Re: Dasein/dasein
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2023 8:25 pm
iambiguous wrote:DNA & The Identity Crisis
Raymond Keogh has a science-based take on personal identity.
Right.We know that the constituent cells of our bodies are...continually dying and being replaced. We change in many other ways too; what makes us the same person as we move through time? In the absence of an adequate or persuasive answer, many philosophers have denied that we have an unchanging essence that makes us who we are.
Like, for all practical purposes, that is actually something to concern ourselves about. Other than out in the deep end of the philosophical pool in places like this. Our biological self manages to keep itself reasonably intact from the cradle to the grave. Until, over time, the biological clock starts to tick tock to its inevitable dismiss. Though, for some, any number of brain afflictions can also have a profound impact on the mental, emotional and psychological components of "I" in turn.
Still, these are clearly embedded in biological imperatives that to a greater or lesser extent doctors and medical professionals can account for when a "sense of self" begins to deteriorate. At least we generally have access to an explanation here.
Where things get trickier is when attempts are made to connect the dots between DNA and "I" acquiring, sustaining or changing moral, political and aesthetic values. Here the complexities embedded in memes intertwined in unique sets of personal experiences and relationships create endlessly existential permutations.
"...depending on the context".Because of this inability to define ‘identity’ in philosophy, the concept has become something of a hydra (to borrow from Greek legend again!). In their article ‘Beyond “Identity”’ in Theory and Society Vol. 29 (2000), Professor of Sociology Rogers Brubaker and historian Frederick Cooper acknowledge that the word can be understood in many ways and in many different forms, depending on “the context of its use and the theoretical tradition from which the use in question derives.” Furthermore, these usages “are not simply heterogeneous; they point in sharply differing directions.” We’re talking chaos and confusion here.
That sounds familiar. Unless of course there are philosophers here among us able to provide us with a precise definition of identity. And then note how they use this definition to explore, to examine and to encompass their own identity such that the manner in which I ascribe it [in the is/ought world] to dasein is not reasonable.
Given a specific context.
As for the "theoretical tradition"...what's yours?
And yet we know that in any number of extant contexts in the either/or world, chaos and confusion are anything but evident.
It's in how we bridge this gap in explaining our own behaviors that most interest me. Especially when those behavioirs precipitate conflict.