Personal Identity And Identity

No matter how much a person desires to live according to their personal autonomy, he or she will never escape the influence of societal forces. Explicitly or subtlety, these forces shape our individuality. One intriguing manner that these societal forces manifests itself in is our name. As Ruth Graham writes, “It’s becoming increasingly clear today that names carry a wealth of information about the world around us, the family we arrived in, the moment we were born—and that they mark us as part of cultural currents bigger than we realize.” Names alone provide evidence that individuals are made by interactions with social institutions and groups. Ultimately, the inescapable nature of society’s influence demands individuals to ponder how much personal autonomy is actually autonomous and to what extent does the pursuit of personal autonomy lead to a life of emptiness and vanity.

There are many factors that shape us into who we are, and who we will become. Some of these factors we can control, while others we cannot. While we are born into many traits of our identities, much of our other behavior is learned. My identity, for example, is “based not only on responses to the question ‘Who am I?’ but also on responses to the question ‘Who am I in relation to others?’” (Allen, 2011, p. 11). My identity and the question of who I am, are both influenced by many aspects of my life, including my hometown, my family, my friends, and my beliefs and moral values.

Lately my mornings are spent getting up between 5:30am and 6am. I get myself ready, I never look fantastic just passable, and I go to work. Part of my morning routine is getting my dog, Donovan, ready for the early part of his day as well. We go to the yard for his bathroom routine, we go inside where I feed him his diet dog food and inject him with insulin, we go upstairs where I place a new diaper wrap around his mid-section (dogs with diabetes leak, who knew?), and he goes back to bed to sleep beside my husband. After we say our goodbyes I head to work, or school, or whatever adventure life has for me that particular day. Rinse, wash, repeat. I had no idea when I was in my teenage years that my life at 32 years old would be a tattooed, married, full time working, full time schooling, boring, Puerto Rican, animal lover. Well, the animal loving part I knew since I was maybe 2.

As far as identity and experiences go, I can easily follow how their effects mold my values and perception of the world. Many aspects of my education and childhood, for example, correspond pretty directly with general areas of privilege. I am White, able-bodied, and have always lived in relative safety. These are traits that I, and others like me, often take for granted, paying little attention to the societal structures that arbitrate them as advantages. Even among the places where my identity does deviate from dominant culture, many seem trivial within a bigger picture: born while my mother was in college, only one parent with a degree, a young childhood with much less money than I remember having in my later years. These, and many others, of course, had their impacts, but not on a scale that prepares me for bigger issues. In many ways, I have led a privileged life, and truthfully, this has made me apprehensive about whether I actually have any qualification that legitimizes me as an authority over countless students whose stories I can barely even fathom in the abstract.

Personal identity is essential in the human experience. Identity is complex and can be broken down into two main groups: introspective identity, and bodily identity. Introspective identity is based off of the groups, mentalities, or beliefs that you align yourself with, and bodily identity is based off of the physical side of yourself. Whether physical or introspective, your identity impacts every action you take. Whether choices ranging from what colors you prefer to which college you want to attend are primarily based off of your introspective identity, which is a combination of both memory and consciousness, physical identity impacts how others perceive you. Consciousness is mainly the awareness of bodily identity as well as continuous introspective identify, while memory is awareness of introspective identity. These two different facets of identity are imperative in the distinction between bodily identity and introspective identity. In means of personal identity introspective identity (which is evident in memory), is essential, while bodily identity (based partially in consciousness) has less credit.

1. Any theory of personal identity should be able to solve two problems: first, the problem of individuation; second, the problem of continuity or persistence. How would you in your own words characterize these problems? Also, do these problems matter at all? Are they actually important? Why or why not?

I was born in Japan and spent my life there until seventh grade. Even though my environment was very fulfilling, my community had little diversity. Everyone was from the same area, we all have same culture, and same race. Individual could had variety of thought but our basic mind was very similar since we all grow up in the same environment. I can say that I had little more diversity in my life than other people around me since my mother was Korean, I had some Korean people around me. Korea is a country located right next to Japan, but they do have different culture, language, and people. It gave me a little push to become diverse person. However, there was a big change when I moved to America as an international student in seventh grade. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were not "my people". When I walked into the class, everyone had different race, culture,

