John Locke's Of Identity and Diversity

John Locke, in "Of Identity and Diversity," deals with, among other things, the role of the soul in the personal identity of human beings. In the briefest terms, the soul, to Locke, must be present for the human being to be considered a human being, but it is not the most crucial element of the personal identity of the individual human being. The essential element which gives the individual his or her personal identity is human consciousness.

Locke spends what seems like an inordinate amount of time dealing with the identity of vegetables and animals, considering that all he is saying is that the identity of these entities is determined by material continuity (35-36). Moving to human beings, Locke writes that the question of personal identity is more complex:

. . . The identity of the same man consists . . . in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same organized body (36-37).

The complexity is introduced in the consideration of what it is that constitutes human life. A carrot or a rabbit is differentiated from a human being by its consciousness, says Locke. The human being has a soul which the carrot and rabbit do not have (although Locke leaves open the possibility of soul transmigration and thus the possibility of souls-in-animals). However, the soul is nothing without the personal consciousness which functions along with it. It might be pointed out here that Locke assume

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Category: Philosophy - J