Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:11:14.369Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Death and Persistence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2022

Rebekah L. H. Rice
Affiliation:
Seattle Pacific University

Summary

The idea that physical death may not mark the end of an individual's existence has long been a source of fascination. It is perhaps unsurprising that we are apt to wonder what it is that happens to us when we die. Is death the end of me and all the experiences that count as mine? Or might I exist, and indeed have experiences, beyond the time of my death? And yet, deep metaphysical puzzles arise at the very suggestion that persons might continue to exist following physical death. Indeed, whether, and how, one can exist post-mortem will depend in no small part on what sorts of things we are and on what it takes for things like us to persist across temporal durations and other changes. These topics and their application to the growing collection of materialist accounts of resurrection are the focus of this Element.
Get access
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781108688956
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 12 May 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, L. R. (2011). Christian Materialism in a Scientific Age. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 70(1), 4759. https://doi.org/10.1007?S11153-010-9283-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, L. R. (2007). Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection. Religious Studies, 43(3), 333–48. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412507008931CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, L. R. (2000). Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, L. R. (1997). Why Constitution is Not Identity. Journal of Philosophy, 94(12), 599621. https://doi.org/10.1017?S0034412507008931CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blatti, S. (2020). Animalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), E. N. Zalta, ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/animalism/Google Scholar
Buckareff, A. and Nagasawa, Y. (2016). Alternative Concepts of God: Essays on the Metaphysics of the Divine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. (1932/33). Psychology in Physical Language. Erkenntnis, 3, 107–42.Google Scholar
Chalmers, D. (1996). The Conscious Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Corcoran, K. (2001). Physical Persons and Postmortem Survival without Temporal Gaps. In Corcoran, K., ed., Soul, Body, and Survival. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 201–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, S. T and Yang, E. T. (2017). Composition and the Will of God. In Byerly, T. R. and Silverman, E. J., eds., Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 213–26.Google Scholar
Descartes, R. (1988). Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, trans. by Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., and Murdoch, D.. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, M. (2020). A Renewed Challenge to Anti-criterialism. Erkenntnis, 85, 165–82. https://doi-org.ezproxy.spu.edu/10.1007/s10670-018-0023-7Google Scholar
Duncan, M. (2014). A Challenge to Anti-criterialism. Erkenntnis, 79(2), 283–96. https://doi-org.ezproxy.spu.edu/10.1007/s10670-013-9494-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Effingham, N. (2015). Multiple Location and Christian Philosophical Theology. Faith and Philosophy, 32, 2544.Google Scholar
Ganeri, J. (1999). Self-Intimation, Memory and Personal Identity. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 27, 469–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetz, S. and Taliaferro, C. (2008). The Prospect of Christian Materialism. Christian Scholar’s Review, 37(3), 303–21.Google Scholar
Hasker, W. (2001). The Emergent Self. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. (1949). The Logical Analysis of Psychology. In Feigl, H. and Sellars, W., eds., Readings in Philosophical Analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, pp. 373–84. Reprinted in N. Block, ed., 1980, Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 1423.Google Scholar
Hendricks, P. (2021). We are not in the Dark: Refuting Popular Arguments Against Skeptical Theism. American Philosophical Quarterly, 58(2), 125–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/48614000Google Scholar
Hershenov, D. (2002). Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the Materialist Conception of Resurrection. Religious Studies, 38(4), 451–69. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412502006248Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (2017). The Resurrection and Hypertime. In Byerly, T. R. and Silverman, E. J., eds., Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 264–72.Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (2014). Father of Lies? In Kvanvig, J., ed., Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 147–66. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198704768.001.0001Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (2010). Location, Multiple and Resurrection, Single Location. In Gasser, G., ed., Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death? Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 87101.Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (2005). The Metaphysics of Hyperspace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, H. (2001). A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J. (2014). In Defense of Emergent Individuals: A Reply to Moreland. Faith and Philosophy, 31(1), 91104. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil2014193CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, M. (1992). Constitution is Not Identity. Mind, 101(401), 89106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J. (2018). Against Cartesian Dualism. In Loose, J. L., Menuge, A. J. L., and Moreland, J. P., eds., The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 152–167.Google Scholar
Kim, J. (2011). Philosophy of Mind, 3rd ed. New York: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, J. (2001). Lonely Souls: Causality and Substance Dualism. In Corcoran, K., ed., Soul, Body, and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 30–43.Google Scholar
Kim, J. (1993). Concepts of Supervenience. In Kim, J., ed., Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 5378.Google Scholar
