MindPapers: 4.8g. Fission and Split Brains

Anderson, Susan L. (1976). Coconsciousness and numerical identity of the person. Philosophical Studies 30 (July):1-10. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Baillie, James (1991). Split brains and single minds. Journal of Philosophical Research 16:11-18. (Google)

Bajakian, Mark (forthcoming). How to count people. Philosophical Studies. (Google)

Abstract: How should we count people who have two cerebral hemispheres that cooperate to support one mental life at the level required for personhood even though each hemisphere can be disconnected from the other and support its “own” divergent mental life at that level? On the standard method of counting people, there is only one person sitting in your chair and thinking your thoughts even if you have two cerebral hemispheres of this kind. Is this method accurate? In this paper, I argue that it is not, and I advocate an alternative I call the Multiple Person View

Brueckner, Anthony L. (2005). Branching in the psychological approach to personal identity. Analysis 65 (288):294-301. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Chandler, Hugh S. (ms). Parfit on Division. (Google)

Cheng, Charles L. Y. (1978). On Puccetti's two-persons view of man. Southern Journal of Philosophy 16:605-616. (Google)

Davis, Lawrence H. (1997). Cerebral hemispheres. Philosophical Studies 87 (2):207-22. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

de Weg, Henk bij (ms). Can a person break a world record? (Google)

Abstract: Most philosophers in the analytical philosophy answer the question what personal identity is in psychological terms. Arguments for substantiating this view are mainly based on thought experiments of brain transfer cases and the like in which persons change brains. However, in these thought experiments the remaining part of the body plays only a passive part. In this paper I argue that the psychological approach of personal identity cannot be maintained, if the whole body is actively involved in the analysis, and that the body is an intrinsic part of what I am as a person.

Ehring, Douglas E. (1999). Fission, fusion, and the Parfit revolution. Philosophical Studies 94 (3):329-32. (Google | More links)

Ehring, Douglas E. (1995). Personal identity and the r-relation: Reconciliation through cohabitation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (3):337-346. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Eklund, Matti (2002). Personal identity and conceptual incoherence. Noûs 36 (3):465-485. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Garrett, Brian J. (2004). Johnston on fission. Sorites 15 (December):87-93. (Google)

Gendler, Tamar Szabó (2002). Personal identity and thought-experiments. Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):34-54. (Cited by 6 | Google | More links)

Abstract: Through careful analysis of a speciﬁc example, Parﬁt’s ‘ﬁssion argument’ for the unimportance of personal identity, I argue that our judgements concerning imaginary scenarios are likely to be unreliable when the scenarios involve disruptions of certain contingent correlations. Parﬁt’s argument depends on our hypothesizing away a number of facts which play a central role in our understanding and employment of the very concept under investigation; as a result, it fails to establish what Parﬁt claims, namely, that identity is not what matters. I argue that Parﬁt’s conclusion can be blocked without denying that he has presented an imaginary case where prudential concern would be rational in the absence of identity. My analysis depends on the recognition that the features that explain or justify a relation may be distinct from the features that underpin it as necessary conditions

Gillett, Grant R. (1986). Brain bisection and personal identity. Mind 95 (April):224-9. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Gill, Jerry H. (1980). Of split brains and tacit knowing. International Philosophical Quarterly 20 (March):49-58. (Cited by 2 | Google)

Greenwood, John D. (1993). Split brains and singular personhood. Southern Journal of Philosophy 31 (3):285-306. (Cited by 3 | Google)

Hawley, Katherine (2005). Fission, fusion and intrinsic facts. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (3):602-621. (Google | More links)

Abstract: Closest-continuer or best-candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it’s hard to say why. The standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this supervenience claim. Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one-size-fits all objection to closest-continuer accounts of persistence

Hirsch, E. (1991). Divided minds. Philosophical Review 1 (January):3-30. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Johnston, Mark (1989). Fission and the facts. Philosophical Perspectives 3:369-97. (Cited by 16 | Google | More links)

Marks, Charles E. (1980). Commissurotomy, Consciousness, and Unity of Mind. MIT Press. (Cited by 29 | Google | More links)

