Showing posts with label Locke’s memory theory of personal identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Locke’s memory theory of personal identity. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Basic Speech 8: When I Was A Kid


(This is initially a speech delivered for the Competent Communicator Manual of Toastmaster International. My Basic Speech 8)

Main objective of Speech 8 is to Get Comfortable With Visual Aids — It examines the use of slides, transparencies, flip charts, whiteboards, or props. The speech should be 5 to 7 minutes.

For this project I use my drawings as my visual aids.

When I Was A Kid

Self-knowledge is represented in the individual’s memory, meaning – if you want to know yourself then think about what you remember from your past. It was John Locke who suggested that a person’s identity extends to whatever of his / her past that ONLY he / she can remember.

Locke’s memory theory of personal identity conclude that memory is both a necessary and sufficient condition of self, and, therein, personal identity. Of course, the theory has been through a number of scrutiny, debate and rejection. Nevertheless, supposing that it is true I materialized my childhood memories through drawings, hoping that in the process I might discover myself.

Seventeen years ago, when I was five years old, I remember looking out from a window. From that window, I could see my friends
playing. 

There was this yearning to play with them but I cannot because I was inside my room behind a desk with my tutor seating beside me. My tutor was a young lady, quite beautiful but beneath that sweet demeanor was a strict teacher.

“Finish your letters first,” my tutor said as I practice my scriptwriting.

“Once you are done, then you can go out and play,” she said.