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Lichtenberg on Self-Consciousness 337

In Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes claimed that the existence of

the self follows from the fact that one is aware of oneself as a thinking being,

which he expresses in his cogito judgment “I think”. In his subsequent dis-

cussion, Descartes also goes on to demonstrate that this thinking “I” is an imma-

terial substance, a soul, that persists across time and is immortal. Lichtenberg’s

remark may to some degree be understood as a challenge to the epistemic

grounds for Descartes’ cogito judgment, “I think”, and further to the idea that this

“I” is a persisting substance.2 In the K 76 remark, Lichtenberg notes that, upon in-

trospection, he finds no self or “I” above and beyond the representations of inner

sense. On this basis, he suggests we are warranted only in saying that sensing,

representing, and thinking merely occur: “to say cogito is already too much”

(K 76). To capture this understanding of thinking, he proposes replacing the

cogito judgment, “I think”, with the impersonal formulation “it thinks”. He sug-

gests we understand the impersonal formulation “es denkt” as we would “es

blitzt”. In English, “it thinks” should be understood along the lines of “it light-

nings”, “it’s lightning”, or “it’s raining”. In these impersonal formulations, “it” is

pleonastic and merely required by the grammar of the phrase, but it does not refer

wir wenigstens hingen von uns ab; wo ist die Grenze? Wir kennen nur allein die Existenz un-

serer Empfindungen, Vorstellungen und Gedanken. Es denkt, sollte man sagen, so wie man

sagt: es blitzt. Zu sagen cogito, ist schon zu viel, so bald man es durch Ich denke übersetzt. Das

Ich anzunehmen, zu postulieren, ist praktisches Bedürfnis.” (K 76). Guenter Zoeller proposes

that the second part of the first sentence be translated as “others believe that we are at least de-

pendent upon ourselves.” He argues that the subjunctive “hingen” indicates a dependent

clause following “glauben” and therefore justifies his translation (Zoeller 1992, 418). It appears,

however, that the subjunctive “hingen” does not determine decisively what the subject of the

sentence is and so does not decisively favor his translation. I therefore translate the second part

of the first sentence as “others [representations], at least we believe, are dependent upon us”.

This translation fits the grammar of the sentence and also accords better with Lichtenberg’s

statements on the dependence and independence of representations elsewhere in the Waste

Books, for example J 1537. All citations from Lichtenberg’s Waste Books are given in keeping

with the standard practice: the letter in parentheses indicates the notebook, and the number in-

dicates the place of the remark within the notebook according to the Wolfgang Promies edition

of Lichtenberg’s Schriften und Briefe. All translations from the Waste Books are from Tester

2012.

2 One may, however, wonder whether the K 76 remark is well directed against Descartes. As an

anonymous referee has pointed out, Descartes does not initially assume that the “I” in cogito

judgments is a substance, though he does take himself to have demonstrated this in the 6th Medi-

tation. See Cottingham 1984, 18–19, 54, 59. For a discussion of the soul as substance in Descartes,

see Markie 1992, 149–151; Sievert 1975, 51–70. Regardless of whether Lichtenberg’s criticism is well

aimed at Descartes, his point appears to be the rejection of a substance account of the self on the

basis of introspection.

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338 Steven Tester

to any substantial or persisting entity that serves as a bearer of ascriptions. Like-

wise, the “I” in “I think” is also thought to be pleonastic, a practical necessity, but

it does not refer to a substantial self as the bearer of self-ascriptions.

Lichtenberg’s cogito remark has been a point of reflection for philosophers

from Nietzsche to Wittgenstein and Parfit, but without exception, the remark has

been regarded as an isolated insight and considered apart from Lichtenberg’s

other writings.3 This is likely due in part to the philological difficulty of mak-

ing sense of Lichtenberg’s philosophical views, which primarily appear scattered

throughout a series of notebooks, his Sudelbücher (Waste Books), that he kept

from the time of his matriculation in 1764 as a student of physics at Georg-August-

Universität Göttingen until his death in 1799.4 This paper aims to correct the over-

sights of these other philosophers and expand our understanding of Lichten-

berg’s thoughts on self-consciousness and personal identity by situating his re-

mark on the self within the broader context of early-modern philosophical views

of the self and Lichtenberg’s own remarks in the Waste Books. To this end, my dis-

cussion proceeds in three stages. In the first section (1), I show that Lichtenberg

criticizes the rationalist metaphysics of the soul for the failure to distinguish be-

tween what can merely be conceived and what can be an object of empirical

knowledge or cognition. In the second section (2), I discuss Lichtenberg’s views

on consciousness and inner sense, arguing that he holds that on the basis of em-

pirical observation in inner sense, we cannot know ourselves to be a persisting

substantial self and are therefore not justified in believing we are. I then show

that Lichtenberg held that the self consists in interrelated conscious states, a view

that bears some similarities with Hume’s bundle theory of the self. In the third

section (3), I argue that this view of the self leads him to a Lockean view of per-

sonal identity according to which the identity of a person consists in the continu-

ity of interrelated conscious states, regardless of the basis upon which this con-

sciousness supervenes. Although Lichtenberg’s position on the self is hardly

unique among early-modern theories of self-consciousness and personal identity,

particularly among British philosophers, his consideration of the relationship be-

tween materialism and personal identity does set his view apart from many of

his German contemporaries and from positions that emerge later among German

idealists and presents an interesting but undervalued contribution to the dis-

cussion of the self in the history of German philosophy.

3 For recent discussions of Lichtenberg, see Williams [1978] 2005, 79–85; Burge 1998; Parfit 1986,

210–212, 223–228.

4 For a discussion of the idea of a ‘waste book’, see Waste Book E 46. The notebooks are arranged

chronologically and designated by Lichtenberg with a letter of the alphabet beginning with A

and ending with L.





