The Collaborative International Dictionary
Personal \Per"son*al\ (p[~e]r"s[u^]n*al), a. [L. personalis: cf. F. personnel.]
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Pertaining to human beings as distinct from things.
Every man so termed by way of personal difference.
--Hooker. -
Of or pertaining to a particular person; relating to, or affecting, an individual, or each of many individuals; peculiar or proper to private concerns; not public or general; as, personal comfort; personal desire.
The words are conditional, -- If thou doest well, -- and so personal to Cain.
--Locke. Pertaining to the external or bodily appearance; corporeal; as, personal charms.
--Addison.-
Done in person; without the intervention of another. ``Personal communication.''
--Fabyan.The immediate and personal speaking of God.
--White. Relating to an individual, his character, conduct, motives, or private affairs, in an invidious and offensive manner; as, personal reflections or remarks.
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(Gram.) Denoting person; as, a personal pronoun.
Personal action (Law), a suit or action by which a man claims a debt or personal duty, or damages in lieu of it; or wherein he claims satisfaction in damages for an injury to his person or property, or the specific recovery of goods or chattels; -- opposed to real action.
Personal equation. (Astron.) See under Equation.
Personal estate or Personal property (Law), movables; chattels; -- opposed to real estate or property. It usually consists of things temporary and movable, including all subjects of property not of a freehold nature.
Personal identity (Metaph.), the persistent and continuous unity of the individual person, which is attested by consciousness.
Personal pronoun (Gram.), one of the pronouns I, thou, he, she, it, and their plurals.
Personal representatives (Law), the executors or administrators of a person deceased.
Personal rights, rights appertaining to the person; as, the rights of a personal security, personal liberty, and private property.
Personal tithes. See under Tithe.
Personal verb (Gram.), a verb which is modified or inflected to correspond with the three persons.
WordNet
n. the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; "you can lose your identity when you join the army" [syn: identity, individuality]
Wikipedia
Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of persons through time.
Personal identity may also refer to:
- Identity (social science), an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences for an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity
- Personally identifiable information, information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person
In philosophy, the matter of personal identity deals with such questions as, "What makes it true that a person at one time is the same thing as a person at another time?" or "What kinds of things are we persons?" The term "identity" in "personal identity" refers to "numerical identity," where saying that X and Y are numerically identical just means that X and Y are the same thing. Personal identity is not the same as personality, though some theories of personal identity maintain that continuity of personality may be required for one to persist through time. In relation to answer questions about persistence, such as under what conditions a person does or does not continue to exist, contemporary philosophers often seek to first answer questions about what sort of things we are, most fundamentally. Many people claim we are animals, or organisms, but many others strongly believe that no person can exist without mental traits, such as consciousness. Since an organism can exist without consciousness, both these views cannot be true (if we are organisms we can exist without being conscious; but if we can't exist without consciousness, we are not organisms). Thus, in order to determine whether certain features (such as consciousness) are crucial to a person's continued existence, it may be important to first ask what sort of things we are.
Generally, personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person in the course of time. That is, the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can be said to be the same person, persisting through time;
In contemporary metaphysics, the matter of personal identity is referred to as the diachronic problem of personal identity. The synchronic problem concerns the question of: What features and traits characterize a person at a given time. In Continental philosophy and in Analytic philosophy, enquiry to the nature of Identity is common. Continental philosophy deals with conceptually maintaining identity when confronted by different philosophic propositions, postulates, and presuppositions about the world and its nature.
Usage examples of "personal identity".
He could recall thinking that they were taking away the last symbol of personal identity.
His feelings become his only guide, his only remnant of personal identity, he clings to them with ferocious possessiveness—.
As she would have anticipated, the ex-military crew kept their quarters tidy, almost bare of personal identity.
Kynes said to me, 'I give you the chameleon, whose ability to match itself with its background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of personal identity.
You're left with the great postmodern discovery, anticipated alike by Hume and by the Buddhists: that personal identity is a fiction.