The tale Parfit tells: Analytic metaphysics of personal identity vs. Wittgensteinian film and literature

Read, Rupert (2015) The tale Parfit tells: Analytic metaphysics of personal identity vs. Wittgensteinian film and literature. Philosophy and Literature, 39 (1). pp. 128-153. ISSN 1086-329X

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Abstract

At the center of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons is nestled a famous short story about a person who uses a teletransporter. Parfit argues that his “thought experiment” shows that “personal identity”—as (analytic) philosophy understands it—doesn’t matter. As long as I know that my “self” on Mars is unharmed by the teletransporter, it shouldn’t matter to me that I remain on Earth, soon to die. I use Christopher Priest’s novel The Prestige and the Nolan brothers’ film of it to challenge the method and alleged moral of this “branch-line” teletransportation thought experiment, treating it as a work of literature in miniature.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Wittgenstein
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2015 07:06
Last Modified:	21 Jul 2023 09:37
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/55754
DOI:	10.1353/phl.2015.0011

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