2 Rationalist Metaphysics of the Soul

In his critique of the rationalist metaphysics of the soul in the Waste Books, Lich-

tenberg most likely had in mind German rationalist philosophers such as Wolff,

Baumgarten, and Knutzen.5 Christian Wolff for example adopted a broadly Leib-

nizian view, according to which the soul was thought to be a representational

force that is immaterial, simple, and imperishable. Baumgarten and Knutzen also

held similar views, which were quite popular in German universities in the eight-

eenth century. Despite the popularity of these views, however, there was also

some backlash against them, most notably by Kant. Kant launched a devastating

attack against these views in 1781 in the “Paralogisms of Pure Reason” section of

the Critique of Pure Reason, but Joseph Priestley’s Disquisitions Relating to Matter

and Spirit (1777), which was widely read in Germany at the time, also contained a

similar discussion of the soul.6 So in the period in which Lichtenberg was writing

his remarks on the metaphysics of the soul, he was likely influenced to some de-

gree by both Kant’s critique of rationalism on the basis of transcendental idealism

and by the critiques raised by empiricist philosophers. In his own remarks from

the Waste Books, Lichtenberg primarily critiques rationalist philosophers on two

grounds: the lack of an empirical foundation for their claims about the soul

and their assumption that logical arguments entail anything about empirical or

metaphysical possibility. As we will see, Lichtenberg’s particular critique of the

rationalist metaphysics of the soul motivates his turn toward a view of the self

that is in keeping with what can be known empirically on the basis of inner sense.

In his discussions of the rationalist views of the soul, Lichtenberg is, above

all, skeptical of any a priori metaphysical reasoning that would attempt to derive

properties of the soul, such as substantiality, persistence, and immortality, with-

out considering whether these claims are confirmed or confirmable by empirical

observation. In a notebook entry from the period 1776–1779, for example, he re-

marks that speculation on the soul and its nature are groundless and so lead to

sophistical, hairsplitting, and ultimately dubious arguments:

5 Christian Wolff’s discussion of the soul can be found in Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der

Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Rational Thoughts on God, the

World and the Soul of Human Beings, Also All Things in General), published in 1720, also known as

the Deutsche Metaphysik. Baumgarten’s Metaphysica from 1739 also contains a discussion of the

substantiality, simplicity, and immortality of the soul, as does Martin Knutzen’s Philosophische

Abhandlung von der immateriellen Natur der Seele (Philosophical Treatise on the Immaterial Na-

ture of the Soul) from 1744.

6 See Priestley 1777.




340 Steven Tester

Man becomes sophistical and overly subtle where grounded knowledge is no longer pos-

sible; consequently, everyone must become so when it concerns the immortality of the soul

and life after death. Here we are all without ground. (F 489)

He does not discuss in detail here why such knowledge is ungrounded, or why

grounded knowledge of the immortality of the soul is not possible. But it appears

that what is lacking for Lichtenberg in the rationalist conception is any sense in

which the ascription of properties, such as immortality, to a soul, and indeed even

the existence of the soul, could be justified empirically. An immortal soul, and

particularly an immaterial, immortal soul, simply cannot be an object of human

empirical knowledge. Lichtenberg is not explicit about this, but there are a

number of reasons for thinking the soul cannot be an object of empirical knowl-

edge. One is because our empirical knowledge cannot extend so far as to be able

to confirm if such a soul actually is immortal as there might at any point be some

future death that awaits it. Another is that an immaterial soul by definition can-

not be perceived using any of our ordinary methods, as it is immaterial, so it is un-

clear how we are to gain any empirical knowledge of it. For such reasons, Lichten-

berg thought that mere speculation about the soul was ungrounded and, because

of the purported nature of the soul, necessarily ungrounded as the soul is not

a possible object of empirical knowledge for humans. Throughout his writings,

Lichtenberg hopes that in moving toward an empiricist view of the mind and the

self, some of the failures of rationalist psychology may be left behind.

Lichtenberg’s tendency toward empiricism is also evident in other critiques

of the rationalist metaphysics of the soul, where he distinguishes between what

can be cognized, or known empirically, and what is merely conceivable. In an

entry from the period 1784–1788, he describes metaphysical speculation as a mere

“association of ideas” “to which nothing objective need correspond” (H 149),

and he again faults rationalist metaphysicians for their failure to distinguish ad-

equately between what can be an object of empirical knowledge and what is

merely a matter of speculation guided by the single constraint that it not violate

the principle of contradiction. Objecting in particular to the philosophy of the

German metaphysician Christian Wolff and his followers, he writes, for example:

One cannot consider often enough that the existence of God, the immortality of the soul,

and the like are merely conceivable not cognizable. They are associations of ideas, a play of

thoughts, to which nothing objective need correspond. It was a great error of Wolffian phi-

losophy to extend the principle of contradiction to what is cognizable, for it concerns merely

what is conceivable. (H 149)

In such remarks, Lichtenberg expresses reservations about whether the argu-

ments of the rationalists can demonstrate anything about how the soul actually is





and whether there is something “objective” that “need correspond” to their con-

cepts (H 149). Similar to his contemporary Kant, Lichtenberg objects to the idea

that any logical argument can demonstrate the actual existence of something and

that mere logical conceivability entails anything about real empirical or meta-

physical possibility. There is simply no reason to think that an entity conceived

without contradiction will have any corresponding real entity in the world. Along

similar lines, in notebook E from the period 1775–1776, Lichtenberg goes so far as

to say that the term “soul” is merely a placeholder in logical arguments, a variable

for which it is unclear that there is any value: “We use the word soul as the alge-

braists might use x, y, z or one might use the word attraction” (E 472).7

Interestingly, however, Lichtenberg appears to have overlooked the fact that

Christian Wolff actually intended to establish the principles of rational psy-

chology and the rationalist metaphysics of the soul on the basis of empirical

psychology. In his Psychologia empirica, published in 1732, Wolff develops a defi-

nition of the soul according to what can be observed in conscious experience,

concluding that the soul is something that is “conscious of itself and other things

outside us”.8 This definition and other principles were supposed to be the foun-

dation from which rational psychology could infer properties a priori about

the soul that were not available to conscious experience.9 In the Psychologia

rationalis (1734) and the Deutsche Metaphysik, Wolff demonstrates that the soul

is a force of representation and that it must be simple and immaterial to be con-

scious of itself and other things, which also entails that it is imperishable.10 One

can only speculate that if Lichtenberg had been more familiar with the empirical

roots of the Wolffian philosophy of the soul, he may have been sympathetic to the

idea that properties of the soul that we are not directly conscious of may be de-

rived a priori from those of which we are conscious.11

Although Lichtenberg objects in general to the rationalist metaphysics of the

soul, he also expresses more specific doubts about particular arguments. In note-

book A (1765–1770), from the earliest period of his days at the university, for

example, he attacks the analogical structure of a particular rationalist argument

for the immortality of the soul. Lichtenberg writes:

7 See also the Waste Books, J 1306.

8 Wolff 1968, § 20.

9 Wolff 1968, § 1, and 1972, §§ 1–9.

10 See the Deutsche Metaphysik, Wolff 1983, §§ 729–738.

11 For a discussion of the relationship between Wolff’s empirical and rational psychology, see

Dyck 2009; Blackwell 1961.




