Scientific seminar "Transient selves"
25 February at 16:30 MSK
Transientism is the idea that each conscious entity has more than one successive mental self asso-ciated with that entity's bodily self. You are a transientist if you believe that there was or will be a mental self S associated with your bodily self, and S is not identical to you — the subject that exists at the present moment. Strong transientism asserts that with each moment of experience a new self is born. This position rejects diachronic personal identity: each particular moment of experience corresponds to a separate subject, numerically not identical to any other subject.
Dmitry Tourko will offer a quasi-Augustinian argument for strong transientism. This argument proceeds from the "presentist constraint" — the idea that the subject is limited by its phenomenal present and lacks the past and future. If the presentist constraint is valid, then strong transientism seems to be the most plausible ontology of subjectivity, even though it seems to be far from common sense.
Scientific purpose: to discuss the concept of transentism and its various versions in the context of ontology and philosophy of consciousness and theories of identity of personality and "I".
Participants: Professors, Phd students and researchers, students and academic staff of RUDN University, Institute of Philosophy of RAS, MSU, RSUH, HSE, St. Petersburg State University, GUAP and PSU.