Dasein/dasein

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Shaping The Self
Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.

What constitutes our personal identity over time has long been the subject of debate, but how much influence can we have over our own identity and self-perception?

What makes this nothing less than profoundly problematic are all of the variables in our lives that we don’t even come close to having either a complete understanding of or control over. In particular, in regard to how, for years, others shaped and molded our understanding of ourselves in order to replicate themselves through us.

Yeah, some of us will own up to that and acknowledge just how wide the gap is between who we think we are and how that was shaped by forces beyond our control. Some will accept in turn that much of their moral and political “self” is derived adventitiously from when they are born historically, or where they were brought up culturally.

But that still does not stop them from just shrugging these crucial factors off and insisting that they really and truly do know who they are. Anyway.

Just ask those who stormed the Capitol Building. None of what I note here has any real bearing at all on the behaviors they choose. They simply think themselves into believing that what they did they did because they were obligated to in order to be true to themselves.

Really, just ask some of the hardcore fulminating fanatics here.

The ‘memory criterion’ of identity is usually attributed to English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). This interpretation of Locke is the subject of debate, but nevertheless it is the most popular interpretation, and the one that will be adopted here. Locke distinguishes a ‘person’ from a ‘man’. The ‘man’ means the organism, an animal like any other, whose identity over time consists in its continuity of biological life. This means that although parts can be gained and lost (we grow and shed skin cells, for example) there must be continuity within this change for us to be talking about the same man.

The biological imperatives. The problem here though is that we all share the same biological scaffolding while interacting in a world in which the same physical, chemical, neurological etc., laws result in human interactions in which there are endless disputes over that which is said to constitute the most rational and ethical behaviors. Then come those who in embracing one or another alleged ontological and teleological font insist that even our value judgments can be oriented to an objective truth which binds together all, say, civilized human beings.

Memories are just another manifestation of this. We all have the innate capacity to form memories. We all have the innate capacity to communicate to others what those memories are of and what they mean to us. But then come the inevitable conflicts regarding our reactions to them when those reactions precipitate moral and political agendas at odds.

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Shaping The Self
Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.

Concerning the identity of the person themselves – the thinking being – perhaps surprisingly for his time and culture, Locke claims that personal identity is not tied up with the soul. This is because he thinks that the same soul could in fact play host to different consciousnesses. It is your consciousness which makes you the same person over time; specifically it is the continuity of your memories.

The soul. On the other hand, what is the point of connecting the dots between “I” and a “soul” if there does not appear to be a way [philosophically or otherwise] in which to pin down what a soul/the soul/my soul is?

It’s just another configuration of God, for all practical purposes. As for the conscious self going back to the cradle and forward to the grave, my own arguments still seem entirely reasonable to me. Some things we become conscious of are there for all rational people to become conscious of in turn. While other conscious assessments never seem able to get much further than personal opinions. And Locke’s personal identity here would seem no less problematic than yours or mine.

The continuation of personal identity through memory is crucial for justice. For instance, in order to properly see the consequences of our actions and maintain our full responsibility for them, we must be able to contemplate our future selves as connected to the person about to carry out an action now, and we also must remember an action for it to qualify as really being ‘me’ who did it.

Yes, technically. But if different “souls” can’t agree on what either does or does not constitute, say, social and political justice, how do they manage to configure their individual memories into one frame of mind in which those disagreement dissipate and then fortuitously are subsumed in the best of all possible worlds?

Again the part that most “serious philosophers” authoring articles like this, almost never seem interested in exploring.

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Shaping The Self
Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.

The implication of Locke’s memory criterion for identity seems to be that my identity changes over time as my memories fade, or perhaps reappear after a period of absence.

Obviously: how we think about ourselves changes over time as new experiences and new relationships create new memories. For example, we might do things today that might have been thought inconceivable or thought to be atrocious ten years ago. The biological self changes in accordance with the human body that all of us come into the world with. But the moral and political self is considerably more problematic. Memories as chemical and neurological interactions in my brain are the same as in your brain. But the memories themselves are wholly dependent on lives that might be very, very different. You remember what you do and as a result of that you choose one behavior…while my own memories prompt me to choose a conflicting behavior.

Then what? What can we come to agree about regarding this memory induced dissension? Whose memories are the most rational?

Though that’s not the direction the author goes:

One famous objection to Locke’s view along these lines was from Thomas Reid (1710-1796). I’ll give an adapted version. Suppose that as a ten year old I am given a bike for Christmas. When I am thirty, I am given an iPhone for Christmas, and I can remember being given the bike. When I am eighty, I can recall being given the iPhone, but have no recollection of being given the bike. The argument is that according to Locke’s memory criterion, the eighty year old ‘me’ is the same person as the thirty year old ‘me’ but is no longer the same person as the ten year old who received that bike. The thirty year old is the same person as the ten year old as they can remember the bike. However this cannot be true according to the rules of logic. The eighty year old (A) is identical to the thirty year old (B) and the thirty year old (B) is the same as the ten year old (C), but the eighty year old (A) is not identical to the ten year old (C). But the laws of logic state that if A=B and B=C then A=C. So Locke must be wrong.

Wrong about what?

Sure, as we get older, memories fade. Some get obliterated altogether. But the facts here don’t change. You either received a bike for Christmas when you were ten or you did not. That you have forgotten this doesn’t change the fact of it. Someone might have taken photographs of you on the bike on that Christmas morning. This may or may not jog your memory.

But: The rules of logic? How does that – as a “technical” issue? – really pertain to the facts here? I’m missing an important point obviously.

Instead, what I always focus on are the memories that, over time, prompt us to embrace one set of moral and political values rather than another.

For instance suppose a ten year old is indoctrinated by her parents to embrace a liberal/left wing understanding of the world around her. She remembers that clearly. Then at thirty her experiences and her thinking have convinced her to embrace a conservative/right wing understanding. Though she still remembers her liberal childhood views. Then at eighty she is still very much a conservative but she has completely forgotten being indoctrinated by her parent to think as a liberal thinks.

Again, the facts here are what they are. Someone can have an extremely faulty memory in regard to them while another remembers everything exactly as it unfolded from childhood on.

But the memories themselves linked to the creation of a Self linked to either liberal or a conservative worldview doesn’t enable us to establish whether or not one frame of mind rather than another is the more reasonable.

Or, rather, so it seems to me. Particular memories are just another manifestation of dasein in my view.