Persona Classification Layer
Compare Personas
Pick two or more historical figures to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension evidence, and shared school influences side by side.
Derek Parfit
Reasons and Persons — personal identity is not what matters; ethics is what we have most reason to do
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.
| Attribute | Derek Parfit |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | N/A |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Derek Parfit
Standard linear physical time; the question of identity over time is the central problem.
Space
Derek Parfit
Standard substantival space.
Matter
Derek Parfit
Standard substantival matter; persons are reducible to brains-and-bodies in psychological continuity.
Observer
Derek Parfit
Plural psychologically-continuous person-stages. Mediated knowledge through inference. No metaphysical agency.
Energy
Derek Parfit
Standard physics.
Information
Derek Parfit
Information not personally conserved beyond death; identity is a matter of degree.
Internal Tensions
Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.
Parfit's "Triple Theory" — that Kantian, consequentialist, and contractualist ethics converge — was contested even by his closest interlocutors (Scanlon's reply in OWM volume II is friendly but skeptical). The austerity of his life and the singular intensity of his philosophical commitments produced both his major contributions and the perception that he had narrowed the field of moral philosophy too sharply.