Personal Identity: Philosophical Views

Part I of Essay
Alan Watts once said, "Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth." The task of personal identity is to define a quality of a human which makes him or her a unique self. The person whose identity is in question must realize themselves, and other peo ....

Part II of Essay
.... to a body. If John goes to war, becomes injured by a mine, and then has his legs amputated is he not still the same person, John? Therefore, the preceding definition of body theory is not sufficient, since it does not account alterations to the same body. Yet another problem is numerical. If someone were to get a finger chopped off, would that finger be considered another person? What if a scientist was to use someone's DNA and replicate another person with the same body? Surely just because there are two identical bodies, these bodies ....