ARGUMENTS FOR THE SIMPLE VIEW OF PERSONAL IDENTITY Summary
In the debate on personal identity many different criteria of identity are proposed and defended. Criteria of identity are usually taken to state necessary and sufficient conditions of identity and are viewed, in their metaphysical interpretation, as pro- viding truth conditions of relevant identity statements. In my paper I argue that this view is misconceived and I present some arguments for the simple view of personal identity, according to which there are no noncircular and informative criteria of identity for persons. In particular, I argue that there are no other facts of the matter than identity itself which would serve as truth conditions of statements concerning numerical identity. I also try to justify the view that in most cases criteria of identity should be interpreted either epistemically as a means for finding out whether identity holds or not or metaphysically as criteria of genidentity, which provide appropriate persistence conditions for objects of a given kind.
