Persons and the Unity of Consciousness

The human person is typically understood as having a unified, coherent self that is a rational agent capable of responding to others. However, phenomena like split-brain patients and multiple personality disorder challenge this unity. This chapter presents the unity of consciousness argument, rooted in Leibniz and Kant, as a counter to those challenges. While the empirical evidence seems to show disunity, the argument and evidence are not inconsistent. Together, they pose a problem for materialist accounts of mind and also reveal a serious difficulty for standard Cartesian dualism. The author concludes by outlining emergent dualism as their preferred metaphysical view of persons.

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Abstract

AbstractWe have a conception of the human person as constituted in part by a self, a unified, coherent center of consciousness which is a rational agent, capable of being responsive, and responsible, to other agents. There are, however, empirical phenomena — in particular, commissurotomy and multiple personality syndrome — that seem to threaten this unity both theoretically and practically. As a counterpoise to these phenomena, this chapter puts forward the unity of consciousness argument, deriving from Leibniz and Kant. While this argument might seem to conflict with the empirical evidence of disunity, the chapter maintains that there is no inconsistency between the evidence and the argument. The combination of the two, in fact, both places a barrier in the way of a materialist account of mind and consciousness, and at the same time points out a severe difficulty for standard (especially Cartesian) varieties of dualism. The chapter closes by sketching out my own preferred view of the metaphysics of persons, emergent dualism.