On Sameness and Selfhood

I hope in this paper to establish that, in an important sense of ‘empirical’, the concept of personal identity is not wholly an empirical concept. It cannot therefore be equated, as some philosophers have maintained, with the concept of some relation or set of relations whose existence could only be discovered empirically. I also hold that the concept of identity is not the concept of a relation at all. If, therefore, it is implicit in thoughts that we have of ourselves as remembering, intending, fearing, etc., which are crucial to our thought of ourselves as persons, it is difficult to see how it could be replaced, as has also been envisaged, by some relational concept or concepts. I do not believe that the concept of personal identity can either be reduced to some other concept, or allowed to fall into disuse as a relic of outworn, metaphysical beliefs no longer important to us.