“Subjectivity and Essential Individuality - A Dialogue with Peter Van Inwagen and Lynne Baker”

Each person is perceived by others and by herself as an individual in avery strong sense, namely as a unique individual. Moreover, this supposeduniqueness is commonly thought of as linked with another character that we tendto attribute to persons (as opposed to stones or chairs and even non-human animals):a kind of depth, hidden to sensory perception, yet in some measure accessible toother means of knowledge. I propose a theory of strong or essential individuality.This theory is introduced by way of a critical discussion of Van Inwagen’s andBaker’s ontologies of persons. Composition Theory and Constitution Theory areshown to be complementary, in their opposite strong and weak points. I argue thatboth theories have unsatisfactory consequences concerning personal identity, aproblem which the proposed theory seems to solve more faithfully both to folkintuitions and the phenomenology of personal life.