Name: 2.人的本性：二元論與物理論。 (2. The nature of persons: dualism vs. physicalism)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T05:49:06.000Z
Duration: 41 min 38 s
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Professor Shelly Kagan: The first question we want to

to 不定詞

discuss has to do with the possibility of my surviving my

Is there a possibility that I might still exist or survive

after my death? Now at first glance--and in

fact, I think, at second glance it's going to

turn out to be true--you might think that the answer to this

question would depend on two basic issues.

Do I survive my death? Do we survive our deaths?

You think, the first thing we have to get clear on is well

Or generalizing, what kind of thing is a person?

It seems plausible to think that before we could answer the

question, "Do I survive?" we need to know how I'm built.

And so the first thing we're going to spend a fair bit of

time on is trying to get clear on what's a person?

What are the fundamental building blocks of a person?

The second question that you might think we'd want to get

clear on is, "What's the idea, or what's the concept,

of surviving?" Before we ask, "Do I survive?"

and "What is it to survive?" What is it for something that

exists in the future to be me? Now this question can be

discussed philosophically in quite general terms.

What's the nature of persistence of identity over

interested in beings like us, people, this topic,

this sub-specialized version of the question of identity,

gets discussed under the rubric of the topic,

personal identity. What's the key or the nature or

the basis of personal identity? As we might put it:

What is it for somebody who's here next week to be the same

person as me? What's the nature of personal

at first glance you might think to get clear on the answer,

"Do I or might I or could I survive my death?"

we need to know, what am I? What's a person?

What's the metaphysical composition of people,

on the one hand? And we need to get clear on the

Now as I say, I believe that when push comes

to shove, we do need to get clear about both of those

questions and so that's going to take the first several weeks of

of weeks talking about, "What's a person?"

And then we're going to spend several weeks,

or at least a week or so, talking about the nature of

personal identity. But before we can even get

started, there's a question, really an objection to the

whole enterprise. So we're about to spend a lot

of time asking the philosophical question: Is there life after

Might I survive my death? But there's a philosophical

It says the whole question is misconceived.

It's based on a confusion. Once we see the confusion,

we can see what the answer to our question is.

Could I survive my death? The answer has got to be--this

is what the objection says--the answer has got to be,

objection. I should mention that the very

first reading that you're going to be doing is a couple of pages

from Jay Rosenberg, a contemporary philosopher.

So I'll give you one version. You'll have another version in

your readings. The objection basically says:

What does it mean to say that somebody's died?

We're asking, "Is there life after death?"

What does it mean to say that somebody has died?

Well a natural definition of death might be something like

the end of life. So then, if that's right,

then to ask, "Is there life after death?"

is just asking, "Is there life after the end of

the answer to that is no. After all, if we're saying once

you've run out of life, is there any more life?

when I've eaten up all the food on my plate, is there any food

left on my plate? Or what happens in the movie

after the movie ends? These are stupid questions,

because once you understand what they're asking,

the answer is just built in. It follows trivially.

So although it has seemed to people over the ages that the

is one of the great mysteries, one of the great philosophical

things to ponder, the objection says that's a

kind of illusion. In fact, once you think about

it, and not all that long, you can see the answer's got to

after death. There couldn't possibly be life

after the end of life. Or suppose we ask the question

in a slightly different way. Might I survive my death?

Well, survive is something like we say that somebody's a

survivor if something's happened and they haven't died.

They're still alive. When there's a car accident,

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2.人的本性：二元論與物理論。 (2. The nature of persons: dualism vs. physicalism)

material

crucial

physical

person