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?
Cologne 01-May-2008
Joseph Polanik schrieb Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:56:53 -0400:
> 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.
>
> JP: 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
>
ME: The married couple applying for a divorce is therefore both the same and different.
The same two people are married. And different, because the marriage, which is a way of
living together constituting a ‘we’ as couple, has irretrievably broken down, i.e.
changed.
The same paradox between identity and difference, however, already crops up in the
simplest of identifications such as identifying this as an e-mail. This is obviously an
e-mail and, just as obviously, this is different from an e-mail. The identification
brings two differentes, viz. this and the e-mail, together and is therefore the unity
of identity and difference.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_- artefact at t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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