OPPapers.com

What Am I?

Samuel Lee
Charles Myers
PHI 2010
11 December 2007
What am I?
In Theodore Dalrymple’s article, based on his recent neuropsychiatry conference, he disagreed that scientific self-understanding, in which he defined as “the explanation of an infinite number of unique events that are infused with meaning and intentionality,” was both possible and desirable. He stated that a universal law that “accounts for the infinite variety and originality of human utterance” or any method that attempted to fully explain human behavior could not exist. Dalrymple further explained that it would not be desirable to achieve a complete self-understanding. If it were to happen, it wouldn’t be long before someone would construct a mind-reading scanner that gave one access to everyone’s thoughts at will. Of course if one were to construct such a powerful device, he or she would not be willing to simply give it out to the hands of the general public, but rather keep it to themselves, thus disturbing the balance of power and leaving out thoughts at his mercy. As Dalrymple generalized in his article, “life would be hell.”
In the study of self-identity, Hume argues that we can never find an impression of an object or substance to explain the identity of plants, animals, and things. To support himself, Dalrymple mentioned David Hume in his article. Hume, both a figure of enlightenment and anti-enlightenment, believes in reason and experience, but not an extreme view such as the wholly rational man. According to Hume, we are never justified in claiming that a person or an object maintains the same identity. Using his famous tree example, Hume deducts that the same tree we see that we saw five years ago has undergone a complete change, every cell replaced by new ones. To solve this, he proposes that the tree is in the same place at different times, or as he labels, spatiotemporal continuity. Because we do not have an impression of the self-understanding, Hume, like Dalrymple, would...