University of Washington Tacoma
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Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

Author Biography

Lucas Waggoner is a recent graduate of the University of Washington Tacoma. He graduated with a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. He is a first-year law student at Vermont Law School with a specialization in environmental law. He primarily uses philosophy, politics, and ethics as subjects of research.

Document Type

Undergraduate Research Paper

Abstract

In this paper, I disassemble classical notions of identity, and propose a new mode of identity-creation through change itself. While static characteristics or categories are traditionally utilized in forming identities, the existence of change creates problems for maintaining them. Rather than continue following that same pattern of category formation, I argue that flux, and a history of changes a thing or being has undergone, can contain innately a sense of identity. I use the science fiction of Octavia Butler, the works of the Presocratic philosophers, Timothy Morton’s ecological philosophy, the communicative philosophy of Martin Buber, the writings of Hannah Arendt, an existentialist Buddhism, and the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. By instantiating one’s identity through change, the natural eradication of boundaries over time will become less likely to trigger existential crises. It would place an individual more in line with the natural flow of reality.

University

University of Washington Tacoma

Course

TPHIL 466 Philosophy of the Future

Instructor

Benjamin Meiches

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