Personal Identity

Description

First off, I would like to point out that the main reason I am writing a review of this book is simply that there is no other review at Amazon at this time. And since I believe this to be a valuable book, I find it disconcerting that there is so little information here by which to assess it. Second off, I confess to not having read the whole book--and also to not having understood all that I did read. Be that as it may, I offer the following comments for what they're worth.

Be forewarned: this is a difficult book, and if you're not already somewhat familiar with the topic, it will be nearly impossible to understand. Nonetheless, it provides a thorough and fair overview of the field. In fact, from my cursory review of books in the field, Noonan's seems to be one of the more valuable. Noonan has a knack for writing brief, lucid summaries of different arguments, and it is useful to examine such arguments together in compact form. Unfortunately, given the compact nature of the book and the subtle nature of the arguments, the book will be incomprehensibly obscure to most readers. If you're looking for something introductory, Perry's anthology is a better starting place, and Parfit's 'Reasons and Persons' (part 3) is excellent and better known.

Actually, comparing Parfit's book against Noonan's makes for an interesting contrast. Parfit's book is famous for being original and ground-breaking. Noonan's book is primarily an overview. Given that, you might expect that Noonan's book would be more accessible. But the truth is the opposite: Parfit's book is surprisingly readable while Noonan's can be frustratingly inscrutable.

Speaking more generally, if you have never read in this topic, I should also warn you that these books are very strange creatures. The strangeness comes from their hybrid nature: hypothetical cases drawn from science-fiction, technical and logical discussions, argumentation (the type that lawyers would be at home in), extremely subtle distinctions, and reliance on intuition. This last element might appear to be out of place (at least it seemed so for me). Yet, in most of the argumentation, intuition plays a critical role. A writer will present some strange hypothetical case, and then ask something like, "is A the same person?" The writer is not expecting a right or wrong answer from you; on the contrary, the question is literally asking you how you feel about it. Does your intuition tell that this is (or is not) the same person? Such reliance on intuition might seem to be a weakness, and intuitive judgments do often look like mere opinion. One could easily be dismissive of the value of intuition, preferring hard facts. But unfortunately, when trying to proceed on an entirely objective method, problems arise. Such a method leads to a dead end (for many of the writers anyway). Like it or not, personal identity has a strong subjective element. But perhaps the subjectivity is acceptable here. Our intuitive judgments are necessarily bound up with deep beliefs about who we are and what we value. And since those beliefs are important, intuitive judgments based on those beliefs are important as well.

Another element in these books is their extreme subtlety. Here, I will provide a description of my own experience while reading Noonan. I have no doubt that Noonan is a clear writer. But the arguments in themselves are often subtle, and Noonan's writing is terse--often too terse to do justice to the subtlety. For example, Noonan takes great care in laying out an argument (even one he disagrees with). But then the specific way that Noonan has laid out the argument also exposes its weakness to the point of the weakness' being obvious (at least to Noonan). But the weakness often remained obscure to me. The obstacle for me was that I needed to focus an intense amount of intellectual concentration just to understand the gist of the argument; but in the meantime the subtleties escaped me. Then continuing on into the very next paragraph following the argument, Noonan would rebut the argument with a single short sentence, assuming that the reader sees the weakness as well as he does. So, in several cases, Noonan is saying something like 'Voila, rebutted,' while I am thinking 'what the he#* are you talking about?' In such cases, I would have to re-read the passages several times until Noonan's rebuttal became visible to me. But, even then, the ultimate point sometimes escaped me.

Nonetheless, this is a valuable book, and I found it intriguing. An additional benefit was the frequent eureka feeling one gets when finally understanding a difficult problem.

To finish, I'll tack on some quotes from other writers commenting on this book.

Paul Edwards: 'To find one's way in the maze of conflicting theories and extremely subtle arguments, one cannot do better than consult Noonan's Personal Identity, which in addition to tracing the history of the subject, lucidly and fairly explains the competing positions and offers judicious comments on the arguments that have dominated contemporary discussions.'

Brian Garrett: 'This is a very useful book. Noonan provides a comprehensive discussion of issues.' 'Noonan's book is much to be recommended. It is clearly written, thoughtfully argued, and provides a useful foil to the more popular theories of Parfit and Nozick.'

E.J. Lowe: The historical chapters are 'clear' and 'probing.' The non-historical part 'provides a well-informed and sophisticated discussion of the opinions of ... modern authors.' Overall, the book is 'very rewarding and challenging.'