What are we? Are we, for example, souls, organisms, brains, or something else? In this book, Andrew Brenner argues that there are principled obstacles to our discovering the answer to this fundamental metaphysical question. The main competing accounts of personal ontology hold that we are either souls (or composites of soul and body), or we are composite physical objects of some sort, but, as Brenner shows, arguments for either of these options can be parodied and transformed into their opposites. Brenner also examines arguments for and against the existence of the self, offers a detailed discussion of the metaphysics of several afterlife scenarios - resurrection, reincarnation, and mind uploading -- and considers whether agnosticism with respect to personal ontology should lead us to agnosticism with respect to the possibility of life after death.
Arvustused
'A welcome contribution to an important debate. It brings light to dark areas and never resorts to easy answers. Its treatment of so-called 'no-self' views is especially valuable.' Eric Olson, University of Sheffield
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Presents the main competing accounts of personal ontology: that we are either souls, or we are composite physical objects of some sort.
1. Introduction;
2. Arguments against substance dualism Part 1;
3.
Arguments against substance dualism Part 2: Pairing problems;
4. Arguments
for substance dualism;
5. Interlude: what exactly is the difference between
our being immaterial souls and our being composite physical objects?;
6.
Non-Self Part 1: Arguments against our existence;
7. Non-Self Part 2: The
self exists;
8. Personal ontology and life after death Part 1:
Resurrection, Reincarnation;
9. Personal ontology and life after death Part
2: Mind uploading; Bibliography; Index.
Andrew Brenner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published articles in journals including Analysis, The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Erkenntnis, and Philosophy East and West.
