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Reincarnation and Relativized Identity1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. J. MacIntosh
J. J. MacIntosh
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada
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There are five main claims that may be made about life after death:

(a) We are reincarnated in the self-same body we had in life.

(b) We are reincarnated in another body. (For my purposes in this paper it is a matter of indifference whether this is thought of as reincarnation in anotherworld, or as reincarnation in this world: the arguments I shall be examining apply equally to either case. Throughout the paper the term ‘reincarnation’ used without qualification should be taken to mean ‘reincarnation in a different body’.)

(c) We are revived, or continue to live (or to have conscious existence) in a disembodied form.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 153 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

References

page 153 note 2 I say ‘apparently’, for in his interesting article ‘Rebirth’ (Religious Studies XXIII (1987), 41–57) Roy W. Perrett argues persuasively that in Indian religions the type of rebirth that is invoked does not (and could not) involve personal identity.

page 153 note 3 Kant offers this possibility in the first Critique (A778 = B806–A780 = B808). He emphasizes that it is merely a possibility, one which cannot be known to be true: but it seems likely that it represents his belief about the matter. (See MacIntosh, J. J., ‘The Impossibility of Kantian Immortality’, Dialogue, 1976.)Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 This is explicitly recognized by Badham, Paul, who argues in Christian Beliefs About Life After Death (London, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the necessary acceptance of dualism by Christians.

page 154 note 2 In ‘The Impossibility of Kantian Immortality’, op. cit., I have argued that Kant's version of this story is not only implausible but impossible, but my argument there does not touch the general case. (Indeed, I do not think that there is a sound argument available that defeats the general case.)

page 154 note 3 Williams, Bernard, ‘Personal Identity and Individuation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LVII (1956–1957)Google Scholar, reprinted in Problems of the Self Cambridge, 1970.

page 155 note 1 Nerlich, Graham, ‘On Evidence for Identity’, Australasian journal of Philosophy, XXXVII (1959).Google Scholar

page 155 note 2 I here ignore the argument attributed to fish by Rupert Brooke in ‘Heaven’:

This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were!

However, an extended version of this argument (which he calls ‘the basic religious argument’) may be found in Hick, John, Death and Eternal Life, Harper & Row (1976), pp. 152ff.Google Scholar In ‘The Argument Concerning Immortality’ (Religious Studies, XXII (1956), 219–33) Perrett, Roy W. discusses Hick's version of the argument and concludes, gently but correctly, ‘The argument is…uncompelling’.Google Scholar

page 156 note 1 Dryden, John, ‘Translation of the Latter Part of the Third Book of Lucretius: Against the Fear of Death’, 19–26Google Scholar (The Poems of John Dryden, ed. Kinsley, James (Oxford, 1958), Vol. 1, 405).Google Scholar [Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 3.847–51: … si materiem nostram collegerit aetas/post obitum rursumque redegerit ut sita nunc est/atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae,/pertineat quicquam tarnen ad nos id quoque factum,/interrupta semel cum sit repetentia nostri.]

page 157 note 1 The argument (which is unsound) for the actual non-identity of indiscernibles (and hence against undifferentiated elementary particles such as Newtonian atoms) is based on the principle of sufficient reason. See, e.g., [First Truths], [Discourse on Metaphysics], the fourth letter to Clarke, and [On Nature Itself, or On the Inherent Force and Actions of Created Things].

page 157 note 2 Geach, Peter, God and the Soul, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, 38.Google Scholar

page 157 note 3 Lotze, Rudolph Hermann, Metaphysic, ed. Bosanquet, Bernard (book 3 trans. Bradley, A. C.), Oxford, 1887, vol. 2, 3.5.307, p. 317.Google Scholar The question has also been addressed by Terence Penelhum in response to an Analysis problem set by Prior, A. N.: [Is it possible that one and the same individual object should cease to exist and, later on, start to exist again?], Analysis 17.6, (06, 1957), 123–4.Google Scholar

page 157 note 4 In the Paralogisms.

page 157 note 5 In Survival and Disembodied Identity.

page 158 note 1 Such a proof is not new. See Barcan, Ruth, ‘The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of Second Order’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, XII (1947), 12–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In fact, the Barcan Marcus proof is both more complicated and less open to Quinean objections. For a recent version, which ‘adapts [her proof] almost line for line’, and an important discussion of the issues involved see Wiggins, David, Sameness and Substance, pp. 109–11.Google Scholar

page 159 note 1 Lewis, H. D., The Self and Immortality (Macmillan, 1973), p. 105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 159 note 2 Indeed, has been said, e.g., by Penelhum, MacIntosh, Hick and Langtry. See Penelhum, T. M., Survival and Disembodied Existence;Google ScholarMacIntosh, J. J., ‘Memory and Personal Identity’, in Coval, S. and MacIntosh, J. J., eds., The Business of Reason;Google ScholarHick, John, Theology and Verification', in Theology Today, XVII (1960), as well as chapter 15 of Death and Eternal Life, Harper & Row (1976);Google Scholar and Langtry, Bruce, ‘In Defence of a Resurrection Doctrine’, Sophia, 21.2 (1982).Google Scholar

page 159 note 3 Hick, John, Death and Eternal Life (Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 290–2.Google Scholar As I have indicated, Hick is by no means alone in this view. I single him out simply as a recent, and clear, example.

page 159 note 4 The reference is to Clarke, J. J., ‘John Hick's Resurrection’, Sophia, 10.3 (1971), 18–22.Google Scholar

page 160 note 1 Wiggins, David, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1967), p. 73.Google ScholarWiggins, makes the same point in Sameness and Substance (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1980), p. 208Google Scholar, points out further that ‘if the stipulation theorists had their way, then it would have to make sense to say to the Guy Fawkes claimant: “If it hadn't been for that other fellow, who appears to be just as good as you are at reminiscing about attempts to blow up the Palace of Westminster, you would have been Guy Fawkes.” Even those who doubt that if one is Guy Fawkes, one is necessarily Guy Fawkes must find this idea hard to take seriously.’

page 160 note 2 Lipner, J. J., ‘Hick's Resurrection’, Sophia 18.3 (1979), 22–34.Google Scholar

page 160 note 3 Langtry, Bruce, op. cit.Google Scholar

page 161 note 1 Since S 5, characterized by the axiom ◊p → □ ◊p, contains B, it will also yield these results.

page 162 note 1 See, e.g., Geach, Peter, ‘Identity’, Review of Metaphysics, XXI (1967–1968);Google Scholar and ‘Ontological Relativity and Relative Identity’, in Muniti, M. K., ed., Logic and Ontology (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 See, e.g., Wiggins, David, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar, and Sameness and Substance (Oxford, 1980).Google Scholar For a more lengthy discussion of the points involved see Griffin, Nicholas, Relative Identity (Oxford, 1975).Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 In Naming and Necessity.

page 164 note 2 Prior, Arthur, ‘Identifiable Individuals’, Review of Metaphysics, XXVI (1960).Google Scholar

page 164 note 3 Bogen, James, ‘IdentitY and Origin’, Analysis, XXVI (1966).Google Scholar

page 164 note 4 With thanks to Ali Kazmi, who pointed out to me the possibility of circumventing the problem in this way.