Kleinschmidt, S. (2011). Multilocation and Mereology. Philosophical Perspectives, 25, 253–76.Google Scholar
Lugioyo, B. (2016). Whose Interpretation? Which Anthropology? Indeed: A Response to John W. Cooper. In Crisp, T. M., Porter, S. L., and Elshof, G. A. Ten, eds., Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science, and Theology. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 258–68.Google Scholar
Madden, R. (2016). Human Persistence. Philosophers’ Imprint, 16(17), 118.Google Scholar
Mavrodes, G. (1977). The Life Everlasting and the Bodily Criterion of Identity. Noûs, 11(1), 2739.Google Scholar
Melnyk, A. (1994). Being a Physicalist: How and (More Importantly) Why. Philosophical Studies, 74(2), 221–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merricks, T. (2009). The Resurrection of the Body. In Flint, T. P. and Rea, M. C., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 476–90.Google Scholar
Merricks, T. (2001). How to Live Forever Without Saving Your Soul. In Corcoran, K., ed., Soul, Body, and Survival. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 183200.Google Scholar
Merricks, T. (1998). There Are No Criteria of Identity Over Time. Noûs, 32(1), 106–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mooney, J. (2018). The Possibility of Resurrection by Reassembly. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 84(3), 273–88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-018-9669-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, N. (2006). Bodies and Souls, Or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, T. and Jacobs, J. D. (2010). Emergent Individuals and the Resurrection. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2(2), 6988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, E. (2021). Personal Identity. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Zalta, E. N., ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/identity-personal/Google Scholar
Olson, E. (2010). Immanent Causation and Life After Death. In Gasser, G., ed., Personal Identity and Resurrection. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 5166.Google Scholar
Olson, E. (1997). The Human Animal: Personal Identity Without Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, E. and Witt, K. (2020). Against Person Essentialism. Mind, 129, 715–35. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzaa016Google Scholar
Papineau, D. (2001). The Rise of Physicalism. In Gillett, C. and Loewer, B., eds., Physicalism and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 336.Google Scholar
Parfit, D. (1971). Personal Identity. Philosophical Review, 80, 327. Reprinted in M. Loux, ed., Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings. London: Routledge, 2001, pp. 374–94. Page references are to the Loux volume.Google Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2002). Robust Nonreductive Materialism. The Journal of Philosophy, 99(10), 499531. https://doi-org.ezproxy.spu.edu/10.2307/3655563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato (1977). Phaedo. Trans. Grube, G. M. A.. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, B. R. (1990). The Law of Karma. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, L., ed., trans. (2007). The Correspondence Between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Siderits, M. (2003). Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Stoljar, D. (2021). Physicalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta, E. N., ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2019). Are We Bodies or Souls? Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2018). Cartesian Substance Dualism. In Loose, J. L., Menuge, A. J. L., and Moreland, J. P., eds., The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 133151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, R. (2013). Mind, Brain, and Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1984). Personal Identity: The Dualist Theory. In Shoemaker, S. and Swinburne, R., eds., Personal Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Reprinted in M. Loux, ed., Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, 2nd ed., London and New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 510–36. Page references are to the Loux volume.Google Scholar
Van Dyke, C. (2007). Human Identity, Immanent Causal Relations, and the Principle of Non-Repeatability: Thomas Aquinas on the Bodily Resurrection. Religious Studies 43(4), 373–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412507009031Google Scholar
Van Inwagen, P. (1998). Dualism and Materialism: Athens and Jerusalem? In van Inwagen, P., The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 5367.Google Scholar
Van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Van Inwagen, P. (1978). The Possibility of Resurrection. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 9(2), 114–21.Google Scholar
Wasserman, R. (2018). Paradoxes of Time Travel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wielenberg, E. (2010). Sceptical Theism and Divine Lies. Religious Studies, 46(4), 509–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412510000247CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, N. T. (2011). Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All: Reflections on Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts, presented at the Society of Christian Philosophers Regional Meeting, Fordham University. Available online: www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_SCP_MindSpiritSoulBody.htmGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D. (2010). Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited. In Gasser, Georg, ed., Personal Identity and Resurrection, ed. Gasser, Georg. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 3350.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. (1999). The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The “Falling Elevator” Model, Faith and Philosophy, 16(2), 194212. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil199916220Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. (1997). Immanent Causation. Philosophical Perspectives, 11, 433–71.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Death and Persistence
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Death and Persistence
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Death and Persistence
Available formats
×