342 Steven Tester

The proof advanced by philosophers that there is a future life, which consists in their saying

that were it not the case then God could not reward our final moments, belongs to the proofs

by analogy. We reward only after the fact, thus God must also. We do this out of lack of an-

ticipation, but where we are not thus hindered we also reward in advance, as we pay in ad-

vance our university tuition. Might God not also have paid in advance? (A 42)

The rationalist argument attempts to prove the immortality of the soul and its per-

sistence after the death of the body by arguing: (1) God punishes and rewards

analogously to how humans reward and punish; (2) We can justly reward and

punish only after some action has been undertaken; (3) God can justly reward and

punish us for actions undertaken during the final moments of our life only if our

soul is immortal.12 Lichtenberg challenges the second premise by suggesting that

God might also have justly meted out rewards and punishments in advance, just

as we pay our university tuition in advance. This challenge to the second prem-

ise undermines the conclusion of the argument from reward, as to be rewarded in

this life, one need not be immortal. One need be nothing more than the empirical

self common sense would have us be. Though Lichtenberg does not explicitly en-

dorse the latter conclusion, it is clear from his remark that the rationalist argu-

ment from reward fails for various reasons. Such remarks also indicate that Lich-

tenberg maintained an interest in rationalist views on the soul, but that he was

dubious about the justification for their positions and whether they should be

taken to reveal any deep metaphysical truths.13 We can now look more closely at

his remarks on self-consciousness and the self to see how his empiricist tenden-

cies lead him to hold that we are not justified in taking the self to be anything

other than a series of interrelated conscious states.

3 Self-Consciousness and the Self

I return now to Lichtenberg’s K 76 remark and related remarks on self-conscious-

ness and the self. Lichtenberg’s remark on the cogito is very similar to an obser-

vation made by David Hume in his discussion of personal identity in the Treatise

of Human Nature from 1739. Hume writes:

12 Though Lichtenberg does not challenge the first premise directly in this remark, other remarks

suggest that he would reject it because of its anthropomorphic characterization of God. See the

Waste Books, J 271, J 944, K 18, K 64, K 83. Problematically however Lichtenberg’s own counter-

argument in A 42 relies on an analogy between God and humans.

13 Lichtenberg also discusses the practical motivations for belief in the immortality of the soul.

See the Waste Books, J 761, K 288.





For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some

particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or plea-

sure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any

thing but the perception. (Hume 2000, 1.4.6)

Much like Lichtenberg, Hume is skeptical of rationalist claims about a substan-

tial and persisting soul, and he makes the empirical point that when he attempts

to introspect a self, he encounters only particular conscious perceptions. Al-

though Lichtenberg does not explicitly discuss Hume, it is not surprising to find

that he was influenced in his discussion of the self by Hume’s observation and

by empiricist positions on the self in general. Lichtenberg’s philosophical col-

leagues, such as Christoph Meiners, at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

where Lichtenberg was a professor of physics at the time he wrote the K 76 re-

mark, often maintained empiricist views, and Meiners even espoused a Humean

bundle view of the self, so Hume’s view would certainly have been present to

Lichtenberg’s mind.14 Lichtenberg’s epistemic conclusion about the inability to

locate a substantial self is however also informed by his own views on conscious-

ness and inner sense.

In a remark from Waste Book H written sometime between 1784 and 1788,

Lichtenberg distinguishes between what might be called two modes of con-

sciousness. He suggests that it is a particularly human characteristic that we can

be both the subject and object of conscious experience, writing: “An animal is for

itself always a subject, while man is for himself also an object” (H 142). And again

around the same time period he indicates a similar distinction, writing: “I and

myself. I feel myself – these are two [different] things” (H 146). We can gloss his

distinction between consciousness of oneself as subject and consciousness of

oneself as object, or in Lichtenberg’s terms, the “I” and “myself”, in the following

way: In the former mode, one is conscious of perceptions, representations, and

the flow of inner experience. This consciousness need not take the form of ex-

plicit cogito judgments or self-ascriptions of the form “I think x” or “I am perceiv-

ing y”, but one is nevertheless aware of oneself as the subject of these experi-

ences, as the one to whom the experiences are occurring. All internal sensations

and representations are accompanied by this kind of consciousness. In the latter

mode, consciousness is understood as reflective. One can, so to speak, direct

one’s attention at one’s thoughts and perceptions, reflect on them, and form be-

14 See Wunderlich 2005, 95f. Wunderlich argues that Meiners held a bundle theory of the self,

although he notes that Meiners later traded this position for a substance view of the self. See also

Meiners 1776, II.40.




344 Steven Tester

liefs about them.15 On Lichtenberg’s view, human beings posses a capacity for

being both the subject of experience, an “I”, and an object of reflective attention

or introspection, a “me” or “myself”.

In developing this view of consciousness and reflection, Lichtenberg may

have been influenced by Locke, whom he discusses throughout the Waste Books

and whose theory of consciousness was well known and widely discussed in Göt-

tingen.16 Although the intricacies of Locke’s theory of consciousness are open to

debate, we may follow Udo Thiel’s interpretation of Locke’s distinction in situat-

ing Lichtenberg’s remarks.17 In an Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689),

Locke suggests that consciousness is inseparable from perceiving and thinking:

[C]onsciousness […] is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it: It

being impossible for any one to perceive, without perceiving, that he does perceive. When

we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is

always as to our present Sensations and Perceptions. (Locke 1975, II.xxvii.9)

Locke contrasts this consciousness that accompanies all thought and represen-

tation with what he calls “reflection” or “internal sense”, whereby the mind re-

lates to itself, observing its own operations and producing “ideas” about these

operations.18 Lichtenberg discusses Locke’s theory of inner sense and “ideas of

reflection” with approval as early as notebook F (1776–1779). And in notebook

entry K 64 from 1793–1796, around the period of the K 76 remark, he explicitly re-

lates his theory of consciousness of oneself as subject and object to the theory

of inner sense: “[W]e are conscious of the state of our soul at every moment. […]

When I say something occurs within me, I am experiencing it with inner sense. […]

Here we ourselves are object and observer, object and subject” (K 64).19 Though

15 Lichtenberg agrees here with other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers in

holding that animals are capable of consciousness but not reflective consciousness. See, for

example, “Of Perception” in the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz [1704] 1996,

II.ix.134.

