The University of Wollongong Philosophy Research Seminar
Held in the CAPSTRANS Seminar Room 1003 (Building 19, Arts) on Wednesdays at 17.30, all are welcome. 7th November 2007 Associate Professor David Braddon-Mitchell (Sydney) Prudence in a disenchanted world On the face of it, prudential concern for our future seems rational. But it has been claimed that certain discoveries about the nature of personal identity over time have the potential to undermine the rational nature of this concern. It is claimed that the rationality of prudential concern presupposes a certain conception of the nature of personal identity across time. It presupposes both that persons persist through time, and that they persist in a particular way. If it turns out that that persons do not persist, or that they do not persist in the way that we had thought, then we may have to acknowledge that special concern for our own future existence and well-being is without rational foundation. This paper defends an account of prudential reason according to which it is immune to all such metaphysical worries. We have reason to prudent regardless of whether we perdure, or even are a mere collection of temporal stages. With best wishes, Richard Dr. Richard Menary Lecturer in Philosophy and Research Seminar Convenor The University of Wollongong Personal <http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/selpl/philosophy/UOW025977.html> Webpage Book: Cognitive Integration Available now from: Palgrave <http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=275285> Macmillan and Amazon <http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Integration-Mind-Cognition-Unbounded/dp/140 398977X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0660778-1972653?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190152573&s r=8-1>
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