Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on THE ISSUE OF SELF IDENTITY IN JOHN PERRY’S DIALOGUE ON PERSONAL IDENTITY AND IMMORTALITY
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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page paper discusses the proposition put forth in John Perry's book, DIALOGUE ON PERSONAL IDENTITY AND IMMORTALITY. The theme of identity surviving the grave is argued and supported with examples and quotes from the text. Bibliography lists 1 source.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_MBperry.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
propose to know the answers. John Perry in his book, Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, by-passes the issue that seems to have hung many philosophers in ages past: Do
we have a soul? Instead, he assumes that we all have a soul, and that it is ones soul that gives us identity, not ones body. Many have read
Perry and ultimately come to the conclusion that Perry is rejecting the notion that the soul gives one their identity. However, when one stops to investigate the core tool that
philosophers use when they are making their point, it is obvious that he is using is clued into this in two ways. First, the fact that he has titled his
collection, Dialogues, just as Socrates and other philosophers did. Secondly, it must be stated that Perry, though he seems to be against the idea of soul creating identity, actually makes
a very good argument for it though the other characters points of view. Does your soul define who you are? he asks several people. A girl named Gretchen states
"Simply persuade me that my survival, after the death of this body, is possible, and I promise to be comforted"(Perry 7). This then serves as the first crucial point: Does
a persons soul retain identity after the body is gone? In other words, even if the soul survived but none of that element which was Gretchen was there, then she
would not be comforted to merely have survived, because in essence, she, Gretchen, has not. Perry offers the theory of Merger with Being, which Gretchen also rejects because a
merger with being means that her identity would also cease to exist. But, if one reads closely the question that is suggested is also the answer. The question is: What
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