Personal Identity: Analytic Metaphysics in Dialogue with Thomistic Anthropology

This paper investigates personal identity theories within analytic philosophy and their relation to the Thomistic conception of the human subject. Within it, I argue that by adopting one theory of personal identity over another some distinct feature of the human individual is left out. To encapsulate the underlying truth of what these theories of personal identity seek to present, an examination of the concept of “the self” is given in an attempt to provide cohesion to the various theories of personal identity. However, after delving into “the self,” I show it also leaves out essential parts of the human individual. With the unification of analytic philosophy’s personal identity theories proving difficult within its own attempts via “the self,” I propose looking to the Thomistic tradition to provide a larger structure onto which these theories may adhere. Through Thomistic anthropology, I show that these theories of personal identity are unified through the larger metaphysical picture of the Thomistic human subject. By utilizing the overarching notion of the Thomistic human subject, personal identity theories may be unified as they work to elucidate specifically what Thomism can show foundationally.