ABSTRACT
Recently, though, there has been something of a consensus that persons may not be identified with their bodies, even if persons are 'nothing over and above' their bodies, even if all the parts of persons are parts of their bodies. Two sorts of arguments have often been offered in favour of the distinctness of persons from their bodies, the argument from temporal discemibility, and the argument from modal discemibility. The argument from modal discemibility differs from the argument from temporal discemibility in that its validity is considerably more controversial. It is sometimes thought that identifying persons with their bodies is no more defensible than identifying gold rings with the gold they are made of, inasmuch as the same kind of (temporal or modal) discemibility arguments that establish the distinctness of a gold ring from the gold it is made of also establish the distinctness of persons from their bodies.
