A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
{{Short description|1978 book by John Perry}}
{{Infobox book
| name = A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
| author = John Perry
| image = A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality.jpg
| caption = First edition
| subject = personal identity
| published = 1978
| publisher = Hackett Publishing Company
| pages = 56 pp.
| isbn = 9780915144532
}}
A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality is a book by the philosopher John Perry.{{cite web|last1=Mills|first1=Andrew|title=Perry Dialogue Study Questions|url=http://faculty.otterbein.edu/AMills/EarlyModern/PerrySQ.html|website=Otterbein University|accessdate=14 April 2018}}{{cite web|title=Perry: A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality|url=http://www2.oberlin.edu/faculty/mwallace/Perry.html|website=Oberlin College|accessdate=14 April 2018}}{{cite journal|last1=Facenda|first1=Neusa|title=Analysis of Perry's Theories of Personal Identity|journal=Magnificat: A Journal of Undergraduate Nonfiction|date=April 2010|url=https://commons.marymount.edu/magnificat/analysis-of-perrys-theories-of-personal-identity/|accessdate=14 April 2018}}
It is intended as an undergraduate textbook{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=Samuel |title=Hume's Uses of Dialogue |journal=Hume Studies |date=2013 |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=61–76 |doi=10.1353/hms.2013.0005|s2cid=143148351 }} and has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Persian and Korean.{{cite journal |last1=Pirhayati |first1=Ali |title=A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (review) |journal=Intellectual Explorations |date=December 2023 |volume=2 |issue=2 |url=https://rational.ahvaz.iau.ir/article_706686.html |issn=2980-9614}}
Content
It deals with standard problems in the theory of personal identity and its relation to immortality and life after death in the form of a dialogue between a terminally ill university professor at a small Midwestern college, Gretchen Weirob, and her two friends, Sam Miller and Dave Cohen. The views represented include those of Bernard Williams, John Locke, and Derek Parfit. The format of associating different philosophical positions with different characters in a dialogue recalls David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Reception
Samuel Clark (from Lancaster University) believes the book to do "a good job of setting out several different views in contest with each other."
Eric Todd Olson calls it "an eminently readable discussion of the soul and life after death."{{cite book |last1=Olson |first1=Eric T. |last2=Segal |first2=Aaron |title=Do We Have a Soul?: A Debate |date=4 August 2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-84559-4 |page=223 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fMTJEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web|title=A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (full text) |url=http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Perry.pdf|accessdate=14 April 2018}}
- {{YouTube|58R0yYh_odo|Perry's dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality}}
- {{YouTube|7Ykz3yl8Vok|Perry's Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality First Night}}
- [http://www.stanford.edu/~bobonich/argument%20reconstruction/perry.recon.html Excerpt]
Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
Personal Identity and Immortality
Category:Philosophy of mind literature
Category:1978 non-fiction books
Category:Identity (philosophy)
Category:Philosophy of religion books
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