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ABSTRACT: In the second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke argues that personal identity over time consists in sameness of consciousness rather than the persistence of any substance, material or immaterial. Something about this view is very compelling, but as it stands it is too vague and problematic to provide a viable account of personal identity. Contemporary "psychological continuity theorists" have tried to amend Locke's view to capture his insights and avoid his difficulties. This paper argues that the standard approach fails because it takes Locke to be a memory theorist, and does not focus enough on his claim that we need continuity of consciousness for personal persistence. An alternative reading of Locke is offered, emphasizing the role of self-understanding in producing continuity of consciousness. This alternative overcomes the difficulties with the standard approach, and shows how it is possible to attribute unconscious psychological elements to a person, even when personal persistence is defined in terms of consciousness.
KEYWORDS: personal identity, consciousness, memory, unconscious, self understanding.
IN THE SECOND EDITION OF THE Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke takes up the question of what makes someone the same person throughout her entire life. His response to this question has served as the starting point for many of the views of personal identity represented in the philosophical literature today. Locke's important contribution is to argue that the continuation of a person is independent of the continuation of any substance-either physical (the body) or nonphysical (the soul). I am the same person as someone who existed in the past, says Locke, if and only if I can extend my current consciousness back to that person's actions. This assertion is usually interpreted as a "memory theory" of personal identity-the view that whatever actions and experiences a person can remember are, for that reason, her actions and experiences.
In some respects, Locke's view is extremely compelling, but at the same time a simple memory theory is totally implausible. Although Locke's arguments that continuation of substance cannot serve as a viable account of personal identity are powerful, a view that implies that a person can have no experiences that he does not (or cannot easily) remember consciously seems far too strong. Locke might or might...