ABSTRACT
Are you the same person now as you were on the day you were born? It seems that no one would answer this question in the negative. However, explaining how this identity over time is possible is a rather tricky issue. After all, the physical changes your body has undergone between your birth and the present are striking: it is possible there is not a single atom that your current body shares in common with your infant body. Perhaps (at least, for humans) identity over time is not tied to your physical sameness but to your mental sameness. However, even if we focus on your mental properties, explaining how you have remained the same person from your birth up until now is diffi cult. Can you (now) remember being an infant? Do you (now) share any specifi c beliefs or desires with your self as an infant? It seems that explaining this identity over time with reference to sameness of mental properties won’t work either. What other options are available? Perhaps you possess an immaterial soul that persists through your life unchanged, and it is by virtue of this that you are the same person as you were at birth. Will this explanation work without introducing even more problems? These are the sorts of questions that fall under the topic “personal identity.” Their answers have ramifi cations for our basic self-understanding, since they imply who and what we are as individuals.