A person’s identity is shaped by many different aspects. Family, culture, friends, personal interests and surrounding environments are all factors that tend to help shape a person’s identity. Some factors may have more of an influence than others and some may not have any influence at all. As a person grows up in a family, they are influenced by many aspects of their life. Family and culture may influence a person’s sense of responsibilities, ethics and morals, tastes in music, humor and sports, and many other aspects of life. Friends and surrounding environments may influence a person’s taste in clothing, music, speech, and social activities. Personal interests are what truly set individuals apart. An individual is not a puppet

The issue of personal identity is one of the most broadly treated problems in the philosophical community. “Who are we?” “Where do we come from?” “What makes us human?” are some of the inquiries that most people face during their lives. Consequently, because for the majority of people it is almost natural to ask themselves about the meaning of their own identity, it is understandable that most major philosophical figures have presented their own theories regarding this question (Olson). In the same manner, it is reasonable that there exist certain conflict between these ideas. One of the most negatively received theories of personal identity came from the mind of John Locke. Essentially, his theory equaled identity with a person’s

My identity has essentially changed after some time from the time I was an adolescent till now that I'm a grown-up. Age has fundamentally added to how I see things, how I respond to issues, and how I connect with other individuals. A portion of the elements that have added identity changes as a part of my identity incorporates going into submitted connections and headway in my professions. I have created increment in positive attributes like good faith and a reduction in characteristics that are viewed as negative, for example, neuroticism. Contrasted with the time I was a young person, I have fundamentally turned out to be more mindful, more pleasing, and all the more sincerely steady. I recall that I used to battle a considerable measure

My family shaped my personal and social identity at a micro level by being the first set of influencers the moment I was born. My personal identity is significantly influenced by my family through the approach that my parents have taken to raise and nurture me. The results of my parents raising me is shown through the behaviour and beliefs that I embody. For example, because of my family I have always been aware that there is a God. In consequence, my compliant behaviour towards religion has already been constructed at a young age. Moreover, my social identity’s structure was shaped by my family through they way they have socially interacted with me. My micro level interactions with my family throughout time has created a deeply rooted influence within me. The influence that my family has had on my social identity is demonstrated in the way that I respond in certain social situations. For example, through behavioural observation as a child I have learned not to speak back to my parents when they are lecturing me.

As I looked across the table, facing a man wearing a University of Wisconsin sweatshirt in the University of Michigan library, questions began to roll through my head. “What’s Chance doing here?” (which I will admit was a little harsh). To understand this fashion choice and its implications, I asked Chance the first question to come to mind, “So, where are you from?” Chance replied, “Well, I’m from Texas”. This only added to my confusion, but Chance quickly continued to answer, telling me “My family is from Texas, and I lived there for a short time, but eventually my family and I found ourselves in Madison, Wisconsin.” Continuing the conversation, I asked Chance to describe his own experiences in his youth. While Chance did mention his parents, a character that continually showed up in his past was his grandmother. Curious, I asked him “Could you tell me more about her?”

My purpose is to show my individuality and to express myself. This is for others including myself, to see and to remind us that our identity is very complex.

Everybody has an identity, it makes them individual and unique, and it defines who you are as a person. This project about my identity showed me what makes me unique. I would have never known how much my friends mean to me or how my identities connect with each other. I have three identities that make me who I am, cultural, personal, and social. A specific quality that covers my cultural identity is being Czechoslovakian. Both sides of my family have at least a part of Czech in them. My great-grandparents are from Czech Republic and my grandpa was the first generation in America, he was born in Ohio. This is very important because I have always identified as Czech and it is a big part of me, as I am so interested in ancestry. For my personal identity, the biggest part is my personality, being loud and outgoing, has always been important to me. The reason being, it is how people view me. A lot of people know me as the loud person or the person who talks a lot. That is meaningful to me considering I like people to view me in a certain way The last identity, social, is one of the most important to me because it involves my friends, and through this project, I learned how vital they really are to my social identity. I realized that I have a good amount of friends in this project. It is nice to have people as a support system and to relate with. These qualities show that I value being loud and outgoing. It also says that I value my family and they are a big part of life. The last one, social, ties in with the first one because it shows I am outgoing and friendly.

Many people question themselves, what is it exactly that makes them unique? What is it that defines them as a unique person that no one in the world possesses? In philosophy, these questions do not have just one answer, and all answers are correct depending on which theory appeals most and makes sense to you. In general, there are two ways people approach this question, some say that a person’s identity is the “self” that carries all of their experiences, thoughts, memories, and consciousness (ego theorists), and some say that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences and events that a person has been through in their life, these people deny that the “self” exists (bundle theorists). In this paper, I will be arguing that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences, denying the self and the memory criterion.