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Personhood in these accounts to the external world are bound,
is not something firm, but rather but he emphasizes the psycho-
dissolved, something, that de- logical factor rather than as-
pends on its relations. In ‘Rea- suming a stable, identifiable
sons and Persons’ by Derek self: ‘What fundamentally
Parfit, for example, we read that matpsychological connected-
what matters, is the relation, ness and continuity […]’.1 Start-
and that questions about per- ing from here, it becomes
sonal identity are empty, since comprehensible, that freedom
‘people are not separately exist- can figure as a replacement to
ing entities, distinct from their essentialism, since the ac-
brains and bodies and their ex- counts of personhood and iden-
periences’.1 Moreover, it is ac- tity, at least as they are
knowledging the fact that others considered in analytical philos-
are part of one’s own identity ophy, presents itself as an open
that liberates us from digging project, a pure possibility and
for an essence of the human full of unreleased options. The
being, while trying to tighten at- individual relation to self, is too,
tributes to what we hope to dis- an open project. It hosts both,
cover as personhood. In a the ability and the inability to
rather personal remark in his identify with one’s own desires
book, Parfit sums up his argu- and actions as much as the
ments on personal identity as ability to create a relation to the
follows: ‘When I believed that own self and world. Isaiah
my existence was […] fact, I Berlin, quoted by Jaeggi, brings
seemed imprisoned in myself. relevant points: ‘The “positive”
[…] When I changed my view, sense of the word “liberty” de-
the walls of my glass tunnel dis- rives from the wish on the part
appeared. I now live in the open of the individual to be his own
air. […] Other people are closer. master. I wish my life and deci-
I am less concerned about the sions to depend on myself, not
rest of my own life, and more on external forces of whatever
concerned about the lives of kind. I wish to be the instrument
others.’2 Parfit does not deny of my own, not of other men’s,
that there is something, to acts of will. I wish to be a sub-
which relations to others and ject, not an object; to be moved