Personal Ontology: Mystery and Its Consequences

by Andrew Brenner

Overview

What are we? Are we, for example, souls, organisms, brains, or something else? In this book, Andrew Brenner argues that there are principled obstacles to our discovering the answer to this fundamental metaphysical question. The main competing accounts of personal ontology hold that we are either souls (or composites of soul and body), or we are composite physical objects of some sort, but, as Brenner shows, arguments for either of these options can be parodied and transformed into their opposites. Brenner also examines arguments for and against the existence of the self, offers a detailed discussion of the metaphysics of several afterlife scenarios - resurrection, reincarnation, and mind uploading — and considers whether agnosticism with respect to personal ontology should lead us to agnosticism with respect to the possibility of life after death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009367066
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/21/2025
Pages:	249
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew Brenner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published articles in journals including Analysis, The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Erkenntnis, and Philosophy East and West.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Arguments against substance dualism – Part 1; 3. Arguments against substance dualism – Part 2: Pairing problems; 4. Arguments for substance dualism; 5. Interlude: what exactly is the difference between our being immaterial souls and our being composite physical objects?; 6. Non-Self – Part 1: Arguments against our existence; 7. Non-Self – Part 2: The self exists; 8. Personal ontology and life after death – Part 1: Resurrection, Reincarnation; 9. Personal ontology and life after death – Part 2: Mind uploading; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

‘A welcome contribution to an important debate. It brings light to dark areas and never resorts to easy answers. Its treatment of so-called ‘no-self' views is especially valuable.' Eric Olson, University of Sheffield

‘A metaphysical anthropology in the tradition of analytic philosophy … The text is rigorous in its analytical logic and engages much of the recent and important Anglo-American literature on the subject … Recommended.’ J. Sienkiewicz, Choice

From the Publisher