TITLE:
Parfit, Self and Unity
AUTHORS:
Przemysław Paleczny
KEYWORDS:
Epiphenomenalism, Personal Identity, Self, Split Brain, Unity of Consciousness
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.15 No.1,
February
12,
2025
ABSTRACT: The paper presents an effort to connect two ideas that are underrated in Derek Parfit’s analysis of David Wiggins’ split-brain thought experiment. Firstly, it argues that the original person, whose brain is divided, survives as only one of the two human beings obtained by the division. For Parfit, it seems hopelessly hard to determine which one of the two is the initial person. The second idea is the unity of consciousness. For Parfit, the best-known approach to the idea is Cartesianism, where the Cartesian Ego provides the unity in question. Therefore, he poses a dilemma between the Cartesian Ego concept and his view that consciousness is like a river and unity plays no role in survival. The paper explores the notion that, firstly, only one person could survive the split-brain experiment proposed by Wiggins; secondly, that the unity of consciousness plays a fundamental role in personal identity over time; and thirdly, that it does not engage with the Cartesian Ego concept, but instead, with the concept of the epiphenomenal self.