ABSTRACT
The final of the three key elements of personal identity is the notion of the continuity of experience without which the concept of personal identity would lose its grounding. The notion of continuity reflects the assumption that the “I” of human experience is not without a history: It finds itself in the context of past experiences, which the experiential “I” encounters in memories as well as in any given situation. When I wake up in the morning, I do not find myself undetermined in a field of snow without any traces, reminiscent of Locke’s tabula rasa, but rather thrown into a situation, a family, an occupation, a living situation, contracts, expectations, promises, that is, into a context of identity: Everything I encounter, be it the workload on my desk, the letters on the table, or the greetings of colleagues at work, constitutes not only a socially but also a historically determined identity, a historical factuality, which I cannot escape. When I encounter a colleague, my identity is not merely manifested vis-à-vis her/him in the present but also vis-à-vis my history in the sense that what I said and did yesterday matters to our relationship today. Every move I make becomes a token of, and witness to, my own continuity.
