Personal Ontology
Personal Ontology
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What are we? Are we, for example, souls, organisms, brains, or something else? In this book, Andrew Brenner argues that there are principled obstacles to our discovering the answer to this fundamental metaphysical question. The main competing accounts of personal ontology hold that we are either souls (or composites of soul and body), or we are composite physical objects of some sort, but, as Brenner shows, arguments for either of these options can be parodied and transformed into their opposites. Brenner also examines arguments for and against the existence of the self, offers a detailed discussion of the metaphysics of several afterlife scenarios - resurrection, reincarnation, and mind uploading -- and considers whether agnosticism with respect to personal ontology should lead us to agnosticism with respect to the possibility of life after death.
- Offers a unique and original approach to a classic philosophical debate
- Evaluates Buddhist philosophical arguments often overlooked by analytic philosophers working on personal ontology
- Advances the discussion of the metaphysics of several afterlife scenarios and helps shape the burgeoning discussion of the ontology of 'uploaded' minds
Reviews & endorsements
'A welcome contribution to an important debate. It brings light to dark areas and never resorts to easy answers. Its treatment of so-called 'no-self' views is especially valuable.' Eric Olson, University of Sheffield
Product details
August 2025Paperback
9781009367066
249 pages
229 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from August 2025
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Arguments against substance dualism – Part 1
- 3. Arguments against substance dualism – Part 2: Pairing problems
- 4. Arguments for substance dualism
- 5. Interlude: what exactly is the difference between our being immaterial souls and our being composite physical objects?
- 6. Non-Self – Part 1: Arguments against our existence
- 7. Non-Self – Part 2: The self exists
- 8. Personal ontology and life after death – Part 1: Resurrection, Reincarnation
- 9. Personal ontology and life after death – Part 2: Mind uploading
- Bibliography
- Index.
