Twinning, inorganic replacement, and the organism view

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Abstract

In explicating his version of the Organism View, Eric Olson argues that you begin to exist only after twinning is no longer possible and that you cannot survive a process of inorganic replacement. Assuming the correctness of the Organism View, but pace Olson, I argue in this paper that the Organism View does not require that you believe either proposition. The claim I shall make about twinning helps to advance a debate that currently divides defenders of the Organism View, while the claim I shall make about inorganic replacement will help to put the Organism View on a par with its rival views by allowing it to accommodate a plausible intuition that its rivals can accommodate, namely, the intuition that you can survive a process of inorganic replacement. Both claims, I shall also argue, are important for those who are interested in the identity condition of a human organism, even if they do not hold the view that you are essentially an organism.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)59-72
Number of pages14
JournalRatio
Volume23
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2010

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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