Close Readings Reflections & Connections

Tagpersons

The Chislenko premises II: death and recurrence

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. We’ve discussed the first of the Chislenko premises, and then digressed into a number of complications. It’s time to move on to the second premise. In earlier posts, I have already speculated that a theory of ghosts would include a necessary element of death, a form of...

Narrative import in dream character re-identification

We have seen how saying that a dream figure is “the same” as one we encountered before is different, both from re-identifying embodied persons in real life and from re-identifying characters in a narrative text. A problem is beginning to emerge here. Persons in the real world have an objective existence: they (or more precisely, their bodies) have a determinate spatial location and persist...

How to re-identify the old man

Stepping into the shady interior of the old bookstore I passed an old man who was just leaving. I soon gravitated towards a shelf with the latest arrivals, picked a publication and immersed myself in its table of contents. Behind my back I sensed someone entering the shop; had the old man returned? What criteria do we use, in everyday life, to find out if, say, a person (one we don’t already...

The second man revisited

I was a little too quick with what I called the “second man” problem, in my discussion of the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s story. I noted, first, the obvious: that a second man appeared in the ghost sighting episode where the first man was killed, and that this second man is later recognized as one of the still living players in the plot — and hence whatever was sighted couldn’t...

Ghosts passing through

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. We’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, caught up with the underlying metaphysics of persons, and outlined Chislenko’s reasoning. But we’re still sorting through a host of difficulties, related to physical interaction or otherwise, person re-identification...

Logical interdependencies and suppositions of individuation

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. In earlier posts, I have suggested that such a theory would include a necessary element of death, a form of recurrence (something from the past reappears in the present), and the intimation of an inevitability. How does the implied theory that drives Chislenko’s thought...

No-ghost non-persons

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. After preliminaries (the pseudoscientific psychobabble, underlying metaphysics of persons), we’re knee-deep into Chislenko’s reasoning and the identification of ghosts with persons (and not for the first time). 6. There is an extra complication with the story’s theory of...

A short note about the first Chislenko premise

I’m discussing the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story, “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”, and in particular the first of the premises whose truth is simply assumed in that theory: that a ghost is a person (or in some sense a continuation, possibly “disembodied”, of a person). Since we’re at it, I might as well make a cross-referencing remark about this idea. I have...

The Chislenko premises I: physical interaction

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. Now that we’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, caught up with the underlying metaphysics of persons, and outlined Chislenko’s reasoning, let’s look more deeply into the actual theory of ghosts it implies. 5. As we have seen, that theory has two components:...

A primer on disembodied egos

I continue looking into the implied theory of ghosts in Reginald Hill’s short story “There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union”. Now that we’ve dealt with the pseudoscientific psychobabble, and outlined Chislenko’s reasoning, let’s look more deeply into the actual theory it implies. 4. In order to discuss the first premise we have to catch up on a bit of ontological background. For that, I’ll use...

Close Readings Reflections & Connections

Leif Frenzel is a writer and independent researcher. He has a background in philosophy, literature, music, and information technology.

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