Pregnant Thinkers

Bibliographic Data

ID10691858
AuthorsDavid Mark Kovacs (0000-0002-9890-8089, Tel Aviv University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume75
Issue1
Pages104-124
Publication date2024-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqad120
OpenAlexW4390099139
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited38

Do pregnant mothers have foetuses as parts? According to the ‘parthood view’, they do, while according to the ‘containment view’, they don’t. This paper raises a novel puzzle about pregnancy: If mothers have their foetuses as parts, then wherever there is a pregnant mother, there is also a smaller thinking being that has every part of the mother except for those that overlap with the foetus. This problem resembles a familiar overpopulation puzzle from the personal identity literature, known as the ‘Thinking Parts Problem’, but it's not merely a special case of that problem. Rather, the fact that late-term foetuses have a mental life of their own makes the Problem of Pregnant Thinkers, as I will call it, a sui generis and especially recalcitrant problem

Aesthetics · Biology · Epistemology · Identity (music) · Overpopulation · Population · Pregnancy · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Demography · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology