Concept of Personal Identity by John Locke

Running head: PERSONAL IDENTITY
Personal Identity
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PERSONAL IDENTITY
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Locke’s argument on substances or mere souls.............................................................2
Locke’s concept of personal identity and its relation to the self, consciousness and
punishment.....................................................................................................................3
Reid’s criticism of Locke’s concept of personal identity...............................................4
Justification of Reid’s objection.....................................................................................5
Conclusion......................................................................................................................5
References:.....................................................................................................................7

2PERSONAL IDENTITY
Introduction
Human beings are considered to be one of the most intelligent and rational
creatures on the surface of the Earth. This mainly stems from the fact that they are
able to reason out their actions. Furthermore, one of the most unique characterizing
features of individuals is the emotions which are inherent to them. It is such emotions
which helps to shape their identity and personality (Noonan, 2019). The element of
identity of the individuals has been discussed upon by many philosophers of the
community. They consider such identity to be the distinguishing aspect which helps to
differentiate one individual from that of the other. The purpose of this paper is to
understand the concept of personal identity as discussed by John Locke. Furthermore,
the criticism posed by Thomas Reid has also been looked in to to get a holistic
understanding of the idea of identity.
Locke’s argument on substances or mere souls
John Locke is considered to be one of the most well-renowned philosophical
thinkers who propounded the Social Contract Theory (Boeker, 2017). In the theory
advocated by him, he has laid considerable stress and emphasis on the importance of
the individuals in forming a society. In this regard, Locke has written a separate book
which deals with the significance of individuals in the society.
Locke begins his argument by clearly distinguishing between the principle of
individuation and that of the place time kind principle. The place-time-kind principle
states that no two elements of the same nature can be found in one place at the same
time (Thiel, 2019). Similarly, Locke stipulates that no two individuals of the same
characterizing feature can be found in two various places at the same time.