Personal identity

References and further reading

	Baker, L. (2000) Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A detailed defence of the constitution theory as a general metaphysical view and as it applies to persons.)
	DeGrazia, D. (2005) Human Identity and Bioethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A complex account of personal identity applied to problems in bioethics.)
	Dennett, D. (1992)‘The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity’, in Frank S. Kessel, Pamela M. Cole and Dale L. Johnson (ed.) Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 103–115. (An empirically inspired narrative account of the self.)
	Korsgaard, C. (1989) ‘Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Reply to Parfit’, Philosophy & Public Affairs 18 (2): 101–132. (An original and important argument for defining personal identity in terms of agential unity.)
	Lamarque, P. (2007)‘On the Distance between Literary Narratives and Real-Life Narratives’, in Daniel Hutto (ed.) Narrative and Understanding Persons, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 117–132. (Argues that narrative theorists exaggerate the structural connections between life and literature.)
	Lewis, D. (1976)‘Survival and Identity’, in A. O. Rorty (ed.) The Identities of Persons, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 17–40. (A fairly technical account of the four-dimensionalist response to the fission case.)
	Locke, J. (1689) An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1975. (II.xxvii contains the classic statement of the modern problem of personal identity and the original statement of central insights behind the psychological approach.)
	Martin, R. and Barresi, J. (2003) Personal Identity, Malden, MA: Blackwell. (An extremely useful collection of recent essays on personal identity.)
	McMahan, J. (2002) The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, New York: Oxford University Press. (A meticulous argument for a minimalist account of identity and its application to difficult ethical problems.)
	Noonan, H. (1989) Personal Identity, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; 2nd edn 2003. (An important survey of the major issues in the personal identity debate.)
	Olson, E. (1997) The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology, New York: Oxford University Press. (A clear and well-argued defence of animalism.)
	Parfit, D. (1984) Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A groundbreaking work that reviews the major positions in the personal-identity debate, offers radical new positions and explores their implications for ethics.)
	Perry, J. (1972)‘Can the Self Divide?’, Journal of Philosophy 69 (16): 463–488. (A fairly technical response to the fission case.)
	Perry, J. (1975) Personal Identity, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (An important and useful collection of early papers in the personal-identity debate.)
	Perry, J. (1976)‘The Importance of Being Identical’, in A. Rorty (ed.) The Identities of Persons, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (A defence of the psychological approach against the argument that it cannot explain future-directed self-concern.)
	Perry, J. (1978) A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. (An introduction to the personal-identity debate in dialogue form.)
	Ricoeur, P. (1990)) Soi-méme comme un autre, Paris: Éditions du Seuil; trans. Kathleen Blamey, Oneself as Another, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. (A detailed hermeneutical narrative account.)
	Rorty, A. (1976) The Identities of Persons, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (An important anthology of classic papers on personal identity.)
	Rovane, C. (1998) The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (A revisionary account that defines identity in terms of the unity of a rational rather than phenomenological point of view.)
	Schechtman, M. (1996) The Constitution of Selves, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Argues that the narrative approach is superior to the psychological continuity theory.)
	Shoemaker, D. (2007)‘Personal Identity and Practical Concerns’, Mind 116 (462): 317–357. (An article exploring the complexity of the relations between personal identity and the practical.)
	Shoemaker, S. (1984)‘Personal Identity: A Materialist’s Account’, in S. Shoemaker and R. Swinburne (eds) Personal Identity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 67–138. (A defence of a version of the psychological approach.)
	Strawson, G. (2004) ‘Against Narrativity’, Ratio 17 (4): 428–452. (A powerful attack on narrative views of self.)
	Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. (A sweeping historical discussion of the notion of personal identity and defence of the hermeneutical narrative view.)
	Unger, P. (1990) Identity, Consciousness, and Value, New York: Oxford University Press. (A thoughtful and wide-ranging argument for a minimalist view of identity.)
	Wilkes, K. (1988) Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (A compelling argument against the use of science-fiction thought experiments in the investigation of personal identity.)
	Williams, B. (1973)‘The Self and the Future’, inProblems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–1972, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A collection of original and thoughtful papers about self and identity.)