An amnesia victim asking "Who am I?" means something different from a confused adolescent asking the
same question. Marya Schechtman takes issue with analytic philosophy's emphasis on the first sort of question to
the exclusion of the second. The problem of personal identity, she suggests, is usually understood to be a question
about historical life. What she calls the "reidentification question" is taken to be the real metaphysical
question of personal identity, whereas questions about beliefs or values and the actions they prompt, the "characterization
question," are often presented as merely metaphorical. Failure to recognize the philosophical importance of
both these questions, Schechtman argues, has undermined analytic philosophy's attempts at offering a satisfying
account of personal identity.