16 It might also be argued that Lichtenberg’s discussion of consciousness of oneself as subject

and object is influenced by Reinhold’s philosophy and the reflection theory of self-conscious-

ness, but Lichtenberg’s thoughts on personal identity suggest he was most likely influenced by

Locke. Lichtenberg explicitly discusses Reinhold’s philosophy in the Waste Books, J 110, J 234,

J 1006, J 1081. On the reflection theory of self-consciousness, see Henrich 1982, 15–52.

17 See Thiel 2006, 288. On Locke’s discussion of “Ideas of Reflection” and inner sense, also see

Locke 1975, II.i.4, 7, 8, 24; II.vi.1. On Lichtenberg and British empiricism, see Rapic 1999.

18 Locke 1975, II.I.4.

19 See also the Waste Books, H 142, H 146. In K 64, Lichtenberg follows Kant in suggesting that

the form of inner sense is time, whereas the form of outer sense is space, although he does not in-

sist on this with the systematic rigor that Kant does.





Lichtenberg is not always consistent in his use of Lockean terminology in his dis-

cussions of inner sense, the basic distinction provides a way of understanding

his epistemic point in the K 76 remark. The point Lichtenberg repeatedly makes

throughout the Waste Books is that one cannot locate a substantial self reflec-

tively through inner sense and that one merely experiences conscious sensations,

representations, and thoughts.20 One is conscious of oneself as the subject of

thoughts, but one cannot be conscious of oneself as a substantial, persisting ob-

ject through reflection. He sums this up in a discussion of Sömmerring’s 1796

book Über das Organ der Seele. Nebst einem Schreiben von Immanuel Kant (On the

Organ of the Soul), writing of the self that the “thing we can approach is not the

thing we wish to approach” (L 10).

But what if anything follows from Lichtenberg’s inability to locate a substan-

tial and persisting self in inner sense? The fact that Lichtenberg bases his con-

clusions about the self on the observations of inner sense may appear surprising

given that he was doubtless familiar with his contemporary Kant’s critique of em-

pirical psychology in the Critique of Pure Reason, the Anthropology from a Prag-

matic Point of View, and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.21 In the

Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant points out that introspection

or empirical consciousness is an unreliable guide to questions of the self. Many of

the reasons that Kant gives for this are reasons that Lichtenberg also gives. Kant

observes, for example, that there are no real distinctions in the manifold of inner

sense other than those made by the introspective observer, that items of inner

sense cannot be separated and re-identified at a later time, that it is a wholly so-

lipsistic enterprise as no one else could scan our inner states, and is also there-

fore not properly verifiable, and finally that “even observation by itself already

changes and displaces the state of the observed object”.22 Lichtenberg is in agree-

ment with many of these remarks, noting for example that “the properties we ob-

serve in our souls are connected in such a way that it is not easy to delineate a

boundary between them” (A 118). So it would be surprising if Lichtenberg were to

draw any strong metaphysical conclusions about the nature of the self, its sub-

stantiality, and persistence on the basis of a faculty about which he and others are

so dubious regarding its ability to deliver genuine knowledge.

20 Related remarks can be found for example in the Waste Books, C 303, D 211, H 176, J 1537, L 10.

21 Lichtenberg’s familiarity with Kant is well documented in Neumann 1900; Dostal-Winkler

1924; Kauther 1992; Zoeller 1992.

22 Kant, AA IV: 471 (trans. Kant 2004, 7). All references to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason are

given in standard form according to page number in the A and B editions. References to Kant’s

other writings are given according to the Akademie-Ausgabe (AA) with the volume number and

page number.




346 Steven Tester

Similarly, it is unclear whether Lichtenberg’s inability to locate a substantial

and persisting self in inner sense is sufficient for rejecting a substantial and per-

sisting self. Kant gives us some idea of how Lichtenberg’s conclusion could be

undermined when he notes in the Critique of Pure Reason that the representation

of a persisting thing need not be a persisting representation, nor need a persisting

representation be of a persisting thing: “the representation of something persist-

ing in existence is not the same as a persisting representation”.23 If this is true,

then the fact that Lichtenberg encounters only a flux of impressions in inner

sense is not sufficient to rule out the possibility that the flux of impressions is of a

persisting, substantial self. Correspondingly, the discovery of a persisting repre-

sentation of a self in inner sense would not be sufficient to guarantee that this rep-

resentation is of a persisting thing. So, although Lichtenberg might deny that we

are justified in making cogito judgments, based on the fact that he finds no rep-

resentation of a persisting self in inner sense, the certainty of this claim is under-

mined by these various possibilities.

Against these objections, we should however note that the point Lichtenberg

makes in K 76 and similar remarks is that there is no epistemic warrant for re-

garding the self as a persisting substance, not that a persisting substantial self is

metaphysically impossible, nor that it is certain that there is no substantial or per-

sisting self. As we have seen from his discussion of rationalist metaphysics, Lich-

tenberg is dubious about making judgments regarding the ultimate metaphysical

status of the self. We should therefore take Lichtenberg’s denial of a substantial

self as being somewhat agnostic about the ultimate metaphysical status of the

self. He leaves open that it is metaphysically possible that the modifications of

conscious experience are ascribable to a substantial self, and that it is indeed

possible that there is no more than one such substance.24

Although Lichtenberg is clear about the epistemic limitations on encounter-

ing a substantial self in inner sense, he is however less clear about what his posi-

tive view of the self is. His predecessor Hume argued in the Treatise of Human Na-

ture (1739) that the self is “nothing but a bundle or collection of different

perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in

a perpetual flux and movement”, and he concludes that “there is properly no sim-

plicity in it at on time, nor identity in different”.25 On this basis, he goes on to

23 See Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason B xli. See also Quassim Cassam’s discussion of this critique in

Cassam 1997, 22f. For a discussion of Cassam’s critique of Lichtenberg, see Rosefeldt 2000, 207–213.

