Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 8, 2021

 

Personal Identity: A Coherent Reconfiguration of Experience

(Abstract)

 

Fei Duoyi

 

The most inviting approach to the classic philosophical problem of personal identity is the theory of psychological continuity, where the diagnosis given by Parfit, a representative of Neo-lockeanism, has had a profound impact. But Parfit’s depersonalization of experience makes experience a value-neutral event, so that a person’s continuous life is merely survival as opposed to death, rather than a continued existence as a rational agent. Therefore, we need first of all to clarify this point: in what sense do we assign identity to actual differences? This paper starts with the conflict between Parfit’s theoretical flaws and the requirements of identity. It abandons the traditional idea of confirming momentary identity and reformulates the problem of persistence. The author aims to understand personal identity from a linguistic point of view which no longer simply emphasizes the connection of experiences in time fragments and does not regard the self as determined by the event experience itself, but rather regards the self as a person’s coherent appropriation, interpretation and anticipation of his experience with the help of language. This reflective reconfiguration, which is consistent but continuously revised, ensures that the internally related experiences are integrated into and create a meaningful whole –“I”. In this way, diachronic identity is not a reality that has been formed and is waiting to be discovered, but depends on how people shape the present self into a whole with the past self and the future self.