Metaphysical aspects of diachronic personal identity

Abstract

The debate on diachronic personal identity is a special case of the debate on the di­achronic identity of objects in general, which is a part of the agenda of metaphysics. Nev­ertheless, the participants of the debate on personal identity do not always clarify their positions on some well-established metaphysical principles, in particular, the principle of the ‘non-identity of discernibles’. In addition, they often maintain neutrality about their choice of an approach to mereology and metaphysics of time. Many such approaches that are relevant to the problem of diachronic identity are currently contested. I consider some restrictions that follow from these principles and approaches for any metaphysical theory of diachronic personal identity. I argues that some of these restrictions pose a problem for constitutionalist theories of personal identity.