Personal Identity and Ontology in P.F. Strawson: From Analytic reception to Paul Ricoeur

FRANCISCO NAISHTAT

The furniture of the world. Essays in ontology and metaphysics

Rodopi Philosophical Studies

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2012; p. 239 - 264

The Strawsonian ontology of bodies and persons thus presents itself as morally neutral and true to the principle of a descriptive metaphysics that has no desire to transcend the ontological presuppositions nor the simple search for the conditions of possibility of the conceptual schema with which we operate. In this sense, this ontology is consonant with Strawson’s earlier logical works in which the notions of presupposition and logical intelligibility are right at the centre of the analysis. Consequently, the first line of interpretation that I shall develop here remains true to this conceptual austerity, concerning itself with the person in the framework of merely descriptive metaphysics and centring on some of the criticisms that Strawson’s position has given rise to among his analytic peers. A second line of interpretation will concentrate on the use made by Paul Ricœur of Strawson’s ontology since the late 1980s, emphasizing both the potentials and the limitations that the French philosopher has found in the ontology of Individuals: principally in his key work on personal identity, namely Oneself as Another.