Further facts

In philosophy, further facts are facts that do not follow logically from the physical facts of the world. Reductionists who argue that at bottom there is nothing more than the physical facts thus argue against the existence of further facts. The concept of further facts plays a key role in some of the major works in analytic philosophy of the late 20th century, including in Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons, and David Chalmers's The Conscious Mind. One context in which the existence of further facts is debated is that of personal identity across time: in what sense is Alice today the same person as Alice yesterday, given that across the two days the state of her brain is different and the atoms that constitute her are different? On the one hand, we may believe that at bottom, there is nothing more than the atoms and their arrangement at different points in time; while we may for practical purposes come up with some notion of sameness of a person, this notion does not reflect anything deeper about reality. Under such a view there would be no further facts. On the other hand, we may believe that there is an additional fact of the matter whether Alice yesterday and Alice today really are the same person. For example, if we believe in Cartesian souls, we may believe that Alice yesterday and Alice today are the same person if and only if they correspond to the same soul. Or we may not believe in Cartesian souls, but yet believe that whether Alice yesterday and Alice today are the same person is a question about something other than facts about which atoms constitute them and how they are arranged. These would both be further-fact views. This debate about further facts concerning personal identity over time is most closely associated with Derek Parfit. In his Reasons and Persons, he describes the non-reductionist's view that "personal identity is a deep further fact, distinct from physical and psychological continuity". Parfit takes a reductionist stance and argues against this further-fact view.