24 Lichtenberg sometimes espouses a Spinozistic theory of nature. See the Waste Books, J 144,

and “Amintors Morgenandacht” (Amintor’s Morning Prayer) in Lichtenberg 1967–1992, Vol. 3,

76–80.

25 See Hume 2000, 1.4.6.





argue that the self and its identity is a fiction generated by the observation of

“the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along a train of connected

ideas” and a natural propensity to connect ideas in imagination: “the identity,

which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one”.26 So Hume’s posi-

tion is that we cannot know the identity of the mind or self on the basis of intro-

spection: “the essence of the mind [is] equally unknown to us with that of exter-

nal bodies”.27 And the identity that we do ascribe to the self is fictional as it is not

warranted by empirical observation.28 But despite Lichtenberg’s remark that the

“I” is merely a practical necessity in K 76, he does not appear in any obvious way

to endorse Hume’s positive idea that the persisting self is a fiction generated by

the imagination and its natural propensity to link representations. Given Lichten-

berg’s agnosticism about metaphysical issues, it may be too much to claim that

the substantial, persisting self is a fiction as this would seem to imply that a per-

sisting self does not exist. As we have seen, Lichtenberg does not think such a

claim could be grounded on empirical observation in inner sense. But although

it is unclear whether Lichtenberg holds that the self is a fiction, he does how-

ever think that the representations and sensations encountered in inner sense are

related to one another.

Regarding this latter point, it is important to recognize that in the K 76 re-

mark Lichtenberg is not making the very strong claim that there are merely

isolated and unrelated instances of conscious representations, sensations, and

thoughts, and no relations that bind them together. If the representations and

sensations of inner sense were not related or connected in some way, then there

would not only be no observable substantial self, but there would also be no

coherence among the representations in inner sense. Borrowing a phrase from

Kant, this would lead to “as multicolored, diverse a self as I have representations

of which I am conscious”.29 Such a diverse self would not fit with Lichtenberg’s

emphasis throughout the Waste Books on self-observation and the enlightened

discovery of one’s own coherent and rational system of thought.30 It is, however,

somewhat unclear how Lichtenberg thinks representations come to be related

to one another such that there could be some coherence among them, but a few

26 Hume 2000, 1.4.6.

27 Hume 2000, 1. Intro.

28 Thanks to an anonymous referee for this discussion of Hume. The secondary literature on

Hume’s view of the self is vast. See for example Thiel 2006; Ainslie 1999; McIntyre 1989; Stroud

1977; Wilson 1994.

29 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 134.

30 Remarks on self-observation and systematic thought pervade the Waste Books; see for

example KA 264, B 264, D 506, F 1171, G 208.




348 Steven Tester

options are available to him. He was very familiar with associationist psychol-

ogy and so would have been in a position to appeal to the mechanism of associ-

ation to explain how conscious states become connected with one another. Simi-

lar to Hume, however, Lichtenberg also suggests that memory has a role in

relating the representations of inner sense to one another. Hume writes for

example: “As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of

this succession of perceptions, ’tis to be consider’d, upon that account chiefly,

as the source of personal identity.”31 As we will see in the discussion of Lichten-

berg’s views on personal identity, he appeals to the notion of memory in K 162 to

explain the connection of conscious states that constitute the diachronic iden-

tity of a person.32

4 Personal Identity

Having explored some of Lichtenberg’s remarks on the rationalist doctrine of the

soul and argued that his views on consciousness and inner sense provide epis-

temic motivations for his rejection of the substantial self and acceptance of a view

of the self as a series of interrelated conscious states, I will now consider his posi-

tive view of personal identity. Lichtenberg holds that the identity of a person

across time consists in the continuity of consciousness brought about through

memory, regardless of the basis upon which consciousness supervenes.

4.1 Memory, Consciousness, and Personal Identity

Lichtenberg’s remarks on the metaphysics of personal identity are as varied as

his remarks on the self and self-consciousness. Throughout the Waste Books, he

often calls his speculations on the identity of the self his doctrine of Seelenwan-

derung (transmigration of souls, metempsychosis).33 But in an observation from

31 Hume 2000, 1.4.6.

32 Guenter Zoeller and I are in agreement in holding that Lichtenberg’s remarks on the cogito in

K 76 are epistemically motivated. But Zoeller believes Lichtenberg intends to demote the self from

the status of “author” of its thoughts to a mere “observer”, whereas I contend that Lichtenberg’s

point is the rejection of a substance view of the self in favor of a view of the self as a series of in-

terrelated conscious states. See Zoeller 1992.

33 For Lichtenberg’s discussion of his theory of Seelenwanderung or metempsychosis, see for

example the Waste Books, D 254, E 474, J 511, J 705, J 2043, K 45, L 865.





notebook K (1793–1796), written around the time of the K 76 remark on the cogito,

Lichtenberg states what might be regarded as his considered view on personal

identity. Here, he suggests that memory of one’s past experiences is necessary

and sufficient for personal identity. He does this in a somewhat opaque way by of-

fering a gloss on what he takes death to consist of:

To die and become animate again with the memory of one’s previous existence, we call

being unconscious […]. (K 54)

Lichtenberg suggests here that there is a sense in which someone suffers a kind of

death when they become unconscious. They simply cease to be. But if the person

awakes again from this period of unconsciousness with some recollection of their

past life, then this period would be regarded as merely one of unconsciousness

and not death. The person that entered the unconscious state would be continu-

ous with the person who emerged from it because they would have some memory

of their former state. Though Lichtenberg does not explicitly say so, we might also

infer that if a person awakes from such a period with no recollection of the past,

then the same person has not continued to exist across the period of unconscious-

ness. Instead, the person that entered the unconscious state has died, and the

person emerging from the unconscious state is a new person.

This position is also confirmed by another remark from notebook K where

Lichtenberg further endorses the view that memory is constitutive of the identity

of a person. He writes:

As long as our memory lasts, a multitude of individuals work together united as one: the

twenty-year old, the thirty-year old and so on. But as soon as it fails, we come to stand more

and more alone, and the whole generation of I’s withdraws and sneers at the feeble old man.

