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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
In his Survival and Disembodied Existences Terence Penelhum presents two arguments against the possibility of disembodied survival. The first is that the memory criterion of personal identity is parasitic upon bodily identity and the second is the more fundamental contention that the notion of a disembodied person is unintelligible. Penelhum's claim is not that it is impossible as such to speak of disembodied intelligence, or perception, or even agency, but that the problem of construing the identity of disembodied individuals is overwhelmingly difficult. With regard to the idea of resurrection Penelhum argues that it is intelligible but that the question of whether or not an individual is someone who has been resurrected, or not, is one which no evidence could conclusively settle. It calls for a decision rather than for the production of conclusive evidence. ‘When resurrection is predicted it is always open to a critic to deny that what is predicted has to be accorded that title.’
page 15 note 1 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1970).Google Scholar
page 15 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 103.Google Scholar
page 15 note 3 Penelhum, op. cit. p. 104. At one point (p. 4) Penelhum briefly raises the possibility of combining the notions of disembodied survival and bodily resurrection. It is this possibility that the present paper discusses and defends.Google Scholar
page 16 note 1 God and The Soul (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 22.Google Scholar
page 16 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 71.Google Scholar
page 16 note 3 For these answers see, for example, Plantinga, Alvin, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), chapters IV–VIGoogle Scholar; Brody, Baruch, ‘Is There a Philosophical Problem about the Identity of Substances?’ (Philosophia, vol. 1 (1971), pp. 43–60)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Locke on the Identity of Persons’ (American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 9, number 4 (October 1972), pp. 327–34).Google Scholar
page 17 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. pp. 73 ff.Google Scholar
page 17 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 71.Google Scholar
page 18 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 74.Google Scholar
page 18 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 25.Google Scholar
page 18 note 3 Penelhum, , op. cit. pp. 74 f.Google Scholar
page 18 note 4 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 76.Google Scholar
page 19 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 75.Google Scholar
page 19 note 2 As, on Brody's interpretation, Locke argues. See ‘Locke on the Identity of Persons’.
page 20 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 55.Google Scholar
page 21 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. pp. 55–6, 75.Google Scholar
page 21 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 62Google Scholar. Shoemaker's, thesis can be found in ‘Personal Identity and Memory’ (Journal of Philosophy, vol. LVI, 1959)Google Scholar and Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), ch. 6, sect. 5.Google Scholar
page 21 note 3 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 65. Italics in original.Google Scholar
page 21 note 4 Penelhum, , op. cit. pp. 66–7.Google Scholar
page 22 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 65.Google Scholar
page 22 note 2 This view corresponds to Anthony Kenny's interpretation of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. See his ‘The Verification Principle and the Private Language Argument’ in The Private Language Argument, ed. Jones, O. R. (London: Macmillan, 1971), esp. pp. 217–18.Google Scholar
page 23 note 1 On this point see ‘The Private Language Argument’, Grandy, R. E. (Mind, vol. LXXXV, no. 338 April 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 23 note 2 On the sense of ‘know’ see Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations, trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford, 1953), p. 223.Google Scholar
page 23 note 3 Strawson, P. F., Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959), pp. 115–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 24 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 56.Google Scholar
page 24 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 65.Google Scholar
page 24 note 3 Lewis, H. D., The Self and Immortality (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 268–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 25 note 1 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 94.Google Scholar
page 25 note 2 Penelhum, , op. cit. p. 95.Google Scholar
page 26 note 1 The possibilities here have been imaginatively explored by Price, H. H.. See ‘Survival and the idea of “another world”’ in Brain and Mind, ed. Smythies, J. R. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965).Google Scholar
page 26 note 2 The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), ch. XXXII.Google Scholar
