Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 10, 2018

Contemporary Philosophy

Ivan Brian Inductivo
Pages 81-87

Process Identity
Inheritance as the Key to the Trans-temporal Knot

Disputations on the trans-temporal identity have been a perennial predicament of philosophy. Despite the many array of theories, the persistence of identity through time presents hackneyed and relentless arguments which seeks to suffice our appropriation of identity. Identity is absolute if taken in the strictest sense and in sheer idem-identity. But identity, especially of ipse-identity, does not just constitute of absolute sameness alone but also of the recognition of self and the inevitable inclusion of temporality. In the gamut of works of Charles Hartshorne held in scrutiny, process philosophy has offered a neoclassical paradigm in approaching this interminable trans-temporal knot of identity, i.e., a partial (personal) identity through the novel injunction of the concept of inheritance. This study aims to present a tenable option for identity that serves as a plausible alternative to the problem of persistence through temporal passage and of continuity of character without resorting to “substance-like” metaphysics (Aristotelian) and absolute connectedness or absolute discreteness.