It is a startling fact that, despite its long and rich history, the debate about personal
identity is far from settled. The present paper examines two deflationary
explanations for this: a) the dispute is merely verbal (verbalism); b) there cannot
be sufficient justification for preferring one theory of personal identity over the
others (epistemicism). As this paper argues, there is evidence that either verbalism
or epistemicism provides a correct account of the personal identity debate.