[學術演講] The Extreme Claim

臺    大    哲    學    系

學    術    討    論    會    公    告

主講人：Prof. Nicholas Rimell

香港中文大學哲學系助理教授

主  題：The Extreme Claim

時  間：114年10月27日（週一）

           下午14:30-16:30

地  點：人文館345室（台北市羅斯福路四段1號）

歡迎參加討論，謝謝！

Seminar

Speaker: Prof. Nicholas Rimell   

Assistant Professor,Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Title: The Extreme Claim

Date: 14:30 – 16:30 pm, Monday,         October 27, 2025

Venue: Room 345, Humanities Hall (No.

            1,Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei)

Abstract：

Derek Parfit accepts reductionism, the view that “the fact of a person’s identity over time just consists in the holding of certain more particular facts” (Reasons and Persons, p. 210). Parfit infers from this that what (if anything) matters in survival – what (if anything) makes it rational for me now to have selfish concern for my future, makes it possible to compensate me later for current losses, and makes me now praiseworthy or blameworthy for past deeds – is not personal identity. Parfit then expresses ambivalence between two possibilities: the moderate claim says that what matters in survival is a cross-temporal relation other than personal identity; the extreme claim says that I have, over time, what matters in survival only if personal identity does not consist in the holding of certain more particular facts but is, instead, a deep further fact. It follows from the extreme claim and reductionism that I do not have what matters in survival – indeed, that nothing matters in survival. I shall argue that the extreme claim is true and that, because of this, reductionism is false. I shall not argue – or presuppose – that I do have what matters in survival.