Philosophy of Personal Identity and Multiple Personality

by Logi Gunnarsson

Overview

As witnessed by recent films such as Fight Club and Identity, our culture is obsessed with multiple personality—a phenomenon raising intriguing questions about personal identity. This study offers both a full-fledged philosophical theory of personal identity and a systematic account of multiple personality. Gunnarsson combines the methods of analytic philosophy with close hermeneutic and phenomenological readings of cases from different fields, focusing on psychiatric and psychological treatises, self-help books, biographies, and fiction. He develops an original account of personal identity (the authorial correlate theory) and offers a provocative interpretation of multiple personality: in brief, "multiples" are right about the metaphysics but wrong about the facts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135212810
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/11/2009
Series:	Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	242
File size:	388 KB

About the Author

Logi Gunnarsson is Professor of Philosophy at University of Potsdam, Germany.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Introduction

1. Am I Alone in My Body?





2. Multiple Personality





3. Personal Identity





Part II: Diachronic Identity





4. What Am I Fundamentally?





5. Empirical Discernability and Fission





6. My Body





7. The Various Senses of "Personal Identity"





Part III: Multiple Personality and Individuation





8. Morton Prince’s Seminal Case Study The Dissociation of a Personality





9. Philosophical Theories of Multiple Personality





10. The Coexistence Thesis





11. Sharing My Body





12. A Criterion of Individuation





13. Multiple Personality in Therapeutic and Biographic Discourses





14. Multiple Personality in Literary Discourses

Notes

Bilbilgraphy

Inbdex

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'A fine contribution to the discussion of the phenomenon of multiple personality and, more broadly, to issues of personal identity. The analysis is sharp; the writing, clear and succinct.' – John P. Lizza, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

'Gunnarsson, with great scholarship and clarity, provides a fresh and innovative analysis of multiple personality and personal identity by providing an approach that ties a theory of personal identity with multiple personality. This book is of interest especially for academicians and students from variety of disciplines. I also found this book very useful for a course on philosophy of self or personal identity.' – Kamuran Godelek, Cag University, Turkey Metapsychology Online Reviews

Editorial Reviews

"a fine contribution to the discussion of the phenomenon of multiple personality and, more broadly, to issues of personal identity. The analysis is sharp; the writing, clear and succinct."—John P. Lizza, Notre Dame Philosophical Review

'A fine contribution to the discussion of the phenomenon of multiple personality and, more broadly, to issues of personal identity. The analysis is sharp; the writing, clear and succinct.' – John P. Lizza, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

'Gunnarsson, with great scholarship and clarity, provides a fresh and innovative analysis of multiple personality and personal identity by providing an approach that ties a theory of personal identity with multiple personality. This book is of interest especially for academicians and students from variety of disciplines. I also found this book very useful for a course on philosophy of self or personal identity.' – Kamuran Godelek, Cag University, Turkey Metapsychology Online Reviews

From the Publisher