Abstract:Bodily continuity is a necessary condition of personal identity; continuity of memory and character etc cannot even be a sufficient condition.

Bernard Williams has successfully shown the inadequacy of themental identity criterion [especially in his “Personal Identity and Individuation] but does not have any positive arguments for establishing the necessity of the bodily identity criterion. On the contrary, he has allowed a fair amount of concession to the mental identity criterion [in his “Self and the Future”, for example] by trying to make plausible the so called change-of-body hypothesis, though eventually dismissing it as risky and dubious. Far from doing this, I argue for a straightforward denial of the change-of-body theory and try to make plausible the necessity of bodily continuity for personal identity. I adduce arguments to show that this is so even in the alleged cases of bodily interchange where personal identity might go the way of memory and character etc. I do this by taking continuity of the brain -- not of the whole body – as necessary condition of personal identity and I demonstrate that my view is perfectly in keeping with William’s basic commitments.

Insisting on the continuity of the whole body, Williams prescribes an avoidable stringent requirement for his theory which puts serious constraints on its success.