Volume 4, Issue 3, 2004
The Philosophy of Robert Nozick
Marc Slors
Pages 387-402
The Closest Continuer View Revisited
Many theories of personal identity allow for the metaphysical possibility of fission. In 1981 Nozick proposed a theory of personal identity called ‘the closest continuer view’ (CCV) that denies fission in the case of persons but allows fisson in the case of human beings. CCV may thus appear to reduce ‘person’ to a nonmetaphysical, practical notion. Against this I argue that CCV is an externalist metaphysical theory that purports to solve a problem that is insurmountable within the confines of an internalist metaphysics of personal identity.