This is it

This is Philosophy Bites with me David Edmonds

And me, Nigel Warburton.

Philosophy Bites is available at

W.w. Philosophy Bites.com.

There can't be any more basic question than this. What is it that makes you, you?

According to the English philosopher John Locke, I'm the same person now as the kid who was once in

nursery school because I can remember my

performance in the Nativity play. I'm the same person now as fingers crossed

the person who makes it into old age because when I do I'll be able to recall recording these philosophy

by its cues. The person is, as it were, located in the mind or brain. But there's an opposing

and perhaps more straightforward explanation that I'm an organism, an animal, and that it's the continuity of my body that makes me me.

This view is sometimes called animalist, and one leading Animalist is the highly intelligent

organism in the form of Professor Paul Snowden of University College London.

Paul Snowden, welcome to Frostve Bites. It's a pleasure to be here with you. We're going to talk

about persons and animals. The concept of a person is much discussed by philosophers, but

it's not a natural starting point for ordinary people I would say.

I agree with you that we have the term person in the English language and we use it

but it isn't clear quite what the term person means.

philosophers have found that very difficult to explain.

And so making the term person the center of a philosophical inquiry has its problems.

But what got it all started? I mean why is personal identity the topic on the syllabus for philosophy students?

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