TY - JOUR
T1 - Habits: Bridging the gap between personhood and personal identity
AU - Wagner, Nils Frederic
AU - Northoff, Georg Franz Josef
N1 - Cited By :1
Export Date: 11 May 2016
Correspondence Address: Wagner, N.-F.; Royal Ottawa Health Care Group,Mind Brain Imaging and Neuroethics, Institute of Mental Health Research, University of Ottawa, 1145 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1Z7K4, Canada; email: [email protected]
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PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - In philosophy, the criteria for personhood (PH) at a specific point in time (synchronic), and the necessary and sufficient conditions of personal identity (PI) over time (diachronic) are traditionally separated. Hence, the transition between both timescales of a person's life remains largely unclear. Personal habits reflect a decision-making (DM) process that binds together synchronic and diachronic timescales. Despite the fact that the actualization of habits takes place synchronically, they presuppose, for the possibility of their generation, time in a diachronic sense. The acquisition of habits therefore rests upon PI over time; that is, the temporal extension of personal decisions is the necessary condition for the possible development of habits. Conceptually, habits can thus be seen as a bridge between synchronic and diachronic timescales of a person's life. In order to investigate the empirical mediation of this temporal linkage, we draw upon the neuronal mechanisms underlying DM; in particular on the distinction between internally and externally guided DM. Externally guided DM relies on external criteria at a specific point in time (synchronic); on a neural level, this has been associated with lateral frontal and parietal brain regions. In contrast, internally guided DM is based on the person's own preferences that involve a more longitudinal and thus diachronic timescale, which has been associated with the brain's intrinsic activity. Habits can be considered to reflect a balance between internally and externally guided DM, which implicates a particular temporal balance between diachronic and synchronic elements, thus linking two different timescales. Based on such evidence, we suggest a habit-based neurophilosophical approach of PH and PI by focusing on the empirically-based linkage between the synchronic and diachronic elements of habits. By doing so, we propose to link together what philosophically has been described and analyzed separately as PH and PI. © 2014 Wagner and Northoff.
AB - In philosophy, the criteria for personhood (PH) at a specific point in time (synchronic), and the necessary and sufficient conditions of personal identity (PI) over time (diachronic) are traditionally separated. Hence, the transition between both timescales of a person's life remains largely unclear. Personal habits reflect a decision-making (DM) process that binds together synchronic and diachronic timescales. Despite the fact that the actualization of habits takes place synchronically, they presuppose, for the possibility of their generation, time in a diachronic sense. The acquisition of habits therefore rests upon PI over time; that is, the temporal extension of personal decisions is the necessary condition for the possible development of habits. Conceptually, habits can thus be seen as a bridge between synchronic and diachronic timescales of a person's life. In order to investigate the empirical mediation of this temporal linkage, we draw upon the neuronal mechanisms underlying DM; in particular on the distinction between internally and externally guided DM. Externally guided DM relies on external criteria at a specific point in time (synchronic); on a neural level, this has been associated with lateral frontal and parietal brain regions. In contrast, internally guided DM is based on the person's own preferences that involve a more longitudinal and thus diachronic timescale, which has been associated with the brain's intrinsic activity. Habits can be considered to reflect a balance between internally and externally guided DM, which implicates a particular temporal balance between diachronic and synchronic elements, thus linking two different timescales. Based on such evidence, we suggest a habit-based neurophilosophical approach of PH and PI by focusing on the empirically-based linkage between the synchronic and diachronic elements of habits. By doing so, we propose to link together what philosophically has been described and analyzed separately as PH and PI. © 2014 Wagner and Northoff.
KW - Decision-making
KW - Default-mode network
KW - FMRI
KW - Habits
KW - Personal identity
KW - Personhood
KW - Resting state
KW - article
KW - behavior
KW - cognition
KW - conditioning
KW - decision making
KW - frontal lobe
KW - habit
KW - habituation
KW - human
KW - identity
KW - morality
KW - parietal lobe
KW - personhood
KW - philosophy
KW - verbal communication
U2 - 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00330
DO - 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00330
M3 - Article
SN - 1662-5161
VL - 8
JO - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
IS - MAY
ER -