Replies. Ayer, A. J. In Ayer, A. J. & Macdonald, G., editors, Perception and Identity: Essays Presented to A. J. Ayer, with his Replies, pages 277–333. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1979. abstract bibtex [first paragraph] The problem of giving a wholly adequate account of the conditions that govern personal identity is one that has long troubled me, and I own that I am not entirely satisfied with any of my attempts to solve it. I remain a dualist in the sense that I maintain both a logical and factual distinction between physical and mental proper- ties. I give primacy to the physical in that I believe that mental properties are causally dependent on them, at least to the extent that the possession of physical properties is causally necessary for anything to possess mental ones. This falls short of allowing that there is a perfect correlation between them, which I still regard as an open scientific question and I have not found any good reason to hold, as many philosophers now do, that the possession of a mental property of whatever sort is factually identical with being in some physical state. None of this would be inconsistent with taking the concept of a person to be primitive, in the sense that it is not susceptible of any further analysis than is contained in the statement that persons are persistent objects to which proper- ties of both types are truly ascribable; but that does not content me either. The fact, on which Mr Foster and I are agreed, that Strawson failed in his attempt to prove this conclusion does not show it to be false, but does cast some suspicion on it; and I should in fact be surprised if it could be shown a priori that no further analysis was possible.
@incollection{Ayer1979,
abstract = {[first paragraph] The problem of giving a wholly adequate account of the conditions that govern personal identity is one that has long troubled me, and I own that I am not entirely satisfied with any of my attempts to solve it. I remain a dualist in the sense that I maintain both a logical and factual distinction between physical and mental proper- ties. I give primacy to the physical in that I believe that mental properties are causally dependent on them, at least to the extent that the possession of physical properties is causally necessary for anything to possess mental ones. This falls short of allowing that there is a perfect correlation between them, which I still regard as an open scientific question and I have not found any good reason to hold, as many philosophers now do, that the possession of a mental property of whatever sort is factually identical with being in some physical state. None of this would be inconsistent with taking the concept of a person to be primitive, in the sense that it is not susceptible of any further analysis than is contained in the statement that persons are persistent objects to which proper- ties of both types are truly ascribable; but that does not content me either. The fact, on which Mr Foster and I are agreed, that Strawson failed in his attempt to prove this conclusion does not show it to be false, but does cast some suspicion on it; and I should in fact be surprised if it could be shown a priori that no further analysis was possible.},
address = {Ithaca},
author = {Ayer, A. J.},
booktitle = {Perception and Identity: Essays Presented to A. J. Ayer, with his Replies},
editor = {Ayer, Alfred Jules and Macdonald, Graham},
file = {:Users/michaelk/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded/Ayer - 1979 - Replies.pdf:pdf},
pages = {277--333},
publisher = {Cornell University Press},
title = {{Replies}},
year = {1979}
}
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