It is widely held that every person is a person essentially, where being a person is having special mental properties such as intelligence and self-consciousness. It follows that nothing can acquire or lose these properties. The paper argues that this rules out all familiar psychological-continuity views of personal identity over time. It also faces grave difficulties in accounting for the mental powers of human beings who are not intelligent and self-conscious, such as foetuses and those with dementia.

中文翻译：

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反对个人本质主义

人们普遍认为，每个人本质上都是一个人，作为一个人具有特殊的心理属性，例如智力和自我意识。因此，没有任何东西可以获得或失去这些属性。该论文认为，随着时间的推移，这排除了所有熟悉的关于个人身份的心理连续性观点。它还面临着解释不聪明和没有自我意识的人类（例如胎儿和痴呆症患者）的智力方面的严重困难。