Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The by Mark White Page B
Authors: Mark White
Ads: Link
for half a century, starting with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, through Kurt Busiek and George Pérez, and all the way up to Brian Michael Bendis, and Joss Whedon for bringing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to life on the silver screen.
PART ONE
WHAT WOULD AN AVENGER DO?
PART TWO
WHO IS AN AVENGER?
Chapter 4
SUPERHERO IDENTITY: CASE STUDIES IN THE AVENGERS
Stephen M. Nelson
You’re in a comic book store and you see a display of Avengers comics from the past five decades. Does it seem a little strange that the founding members on the early covers are still around, half a century later, looking pretty much the same? Do you wonder: are they the same superheroes? Of course they are, you say—take Iron Man, for instance. He may have different armor on the covers of the first issues of volumes 1 and 4 of Avengers (September 1963 and July 2010, respectively), but they’re both Tony Stark underneath, so what’s the problem?
What may seem obvious at first, though, gets puzzling when we look at some of the other Avengers and the changes they’ve gone through over the years. Two different kinds of cases in particular challenge our initial clear-cut answer. First, we have superheroes who have been “played” by different people, such as Captain America. Second, there are people who have been many different superheroes, such as Henry “Hank” Pym. Both kinds of cases pose problems about identity , or what it is to be a particular superhero. Can one person be many superheroes, and can one superhero be many people? Luckily, we have some philosophical tools that we can bring to bear on these issues, stemming from investigations into the nature of personal identity , or what it is to be a person.
It’s All about Bodies, Right?
Concerns about the notion of identity, personal or otherwise, come up in the field of metaphysics , where philosophers puzzle about the nature of reality. The word “identity” has different uses, but the one that’s important in metaphysics is the kind that is also of interest in mathematics. We even call it numerical identity , since it is what we use to talk about two things really being one and the same thing across a span of time. For example, you might discover that the woman who just waved to you and the woman who sold you your first car are actually one and the same woman. Another way we could say this is that those women are identical.
When philosophers discuss the issue of personal identity, or what it is to be one and the same person over a span of time, we do so by proposing theories that attempt to get at the essence of what it is to be a person. One contender for a good explanation of personal identity is the “body” theory, which says that a person is to be identified with his or her body. So to be one and the same person across a span of time is just to have one and the same body across that span.
How could the body theory work with someone like Steve Rogers, the original Captain America? Let’s call the scrawny kid who hadn’t taken the super-soldier serum yet “Stevie,” and the athletic (post-serum) man “Steve.” Stevie and Steve do not look exactly like each other, nor are they made of exactly the same physical particles. So if the body theory of personal identity required the two bodies to look the same or have all the same particles, then we would say that Stevie and Steve are not the same person. But if the theory is more sophisticated, taking into account the normal processes of growth and cell regeneration, a body theory may be able to explain how Stevie and Steve are the same person: the former developed into the latter, thus sharing the same body.
Doubts about the body theory come from a thought experiment devised by the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), in which we imagine people swapping bodies. 1 Suppose one day Steve Rogers and Hank Pym wake up with each other’s memories and personalities. They go to
PART ONE
WHAT WOULD AN AVENGER DO?
PART TWO
WHO IS AN AVENGER?
Chapter 4
SUPERHERO IDENTITY: CASE STUDIES IN THE AVENGERS
Stephen M. Nelson
You’re in a comic book store and you see a display of Avengers comics from the past five decades. Does it seem a little strange that the founding members on the early covers are still around, half a century later, looking pretty much the same? Do you wonder: are they the same superheroes? Of course they are, you say—take Iron Man, for instance. He may have different armor on the covers of the first issues of volumes 1 and 4 of Avengers (September 1963 and July 2010, respectively), but they’re both Tony Stark underneath, so what’s the problem?
What may seem obvious at first, though, gets puzzling when we look at some of the other Avengers and the changes they’ve gone through over the years. Two different kinds of cases in particular challenge our initial clear-cut answer. First, we have superheroes who have been “played” by different people, such as Captain America. Second, there are people who have been many different superheroes, such as Henry “Hank” Pym. Both kinds of cases pose problems about identity , or what it is to be a particular superhero. Can one person be many superheroes, and can one superhero be many people? Luckily, we have some philosophical tools that we can bring to bear on these issues, stemming from investigations into the nature of personal identity , or what it is to be a person.
It’s All about Bodies, Right?
Concerns about the notion of identity, personal or otherwise, come up in the field of metaphysics , where philosophers puzzle about the nature of reality. The word “identity” has different uses, but the one that’s important in metaphysics is the kind that is also of interest in mathematics. We even call it numerical identity , since it is what we use to talk about two things really being one and the same thing across a span of time. For example, you might discover that the woman who just waved to you and the woman who sold you your first car are actually one and the same woman. Another way we could say this is that those women are identical.
When philosophers discuss the issue of personal identity, or what it is to be one and the same person over a span of time, we do so by proposing theories that attempt to get at the essence of what it is to be a person. One contender for a good explanation of personal identity is the “body” theory, which says that a person is to be identified with his or her body. So to be one and the same person across a span of time is just to have one and the same body across that span.
How could the body theory work with someone like Steve Rogers, the original Captain America? Let’s call the scrawny kid who hadn’t taken the super-soldier serum yet “Stevie,” and the athletic (post-serum) man “Steve.” Stevie and Steve do not look exactly like each other, nor are they made of exactly the same physical particles. So if the body theory of personal identity required the two bodies to look the same or have all the same particles, then we would say that Stevie and Steve are not the same person. But if the theory is more sophisticated, taking into account the normal processes of growth and cell regeneration, a body theory may be able to explain how Stevie and Steve are the same person: the former developed into the latter, thus sharing the same body.
Doubts about the body theory come from a thought experiment devised by the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), in which we imagine people swapping bodies. 1 Suppose one day Steve Rogers and Hank Pym wake up with each other’s memories and personalities. They go to
Similar Books
