Conventionalist Accounts of Personal Identity Over Time

Conventionalism about personal identity over time is the view that personal identity is in some sense dependent on our beliefs, desires, social practices, or language use (collectively: on our “conventions”). This paper provides an opinionated survey of the state of the art about personal identity conventionalism. First, it offers a taxonomy of possible types of conventionalism along four different axes and discusses weak vs. strong, private vs. public, doxastic vs. non-doxastic, and realizer-relative vs. assessor-relative varieties of conventionalism. Second, it reviews the main sources of motivation for conventionalism about personal identity: methodological, epistemological, and normative motivations. Third, it maps out the place of conventionalism in logical space and distinguishes it from related philosophical theses: personal identity pluralism, indeterminacy about personal identity, revisionism, and self-concern relativism. Finally, some potential avenues for future research are considered.