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Step 4 of 7~8 min read~38 min left
Locke's Prince and the Cobbler
Examine Locke's original thought experiment and its direct implications.
“Should the soul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince's past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler as soon as deserted by his own soul, everyone sees he would be the same person as the prince, accountable only for the prince's actions. [...] Thus we get Locke's theory: personal identity across time consists entirely in a relation of first-person consciousness via memory across time. [...] Personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. [...] It follows that memory is what makes personal identity. — Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxvii.15 (1689); Notre Dame philolibrary 'You Are Who You Remember' (2025); PMC 'John Locke on Personal Identity' (1996)”