An Epistemic Component to Personal Identity: the Case of Religious Conversion

Under what conditions is a person a at time t the same person as a person b at a later time t"? This is the problem of personal identity over time. In this paper, I wish to argue that there is a necessary (though not sufficient) epistemic condition for identity. I will explain this condition and offer some support for it. I will then discuss a case - religious conversion - where it is arguable both that the necessary condition fails to obtain and that there is a failure of identity. If the case displays a fruitful co-incidence between these two failures, that will be some evidence in favor of my necessary condition