Tea at Trianon: The Terrain of Neuroscience: Brain, Consciousness, and Identity (Part 1)

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, August 16, 2026

The Terrain of Neuroscience: Brain, Consciousness, and Identity (Part 1)

From Church Life Journal:

Philosophers use the terms “identity,” “self,” and “subject” frequently, yet much less frequently do they define them adequately; something similar is true for neuroscientists studying self-awareness. In my historical work, I have shown that “identity” has meant three distinct but related ideas in the history of philosophy and related disciplines.[4]

The first meaning, or Identity1, is endurance through time. I am the same person I was yesterday, and I will be the same person if I wake up tomorrow. This is the most basic sense of identity, as well as the most ancient meaning of the term. Identity2 concerns what the Platonic schools called the “true self.” When I answer the Delphic Oracle’s command to “know yourself,” what is it that I know? Identity2 is the most central meaning of identity. Identity3 is how I experience and know myself, both emotionally and cognitively. This is the realm of consciousness, and it is the most accessible aspect of identity.

Here I will focus on the last meaning of identity, for the simple reason that neuroscientists tend to reduce this multivalent term to this one meaning. They are not alone in doing this; the whole trajectory of modern thought on identity promotes this reduction, as I show in my book Body and Identity. Like all reductions, however, much is lost, and it promotes many unnecessary confusions.

After surveying common patterns and specific proposals in the field of consciousness studies (analytic philosophy, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience), I will at a later time describe the various conceptual problems that arise within it. There I will sketch a better account of consciousness and bring us back to the topic of identity and draw a few conclusions. (Read more.)