ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that it is inaccurate to say that according to Locke personal identity consists in memory, that memory is the criterion of personal identity. It argues that, in fact, Locke thinks that personal identity consists in spatio-temporal continuity of consciousness in rather the same way in which the identity of a tree consists in spatiotemporal continuity of a ‘common life’. Memory is good evidence for such continuity in rather the way that observations of the tree are good evidence for its continued identity as a tree. Memory is a test of personal identity, whereas personal identity consists in consciousness. This view is discussed in connection with Locke’s wider discussion of identity, his discussion of paramnesia, his view of the capabilities and limitations of the human memory, and his view of the Last Judgment.
Locke, it is argued, concedes that memory is necessary for continued personal identity in three different senses but that each of these falls short of memory’s being logically necessary for continued personal identity. Locke allows that it is logically necessary for being a person at a given time that the individual in question has the capacity to remember; secondly, that memory is epistemically or evidentially necessary for knowing that one is the same person as some individual in the past; and, thirdly, that memory is necessary for one’s regarding oneself as responsible for some action in the past. It is argued that Locke’s view of the relations between memory, consciousness and personhood can be encapsulated in five theses:
Spatio-temporal continuity of consciousness is logically necessary and sufficient for personal identity over time.
Consciousness, including the ability to remember, is logically necessary and sufficient for being a person at any given time.
Augmented or ideal memory is logically sufficient for continuous personal identity and hence for personal responsibility for past actions.
Memory is evidentially necessary and sufficient for personal identity over time, for an individual consciousness knowing that it is identical with some individual consciousness in the past.
Unaugmented memory is logically sufficient for continuous personal identity.
The chapter concludes by considering six objections to Locke’s view of continuous personal identity.