(K 162)

According to Lichtenberg’s remark, memory brings the multitude of distinct “I’s”,

represented here as the twenty-year-old, the thirty-year-old and so on, into a

unity, creating a link between past and present “I’s” or stages of a person. As in

K 54, memory is thought to be both necessary and sufficient for drawing experi-

ences together into the experiences of a single person. If there is memory between

them, then each “I” is connected with every other “I”. In the absence of mem-

ories, each “I” stands alone as an independent, isolated stretch of experience or

consciousness. Here, Lichtenberg connects the failure of memory with old age,

suggesting that as we grow older and our memories begin to fade, we cease to be

the person we once were. The fact that these remarks on memory and personal

identity were written between 1793 and 1796, and in such close proximity with the

K 76 remark, supports the conclusion that on Lichtenberg’s considered view, a




350 Steven Tester

person consists in a series of interrelated conscious states and that memory of

one’s previous states is necessary and sufficient for personal identity.

Given the similarity between Lichtenberg and Locke’s views on conscious-

ness, it is not entirely surprising to find such a view of personal identity among

Lichtenberg’s remarks. He was doubtless familiar with Locke’s discussion of per-

sonal identity in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and likely

also familiar with the criticisms surrounding this view. A closer look at Locke’s

theory of personal identity and the criticism surrounding this theory will help

fill out Lichtenberg’s view. Locke thought that a person is “a thinking intelligent

Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same

thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that conscious-

ness which is inseparable from thinking”.34 Given this view of persons, he quite

naturally takes the identity of a person across time to consist in what he calls

the “sameness” of their “rational Being” or the sameness of consciousness across

time. Regarding personal identity and sameness of consciousness, he writes for

example:

For since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and ’tis that, that makes every one

to be, what he calls self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in

this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this

consciousness can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the

Identity of that Person; it is the same self now it was then; and ’tis by the same self with this

present one that now reflects on it, that the Action was done. (Locke 1975, II.xxvii.9)

On a fairly common reception of Locke’s views on personal identity influenced by

Thomas Reid, Locke indicates that this sameness of consciousness arises through

memorial connections with the past and in the ability of a person to extend their

consciousness back to some past action or thought.35 In the absence of this same-

ness of consciousness, a person ceases to be the same person. As such, sameness

of consciousness generated through memory is both necessary and sufficient for

the identity of a person. Although much progress has been made in the interpre-

tation of Locke’s views on personal identity, Lichtenberg was most likely familiar

with and influenced by Reid’s interpretation of Locke in Essays on the Intellectual

Powers of Man (1785).

34 Locke 1975, II.xxvii.9.

35 There is a great deal of debate regarding Locke’s view on personal identity. In my interpre-

tation, I follow Reid as this was most likely the view with which Lichtenberg was familiar. Galen

Strawson convincingly argues against Reid’s reception of Locke’s view in Strawson 2011, 53–57.

For an extensive discussion and bibliography on Locke and personal identity, see Thiel 2011;

Winkler 1991.





One problem raised by Reid against Locke’s view of personal identity, which

might also be raised against Lichtenberg’s view, involves an absurdity produced

when the logical law of transitivity is applied to cases involving memory lapses.

In an often-cited passage, Reid writes:

Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to

have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a gen-

eral in advanced life; suppose, also, which must be admitted to be possible, that, when he

took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school, and that, when

made a general, he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the

consciousness of his flogging. (Reid 2011, 333)36

According to the view of personal identity attributed above to Locke and Lichten-

berg, the general and the boy are not identical because the general has no direct

memory of having been flogged. But the general does remember having taken

the standard, and the brave officer who took the standard does remember having

been flogged as a boy. Yet according to the logical law of the transitivity of iden-

tity, the general must be identical with the boy. This leads to the paradoxical im-

plication that the general both is identical to the boy and is not identical to the

boy. Reid concludes on this basis that any account that takes memory to be both

necessary and sufficient for personal identity cannot be true as it leads to a

contradiction.

Lichtenberg would also have been familiar with the positive account of per-

sonal identity proposed by Reid and other Scottish common sense philosophers

in part as a response to Hume’s skepticism about personal identity and Locke’s

psychological view of personal identity.37 The common sense philosophers held

certain truths to be self evident on the basis of common sense. Among these was

the idea that the identity of a person across time is a common sense notion that

cannot be reduced to sameness of consciousness across time. Reid for example

writes: “every man of a sound mind finds himself under the necessity of believ-

ing his own identity, and continued existence. The conviction of this is immedi-

ate and irresistible.”38 And more pointedly, Beattie writes that “the thinking prin-

ciple, which we believe to be within us, continues the same through life, is

equally self-evident, and equally agreeable to the universal consent of man-

36 See Thomas Reid’s discussion of Locke in Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), “Of

Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity” (III.vi).

37 For a discussion of Lichtenberg’s familiarity with Beattie and Reid and the influence of Scot-

tish common sense philosophy in Göttingen during Lichtenberg’s tenure, see Kuehn 1987. On the

common-sense view of personal identity, see Thiel 2006, 305.

38 See Reid 2011, 41 (I.iv).




352 Steven Tester

kind”.39 Throughout the Waste Books, Lichtenberg often speaks highly of the

philosophy of Reid and Beattie because they eschew the “false subtlety” of philo-

sophical reasoning and promote a philosophy that appeals to the “common man”

and is able to avoid the counterintuitive positions of the skeptic.40 But despite his

approval of Scottish common sense philosophy, Lichtenberg does not appear to

have reevaluated his view of personal identity in favor of the common sense view.

Can Lichtenberg’s view of personal identity be defended against Reid’s objection?

