Person As A Sortal And Person As A Phase:A Study Of Two Theories

There are two main theories in contemporary western philosophy theories on person, which one is person as a sortal, and the other is that person is a phrase of human animals. There are two different views of personal identity theories based on the theories of person. One of them is the psychological views which claims person is the category things with special qualities, relying on the psychological traits to preserve personal identity, on the contrary the biological views is known for that person is a phrase of the human animals and person preserves the personal identity in the whole organism. The two conflicting theories push us to opposite positions in dealing with the practical things. Based on the confliction in personal identity theories and the confusions in the moral things of personal identity, I think it is necessary to know clearly the difference between person as a sortal and person as a phrase, further comparing which is more reliable and useful in the applications of personal identity theories.I agree with Olson’s biological view is more reliable through the whole thesis. His view is person as a phrase, which is more convincing in explaining the problems of personal identity. Identity is the identity of our person as animal. And person only means that we are person as phrases in biological. For the sake of making us clearly in the particular cases about the two views, I will express my thesis in three parts.Firstly, I follow the personal cognitive confusion and ambiguities in social moral problems, bring out the two key questions in person identity which are what is a person and what the criterion of personal identity it is. Then I analyze what the word of person stand for and how people use the word of person in daily life, next to describe how the usage of person in law and metaphysics. As a result of the analysis, the key is whether we consider the person as a sortal or a phrase. If person is a sortal, then person will be a special substance with rationality and self-consciousness. If person is a phrase, then person will be an attribute and a part of a human animal. This divergence in philosophy influent the descriptions on person from philosophers, so does in personal identity theories.Secondly, we have known that the fundamental difference is person as a sortal or person as a phrase based on the notion of person, then we will aware that the difference in person makes the theory of personal identity break into two views, which are psychological views and biological view. In the chapter three, I acquaintance that the theory of person as sortal goes into crisis from the road in psychological views, which originate in Locke’s arguments in personal identity from Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Furthermore, I want find the answer for psychological view in Shoemaker’s Quasi-memory theory, but the answer is not. So I turn to research the way that person as a phrase in chapter four. Olson’s biological views object the psychological views, and want find some arguments for the psychological views refutations.In the last part of my thesis, I apply the two theories of personal identity to person-animal problem and donation. The psychological views cannot describe the survive problem suitably, but the biological views can do better in description of survive, also more exactly understanding in animals problem and donation. So I agree that we should consider person as a phrase in human animals instead of the particular substance based on the comparison from the two views. Because we are human animals, so we should more equally live together with other form human organism.