Materialism, dualism, and “simple” theories of personal identity

“Complex” and “simple” theories of personal identity Derek Parfit introduced “the complex view” and “the simple view” as names for contrasting theories about the nature of personal identity. He detects a “reductionist tradition,” typified by Hume and Locke, and continuing in such twentieth-century philosophers as Grice, Ayer, Quinton, Mackie, John Perry, David Lewis and Parfit himself. According to the reductionists, “the fact of personal identity over time just consists in the holding of certain other facts. It consists in various kinds of psychological continuity, of memory, character, intention, and the like, which in turn rest upon bodily continuity.” The complex view comprises “[t]he central claims of the reductionist tradition” (Parfit 1982, p.227). The complex view about the nature of personal identity is a forerunner to what he later calls “reductionism.” A reductionist is anyone who believes (1) that the fact of a person’s identity over time just consists in the holding of certain more particular facts, and (2) that these facts can be described without either presupposing the identity of this person, or explicitly claiming that the experiences in this person’s life are had by this person, or even explicitly claiming that this person exists. (Parfit 1984, p.210)