Self-Identity Over Time - Is It True At All?
May 4th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Words Have Changing Referents :: Self-Identity Over Time - Is It True At All?** :: Self-Identity Over Time - Is It True At All? :: - Is It True At All?
Michael Eldred wrote:
> ME: This discussion of self-identity overlooks that all identity is an identity
> of identity and difference. This is apparent in even the simplest of observations
> and statements, such as, “This is an e-mail.” This-here is identified as an
> e-mail, even though this is obviously not an e-mail. To IDENTIFY this-here AS an
> e-mail means seeing and positing a DIFFERENCE. This carries over to the
> phenomenon of human being (Dasein) and its selfhood. A self is only possible as
> an identification with what an individual human being is not. A trivial example
> makes this apparent: If you are asked to identify yourself (e.g. at customs, in
> the bank, to the police, etc.) you do not simply point a finger at yourself or
> say tautologically, “I am I”, but you show your photo ID or passport, i.e. you
> show what you are clearly NOT, something that is obviously different from you.
> But showing this difference is precisely what conclusively proves your identity.
>
> Hence, the simple observation and statement, “This is an e-mail”, already
> contains the mystery of philosophy (of being), something which analytic
> philosophy per se (and all thinking based on ‘logic’) can only understand through
> self-destruction.
> It is entirely superficial to locate Dasein’s difference in its becoming, or,
> conversely, to want to locate identity in a self-same constancy over time.
> Something can only become (in a movement of one kind or another) what it is not
> because it always already is _its_ other.
I have no problem identifying your email as an email; and, indeed, most
people (including me) would say that I had lied if I denied receiving an
email from you.
however, as regards humans, the question of identity over time presents
a paradox of sameness and difference.
at some point in a marriage someone might say “you are not the same
person I married; I want a divorce” even though for legal purposes
(identifying oneself to police, bankers and so on) the two spouses are
the same people who got married. Indeed, the request for a divorce
actually confirms that the two people are the same two who got married.
one can not simply say “you are not the same person I married; so, I’m
not married”.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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