Immanuel Kant drew a distinction between physiological accounts of human nature – what biology makes of us – and pragmatic accounts – what we can and should make of ourselves. Philosophers have been most interested in the second type of theory...
Imagine an exact replica of you, down to the last molecule and neuron. Now imagine that your twin moves, talks and reacts like you but has no mental life, no consciousness at all. Your twin is a philosophical zombie. Is such a creature logically possible?...
The idea of artificial intelligence is not a new one. Thomas Hobbes, in his introduction to Leviathan (1651), wrote, Why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?...
The problem of free will is one of the most intractable metaphysical questions about human existence. The scientific account of human behaviour seems to deny any freedom to human agents: despite our subjective experience of choice...
There are many questions concerning the nature of personal identity, but perhaps the most discussed is the problem of persistence. Each of us was once a young child, and many of us will survive into old age. The common sense view is that, despite many superficial changes...
There is an old puzzle that has come down to us from ancient Greece. It is known as the Ship of Theseus. I imagine many of you have heard of Theseus. He was one of the great heroes of Greek mythology...
Any investigation into the nature of the self is closely bound up with the mind-body problem and questions of personal identity. However, there is a long philosophical tradition of treating the self as a concept worthy of consideration in its own right...
It is customary for modern philosophers to conceive of human beings in individualistic terms. From the Cartesian ego and Kant’s autonomous moral agent to the modern existentialist, and through the liberal tradition stemming from Locke and the enlightenment...