanted brain will soon become distant memories. A new personal identity will evolve, new attitudes will emerge and new beliefs will develop; a new person cannot help but be forged by this merger of brain and body. Personal identity involves both bodily identity and psychological continuity as mentioned in the text. However, in the case of the brain/body transplant person (hybrid person), I believe that we have a whole new combination of bodily identity and psychological continuity that is not considered in the text and that this new combination of brain and body is a new person. I would have liked to have seen this third person alternative discussed as thoroughly and thoughtfully as the two obvious alternatives are discussed in the text.
Apart from brain/body argument, this book is primarily a refutation of Descartes’s hard mind-body dualism and Locke’s conception of personal identity. There is nothing new here, just a rehearsal of the well-known arguments for and against these positions but it is still a good introduction to these philosophical questions presented in an approachable and readable dialogue style.
There is a strange argument offered based on the hypothetical brain/body transplant scenario. The question asked in the text is: is the surviving person the one who donated the body or the one who dominated the brain? The first problem that I see here is that a third possibility is not considered; that of a new composite person, this is not discussed or considered in the text. In any case, the answer offered in the text is that the person donating the body is the surviving person. Thus, personal identity is tired exclusively to the body and not to the memories, or psychology of the brain that is to be found within this ‘surviving� body. I think that we should consider the possibility that a whole new person based on a newly created asymmetry of brain and body, one who is neither the body donator nor the brain donator, is created � that neither of the donors can be thought of as having survived. Rather, each of these donators should be thought of as having made an essential contribution to the creation of a whole new person. In any case, the argument in the text that the body donator is the surviving entity is based on the rather torturous theory that the memories of this survivor, which are those of the brain donator, are only ‘seemed� and not actual memories. What is the difference between identical ‘seemed� and actual memories? We are told that the ‘seemed� memories are a delusion and the actual memories are real, but in both cases it is admitted that memories are the same. This looks like a distinction without a difference but this is the basis upon which this entire argument rests. I think the argument for the brain donator being the ‘survivor�, if we are to talk about there being any ‘survivor�, based on the continuity of memory and psychology, is actually the stronger argument. However, I think it is possible that both arguments are in error. A person with a mixed brain/body combination is most likely to forge a whole new identity based on a new brain/body combination; a new awareness; a whole new conception of themselves; a whole new psychology, all of this different from those of both the body and brain donators. The inherited memories from the transplanted brain will soon become distant memories. A new personal identity will evolve, new attitudes will emerge and new beliefs will develop; a new person cannot help but be forged by this merger of brain and body. Personal identity involves both bodily identity and psychological continuity as mentioned in the text. However, in the case of the brain/body transplant person (hybrid person), I believe that we have a whole new combination of bodily identity and psychological continuity that is not considered in the text and that this new combination of brain and body is a new person. I would have liked to have seen this third person alternative discussed as thoroughly and thoughtfully as the two obvious alternatives are discussed in the text.
Apart from brain/body argument, this book is primarily a refutation of Descartes’s hard mind-body dualism and Locke’s conception of personal identity. There is nothing new here, just a rehearsal of the well-known arguments for and against these positions but it is still a good introduction to these philosophical questions presented in an approachable and readable dialogue style.
January 27, 2021
Required reading for a Philosophy class. I think there are many problems with this book. It’s trying to take centuries of philosophical debate and condense that into about 75 pages with some bullshit meta story sprinkled on top. It’s not original thought and it’s devoid of all context so you have absolutely no idea why these characters flit so suddenly from point to point and never dwell on any one idea for too long. It doesn’t provide any background or preamble to why the characters start randomly talking about one subject or the next, they just do. One minute we’re talking about personal identity, the next - memory, then body swapping, then the continuation of the soul and so on etc.. and none of these ideas are given any time to decant in the mind. This is just machine gunning centuries old, tired and unoriginal philosophical discussions at you from out of nowhere and expecting you to follow along and be enthused. And the meta story was kind of stupid and unbelievable, and somewhat emotionally unsatisfying but I know that’s not the focus of this text. I just thought it could have been done better. Idk...this was some pretty shit brained philosophy if we’re pretending it’s from the modern era and I honestly don’t know why it was required reading. I would be much more interested in reading the source material given the context of the centuries that these ideas were first proposed instead of acting like we just discovered these ideas in the 20th century and pretending they’re shiny and new. Maybe I’m being overly critical. Perhaps I’ll revisit this later after I’ve studied the source material more.
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