The State and the Self: Identity and Identities

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In this fascinating and timely book, Maren Behrensen facilitates a conversation between philosophy and the practitioners of identity. What makes a person the same person over time This question has been studied throughout the history of philosophy. Yet philosophers have never fully engaged with the practitioners of identity, namely technology developers, lawyers, politicians, sociologists and applied ethicists. The book offers an answer to the metaphysical question of personal identity and tries to show how this question is of immediate relevance to the various practices of identity management particularly in the fields of administration, counter-terrorism activities, and gender reassignment. Behrensen argues that identity documents and other markers of identity (such as biometric samples) are not merely representations of, but actually help constitute, personal identity. The metaphysical fact of personal identity lies in these supposedly external features. The book goes on to focus on issues relating to trust and security, terms central to the ethics of new technologies and in work on new identity management technologies.

Reviews

"This short yet wide-ranging book is a rewarding read; philosophers interested in current debates on the notions of personhood and personal identity and in the practical--that is, social, legal, and political--ramifications of these notions will find this book compelling and thought-provoking. The style is engaging and the abundance of real-life examples makes the discussion interesting. . . . it is an original, timely, and engaging contribution to the debate on personhood and personal identity. I am confident that it can be usefully used in undergraduate and early graduate courses; I hope also that it may be read by a broader public and successfully demonstrate that philosophy as a discipline and a practice is indeed relevant to our lives." --Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

"Traditional philosophical treatments of the self usually make sense of the self in one of two mutually exclusive ways: either the self is regarded as a metaphysical entity or it is understood by way of its practical implications. Behrensen successfully bridges this divide, arguing that what a self is, metaphysically, cannot be understood apart from the pragmatics of personal identity. She convincingly argues that selfhood--and therefore personal identity--is embedded in a wider social world of narrative and conventions. This argument sets the stage for an important original contribution: Behrensen explains how the state manages and, in some cases perverts, who we are and what we are allowed to become." --Carol Hay, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of Gender Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell

This short yet wide-ranging book is a rewarding read; philosophers interested in current debates on the notions of personhood and personal identity and in the practical--that is, social, legal, and political--ramifications of these notions will find this book compelling and thought-provoking. The style is engaging and the abundance of real-life examples makes the discussion interesting. . . . it is an original, timely, and engaging contribution to the debate on personhood and personal identity. I am confident that it can be usefully used in undergraduate and early graduate courses; I hope also that it may be read by a broader public and successfully demonstrate that philosophy as a discipline and a practice is indeed relevant to our lives.

Author Bio

Maren Behrensen is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Christian Social Ethics at the University of Mnster, Germany.