Martin, R. (1995). Fission rejuvenation. Philosophical Studies 80 (1):17-40. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Margolis, Joseph (1975). Puccetti on brains, minds, and persons. Philosophy of Science 42 (September):275-280. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Matheson, Carl A. (1990). Consciousness and synchronic identity. Dialogue 523:523-530. (Google)

Merricks, Trenton (1997). Fission and personal identity over time. Philosophical Studies 88 (2):163-186. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links)

Mills, Eugene O. (1993). Dividing without reducing: Bodily fission and personal identity. Mind 102 (405):37-51. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Montgomery, Brint A. (2003). Consciousness and Personhood in Split-Brain Patients. Dissertation, University of Oklahoma (Google)

Moor, James H. (1982). Split brains and atomic persons. Philosophy of Science 49 (March):91-106. (Cited by 11 | Google | More links)

Nagel, Thomas (1971). Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness. Synthese 22 (May):396-413. (Cited by 62 | Google | More links)

Parfit, Derek A. (1987). Divided minds and the nature of persons. In Colin Blakemore & Susan A. Greenfield (eds.), Mindwaves. Blackwell. (Cited by 7 | Google)

Perry, John (1972). Can the self divide? Journal of Philosophy 64 (7):463-88. (Cited by 22 | Google | More links)

Peterson, Gregory R. (2004). Do split brains listen to prozac? Zygon 39 (3):555-576. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Puccetti, Roland (1975). A reply to professor Margolis' Puccetti on Brains, Minds, and Persons. Philosophy of Science 42 (September):275-285. (Google)

Puccetti, Roland (1973). Brain bisection and personal identity. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24 (April):339-55. (Cited by 22 | Google | More links)

Puccetti, Roland (1993). Dennett on the split-brain. Psycoloquy 4 (52). (Cited by 7 | Google | More links)

Abstract: In "Consciousness Explained," Dennett (1991) denies that split-brain humans have double consciousness: he describes the experiments as "anecdotal." In attempting to replace the Cartesian Theatre of the Mind" with his own "Multiple Drafts" view of consciousness, Dennett rejects the notion of the mind as a countable thing in favour of its being a mere "abstraction." His criticisms of the standard interpretation of the split-brain data are analyzed here and each is found to be open to objections. There exist people who have survived left ["dominant"] cerebral hemispherectomy; by Dennett's criteria, they would not have minds

Puccetti, Roland (1973). Multiple identity. Personalist 54:203-13. (Cited by 2 | Google)

Puccetti, Roland (1993). Mind with a double brain. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (4):675-92. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links)

Puccetti, Roland (1989). Two brains, two minds. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40:137-44. (Google)

Puccetti, Roland (1981). The case for mental duality: Evidence from split-brain data and other considerations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4:93-123. (Cited by 19 | Google)

Puccetti, Roland (1975). The mute self: A reaction to DeWitt's alternative account of the split-brain data. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (1):65-73. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Rigterink, Roger J. (1980). Puccetti and brain bisection: An attempt at mental division. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (September):429-452. (Cited by 1 | Google)

Roache, Rebecca (2010). Fission, cohabitation and the concern for future survival. Analysis 70 (2). (Google | More links)

Robinson, Daniel N. (1976). What sort of persons are hemispheres? Another look at "split-brain" man. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (March):73-8. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links)

Seibt, J. (2002). Fission, sameness, and survival: Parfit's branch line argument revisited. Metaphysica 1 (2):95-134. (Google)

Shaffer, Jerome A. (1977). Personal identity: The implications of brain bisection and brain transplants. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2 (June):147-61. (Google | More links)

Sperry, Roger W. (1984). Consciousness, personal identity and the divided brain. Neuropsychologia 22:611-73. (Cited by 52 | Google)

Williams, Robert (ms). Indeterminate survival. (Google | More links)

Abstract: Most views of personal identity allow that sometimes, facts of personal identity can be borderline or indeterminate. Bernard Williams argued that regarding questions of one’s own survival as borderline “had no comprehensible representation” in one’s emotions and expectations. Whether this is the case, I will argue, depends crucially on what account of indeterminacy is presupposed

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