Abstract

Four non-Cartesian conceptions of a person are considered. I argue tor one of these, a position called animalism. I reject the idea that a (human) person coincides with, but is numerically distinct from, a certain human animal. Coinciding physical beings would both be psychological subjects. I argue that such subjects could not engage in self-reference. Since self-reference (or the capacity tor self-reference) is a necessary condition for being a person, no physical subject coincident with another such subject can be a person. I take all of this to support the view that we (human persons) are identical with human animals.