Psychological Continuity
In contrast to the bodily continuity criterion of personal identity, the psychological continuity criterion suggests that it is continuity of mental states that constitutes personal identity. One way of filling in the details of this theory is to adopt a Lockean memory criterion. On this approach, it is because I can remember things that my younger self did that ensure that I and my younger self are the same person.
One difficulty with the memory criterion is that there are many things that we have done that we can’t remember. If I go far enough back into my past, perhaps to events in my early childhood, then I cannot remember them; according to the memory criterion, it seems, because I cannot remember these events, it isn’t me that was involved in them.
The memory criterion, however, can be repaired to cope with this objection. I may not be able remember many events in my childhood, but I can remember a time when I could remember events in my childhood. Identity is a transitive relation; if a first thing is identical with a second, and that second is identical with a third, then the first thing is indentical with the third. The present me (which can remember being a teenager) is identical with the teenage me (which could remember being a child) which is identical with the child me; all are therefore the same person.
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