Amnesia and Psychological Continuity

Abstract

Is amnesia the mother of discontinuity? Perhaps surprisingly, amnesia is perfectly compatible with psychological continuity. Think, for example, of David Wiggins’ version of Locke. Wiggins first describes a relation C of strong co-consciousness which gives continuity ‘between person Ptj and person Qtk such that, for some sufficiency of things actually done, witnessed, experienced, … at any time by Ptj, Qtk should later have sufficient real or apparent recollection of then doing, witnessing, experiencing, … them.’ Wiggins continues:… anyone bent on grasping the nerve of Locke's conception of person would see … that the identity-condition he had to refute was one which made the persistence of person P depend only upon P's being related at each successive phase of his biography in this C-relation to P at each previous phase