Composite Subjectivity and Psychological Subjects

Abstract

This chapter is about how to combine subjects of experience as they are understood by the psychological theory of personal identity (Neo-Lockeanism). On this theory subjects are not the systems which generate mental states, but are instead constructs defined by the patterns of continuity among mental states. This requires considering how component and composite subjects can be individuated from one another, how they can develop self-consciousness, and how they can display agency. This results in a combinationist account of what is going on in everyday experiences of inner conflict and in dissociative identity disorder—an account which can recognize the conflicting or dissociated parts as subjects in their own right, but also as forming a composite subject with a greater or lesser degree of unity.