Personal identity and the Phineas Gage effect

2015/06/16 by Kevin Tobia · 74 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology #Aesthetics #Art #Embodied and Extended Cognition #Haven #Identity (music) #Media studies #Personal identity #Philosophy and Theoretical Science #Psychology #Self #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · open access · doi:10.1093/analys/anv041

published in Analysis 75(3), 396-405 (Oxford University Press)

openalex publication_date 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Phineas Gage’s story is typically offered as a paradigm example supporting the view that part of what matters for personal identity is a certain magnitude of similarity between earlier and later individuals. Yet, reconsidering a slight variant of Phineas Gage’s story indicates that it is not just magnitude of similarity, but also the direction of change that affects personal identity judgments; in some cases, changes for the worse are more seen as identity-severing than changes for the better of comparable magnitude. Ironically, thinking carefully about Phineas Gage’s story tells against the thesis it is typically taken to support.

Citations

• 11. Reasons and Persons
• Recovery from the passage of an iron bar through the head
• The Return of Phineas Gage: Clues About the Brain from the Skull of a Famous Patient

Cited by

• Not the same same: Distinguishing between similarity and identity in judgments of change
• One: but not the same
• Does the Phineas Gage effect extend to aesthetic value?
• Personal identity [wikipedia]

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