Functionalism and personal identity : the case of Mr. Jones

Title: Functionalism and personal identity : the case of Mr. Jones
Source document: Pro-Fil. 2021, vol. 22, iss. Special issue, pp. 23-32
Extent
23-32
  • ISSN
    1212-9097 (online)
Type: Article
Language
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
Stanisław Lem's short story Are you there Mr. Jones?, first published in 1955, is set in a courtroom. The plaintiff is Cybernetics Company – a provider of prosthetics – and the defendant is Harry Jones, a race-car driver. It turns out that Mr. Jones, after a series of grave accidents, has had his entire body gradually replaced by prostheses. He is now deep in debt to the provider, Cybernetics Company, which consequently has sued him to reclaim their property. We aim to show that this short story illustrates important philosophical questions concerning personal identity and persistence over time, and that Lem in fact anticipates several of the main insights of functionalism, later introduced by Putnam (1967) and today a main contender for a theory of the mind. If the identity of Mr. Jones is constituted solely by his prostheses’ functional role, i.e., their causal relations to input, output and other bodily and mental states, Lem here gives us an early example of causal-theoretical functionalism.This brings us to the next question, implicitly raised by Lem: Is functional identity sufficient for personal identity? Is Mr. Jones the same person as he was before replacing all his body parts? In court, Mr. Jones argues for his continued personhood by appealing to memories from the past. This suggests the view that his persistence as a person depends on some form of psychological continuity, and we will discuss how the case of Mr. Jones relates to views on personal identity.
References
[1] Block, N. (1980): Are Absent Qualia Impossible?, Philosophical Review (89), 257–274. | DOI 10.2307/2184650

[2] Block, N. - Fodor, J. (1972): What Psychological States Are Not, Philosophical Review, (81) 159–181. | DOI 10.2307/2183991

[3] Chalmers, D. (1996): The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press.

[4] Dennett D. (1978): Where Am I?, in Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford Books, 356–64.

[5] De Cruz, H. – De Smedt J. – Schwitzgebel E. (eds.) (2021): Philosophy through Science Fiction Stories, Bloomsbury Academics.

[6] Federmann, R. (1983): An Interview with Stanisław Lem, Science Fiction Studies (10)1, [accessed 2021-10-14], available at: < https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/federman29.htm >

[7] Lem, S. (1969): Are you there, Mr. Jones?, Vision of Tomorrow, 1969:08, 55–57, [accessed 2021-10-14], available at: < https://archive.org/details/Vision_of_Tomorrow_v01n01_1969-08_SLiV >.

[8] Lem, S. (1981): The Washing Machine Tragedy, The New Yorker, 1981-11-30, 44-45.

[9] Levin, J. (2018): Functionalism, in Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online], 2004-08-24, rev. 2018-07-20, [accessed 2021-10-14], available at: < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/functionalism/ >.

[10] Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Clarendon Press.

[11] Olson, E. (1997): The Human Animal: Personal Identity Without Psychology, Oxford University Press.

[12] Olson, E. (2019): Personal Identity, in Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2002-08-20, rev. 2019-09-06, [accessed 2021-10-14], available at: < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/identity-personal/ >.

[13] Parfit, D. (1984): Reasons and Persons, Oxford University Press.

[14] Putnam, H. (1960): Minds and Machines, in Putnam, H. (1975): Mind, Language, and Reality, Cambridge University Press, 362–385.

[15] Putnam, H. (1967): The Nature of Mental States, in Putnam, H. (1975): Mind, Language, and Reality, Cambridge University Press, 429–440.

[16] Putnam, H. (1975): Mind, Language, and Reality, Cambridge University Press.

[17] Schneider, S. (ed.) (2016): Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, Wiley.

[18] Sidelle, A. (2011): Parfit on 'the Normal/a Reliable/any Cause' of Relation R, Mind (120), 735–760.

[19] Turing, A. (1950): Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind (59) 433–460. | DOI 10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433