Reconsidering a transplant: A response to Wagner. Issue 2 (2nd June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Beck, Simon
• Is Part Of: South African journal of philosophy. Volume 35:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 132
• Page End: 140
• Publication Date: 2016-06-02
• Subjects: Philosophy -- Periodicals; Philosophy; Periodicals; 105
• DOI: 10.1080/02580136.2016.1161432
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0258-0136

Abstract

Abstract : Nils-Frederic Wagner takes issue with my argument that influential critics of "transplant" thought experiments make two cardinal mistakes. He responds that the mistakes I identify are not mistakes at all. The mistakes are rather on my part, in that I have not taken into account the conceptual genesis of personhood, that my view of thought experiments is idiosyncratic and possibly self-defeating, and in that I have ignored important empirical evidence about the relationship between brains and minds. I argue that my case still stands and that transplant thought experiments can do damage to rivals of a psychological continuity theory of personal identity like Marya Schechtman's Person Life View.