Rather than accepting Reid’s objection to memory-based accounts of per-

sonal identity we might defend Lichtenberg by weakening the claim that personal

identity requires sameness of consciousness brought about through memory. It

might be argued that personal identity need not require direct memories extend-

ing from a person at one time to a person at some previous time but only that there

be some sufficiently overlapping chain or continuity of memories.41 This would

allow that the boy and the general are the same person because they are psycho-

logically continuous, though there is no direct memory linking them. Employing

Lichtenberg’s example from K 162, the twenty-year-old and the feeble old man are

the same person because they have some overlapping memories, though the old

man may not directly remember his youth. Certainly more could be said here

about whether this proposal is a satisfying response, but it does give some indi-

cation of how Lichtenberg might respond to Reid’s objection and avoid a retreat

into the common sense view of personal identity. Beyond these issues, there is,

however, also more to the story of Lichtenberg’s views on self-consciousness and

personal identity. In the Waste Books, Lichtenberg sometimes adopts a material-

ist view of the mind, which would seem to run counter to the interpretation of his

views on personal identity proposed above. We may now consider this issue in

more detail.

4.2 Materialism and Personal Identity

Throughout the Waste Books and in his lectures on physics, Lichtenberg is criti-

cal of both the psychophysical parallelism model and the physical influx model of

mind-body dualism.42 According to Lichtenberg, these views leave unexplained,

for example, why merely one soul or mind should be associated with one body,

39 Beattie 1777, I.2.iii.

40 See the Waste Books, E 411, E 418, E 454.

41 For a contemporary discussion of Locke and the psychological continuity criterion of per-

sonal identity, see Noonan 2003, 10.

42 Lichtenberg’s lectures on physics can be found in Lichtenberg 2007.





why multiple souls might not inhabit one body, and why a single soul or mind

might not be associated with multiple bodies.43 If the soul is immaterial, then it

seems that there would be no limit to the number of souls that occupy one body

as immaterial things occupy no space. He also notes that psychophysical paral-

lelism fails to give any explanation of how a harmony between mind and body

comes about, and so in the end needs to posit a God who ensures the parallelism,

a move that is anathema to Lichtenberg’s interest as a physicist in providing em-

pirical causal explanations. Physical influx fares no better in his eyes because it

fails to account for how causal interaction between mind and body occurs or is

even possible given the laws of physics known in the eighteenth century.44 It is

unclear, namely, how something that is immaterial and occupies no particular

space could interact with something that does. This general suspicion of dualism

informs a great deal of Lichtenberg’s writing.

In rejecting the dualist pictures of mind and body, Lichtenberg found a

number of allies among his philosophical contemporaries, most notably David

Hartley and Joseph Priestley, though he also often mentions the theories of the

French materialists Helvétius and La Mettrie with approval.45 He was greatly in-

fluenced by the associationist psychology developed by Hartley in his Observa-

tions on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations (1749), and furthered by

Priestley, and mention of associationist psychology and its neurophysiological

explanation of thought can be found throughout the Waste Books. In notebook

F (1776–1779) for example, he expresses the conviction that “our psychology will

eventually settle on a subtle materialism” (F 425) and suggests that “materialism

is the asymptote of psychology” (F 489).46 The neurophysiological views of the

mind and brain offered a materialist explanation of thought in terms of the vi-

bration of matter and would potentially allow Lichtenberg to dispense with the

dualist views he found so perplexing and objectionable.47 For the present dis-

cussion of personal identity, however, it is important that Lichtenberg was famil-

iar with Priestley’s rejection of dualism in his Disquisitions relating to Matter and

Spirit (1777) and so also likely familiar with the discussion of materialism and per-

43 See the Waste Books, D 656, E 30, F 189, F 324, F 349.

44 On dualism and mind-body identity, also see the Waste Books, J 404 and F 1084.

45 See the Waste Books, D 133, D 454, D 705.

46 See Hartley 1749, chapter 1. For discussions of materialism and associationist psychology, see

the Waste Books, E 31, E 453, F 425, F 474, F 469, F 489, F 1045, F 1130, L 799. Lichtenberg would

likely have been exposed to British materialism during a stay in England between 1774 and 1775.

47 A materialist explanation of thought can also be found in Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) and De

Corpore (1655), but there is little evidence in the Waste Books that Lichtenberg was directly famil-

iar with Hobbes.




354 Steven Tester

sonal identity in §XIII “Observations on Personal Identity with Respect to the Fu-

ture State of Man”.

In his discussion of personal identity, Priestley offers a response to standard

objections to materialist theories of personal identity that would suggest that the

identity of a person consists in the identity of a physical body. One worry that was

raised against materialist views is that if the identity of a person across time is

specified in terms of the identity of a physical body, then it appears that any

change in a part of a body would entail a change in person. To overcome such an

objection to materialism about personal identity, Priestley points to a theory pro-

posed by Isaac Watts in 1733, which holds that there are permanent “stamina”

that were thought to be essential constituents of bodies that would persist despite

qualitative changes and so would allow for the retention of identity in death and

resurrection.48 He writes:

I doubt not that, in the proper sense of the word, the same body that dies shall rise again, not

with every thing that is adventitious and extraneous (as all that we receive by nutrition) but

with the same stamina, or those particles that really belonged to the germ of the organical

body. And there can be no proof that these particles are ever properly destroyed, or inter-

changed. (Priestley 1777, 161)

Whatever such stamina turned out to be, they were supposed to ensure that the

identity of a material body could be preserved across time. But this is unlikely to

be a satisfying theory of personal identity for an empirically inclined philosopher

such as Lichtenberg unless such staminal particles can be empirically located

and more can be said about how they persist. Otherwise, positing staminal par-

ticles sounds as dubious as positing a persisting, substantial soul at the basis of

the identity of persons.

Despite his discussion of Watts’ staminal particles, Priestley actually goes

on to endorse a Lockean account of personal identity in his considered dis-

cussions.49 To overcome the implications associated with materialism about per-

sonal identity, Locke distinguished between the identity of a person and the iden-

tity of a man. He maintained that although the identity of a person consists in

sameness of consciousness, the identity of a man consists in the identity of a

physical body.50 This proposal allows Locke to avoid the objections to materialist

views of personal identity by holding that the identity of a person may be main-

48 See Watts 1794, 176–178. Watts refers to “staminal particles”.

49 My own discussion here is indebted to Udo Thiel’s discussion of Priestley and Locke in Thiel

1998, 59–83. According to Thiel, many materialists tended to adopt some form of Locke’s view of

personal identity.

50 See Locke 1975, II.xxvii.





tained despite a change in the identity of the man. One’s body may be subject to

change, but one remains the same person so long as one exhibits the requisite

memorial connections. Though Locke’s proposal in this regard is open to criti-

cism on many points and was indeed critiqued by his contemporaries, it provides

some suggestion of how one might hold a materialist view of the mind while still

maintaining that personal identity consists in continuity of consciousness.

Lichtenberg also considers the relationship between materialism and personal

identity, arguing that continuity of consciousness is constitutive of personal iden-

tity regardless of the material substrate upon which consciousness supervenes. In

an observation from Waste Book A (1765–1770), written during his formative years

as a university student, Lichtenberg discusses an article in Der Arzt (The Physi-

cian), in which the author presents an argument against the materialism proposed

in La Mettrie’s L’Homme Machine (Machine Man) (1747). Lichtenberg considers the

consequences of this argument for a theory of personal identity, writing:

The argument against the materialists offered in Herr Unzer’s journal Der Arzt, and which

derives from the mutability of our body, truly has some force. Certainly the parts of my body

are no longer me when I am a few years older, so how could successive souls so to speak im-

part consciousness to one another? One might respond that the transformation is very grad-

ual, just as traditions have been passed on even though every eighty years the Earth itself is

different. (A 56)51

As becomes clear from the surrounding discussion, the problem raised in re-

sponse to La Mettrie’s materialism is that a materialist account of personal iden-

tity could not work as parts of matter are constantly changing. If they are con-

stantly changing, then identity could not be preserved. In the journal, an

anonymous respondent to the objection argues that the materialist believes the

representational activity of the brain lies in its mechanistic nature, just as the ca-

pacity of the heart to convey blood lies in its mechanistic nature. According to the

respondent, the brain is analogous to a machine. The capacity of a machine is a

function of its entire structure and not of the individual parts, and the machine re-

tains this capacity despite a gradual replacement of its component parts. The re-

spondent concludes that this is also the case with the representational activity of

the brain. Despite a gradual replacement of the material components of the brain,

the mind retains its capacity for representation. To adopt contemporary terminol-

ogy, the respondent is suggesting that the representational capacities of a mind

supervene on a material basis but are not identical to it.

51 Lichtenberg is referring to Johann August Unzer’s (1727–1799) weekly journal, Der Arzt. See

Unzer 1778, 565–567.




356 Steven Tester

Lichtenberg makes a couple of points in his remark on this discussion. First,

he appears to agree with the reviewer’s suggestion that the representational ca-

pacities of a mind persist despite a replacement of its material base. This, as I

have suggested, is because both Lichtenberg and the reviewer have in mind a

supervenience account of the relationship between the mind’s representational

capacities and its material basis. Given this understanding, if personal identity

consists in continuity of consciousness, then personal identity may be retained

despite changes in the material basis of consciousness. Though he does not say

so explicitly, this kind of response on Lichtenberg’s part indicates that he might

have thought that consciousness could be transferred from one substance to an-

other, a view that is also in keeping with his speculations on Seelenwanderung.

For if consciousness is not identical with its material basis, then it is metaphys-

ically possible that consciousness can be realized by different material bases.

This is very similar to Locke’s solution to the problem of reconciling materialism

with personal identity in suggesting that the identity of a person differs from the

identity of the man. Nevertheless, it is interesting because it demonstrates that

Lichtenberg was aware of the tension between his materialism and his thoughts

on self-consciousness and personal identity and had some insights into how they

could be reconciled. Although Lichtenberg might prefer some form of material-

ism, he can nevertheless maintain that the identity of the material basis of con-

sciousness is not relevant to personal identity.

Lichtenberg’s A 56 remark might also be interpreted as making the additional

point that even if one accepted a materialist view of personal identity, the gradual

replacement of parts of matter would not be sufficient to undermine the identity of

a body. Similar to what was argued regarding the continuity of consciousness gen-

erated through memory, so long as there is some overlapping continuity of physi-

cal constituents, a body could be said to persist if the “transformation is very grad-

ual”. Unfortunately, however, Lichtenberg does not discuss the possibility of a

sudden and total replacement of parts, or the possibility of a reconstruction from

the replaced parts along the lines of the thought experiments involving the iden-

tity of the ship of Theseus. This is also an interesting response on Lichtenberg’s

part to arguments against materialist views of personal identity, which might

allow him to retain a materialist view without recourse to the staminal particles

discussed by Watts and Priestly. But it is unclear how satisfying Lichtenberg’s re-

sponse here would be to those in the period who were concerned with the problem

of resurrection, for it is unclear how the requisite continuity could be maintained

upon the death of the body. Nevertheless, whatever the conclusions about the

continuity and identity of physical bodies, it appears that on Lichtenberg’s con-

sidered view of personal identity expressed in notebooks A and K and elsewhere,

he would hold that personal identity consists in the continuity of consciousness





brought about by memory regardless of the material basis upon which conscious-

ness supervenes. One might speculate that Lichtenberg’s thoughts here on self-

consciousness, personal identity, and materialism may have had an important im-

pact on the discussion of the self among his contemporaries or in later German

idealism had they been more widely known and understood.

We may sum up the results of this discussion of Lichtenberg’s remarks on

self-consciousness and personal identity and their relation to early-modern and

eighteenth-century views of the self by returning to Lichtenberg’s remark on the

cogito:

We know only the existence of our sensations, representations and thoughts. It thinks, we

should say, just as we say, it lightnings. To say cogito is already too much if we translate it as

I think. (K 76)

As the preceding arguments have shown, Lichtenberg’s central insight about the

self is not that a substantial self is metaphysically impossible and that there are

only isolated and unrelated mental states, a view best captured by the statement

“it thinks”. The idea is that we cannot locate a substantial self in inner sense and

are therefore not warranted in regarding such a substantial self to be the bearer of

ascriptions of mental states. As we have no reason to believe that the self is sub-

stantial, we should also not believe that its identity across time consists in the

identity of such a substance. Lichtenberg proposes instead that we are warranted

only in holding that the self consists in a series of interrelated conscious states

and that the identity of a person consists in the continuity of conscious states

brought about through memory regardless of the material basis upon which such

consciousness supervenes. It is this idea of the self that according to Lichtenberg

is best expressed in the statement “it thinks” rather than “I think”.52

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boldt Universität, and two anonymous referees for Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie for help-

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