Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Dennis Whitcomb, Andr Gallois and Katherine Hawley

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


4 ideas

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
Gallois is committed to identity with respect to times, and denial of simple identity [Gallois, by Sider]
     Full Idea: Gallois's core claim is that the identity relation holds with respect to times, ...and he must claim that there is no such thing as the relation of identity simpliciter.
     From: report of André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.5
     A reaction: Gallois is essentially responding to the statue and clay problem, but it seems a bit drastic to entirely change our concept of two things being identical, such as Hesperus and Phosphorus. 'Identity' seems to have several meanings; let's sort them out.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Occasional Identity: two objects can be identical at one time, and different at others [Gallois, by Hawley]
     Full Idea: Gallois' Occasional Identity Thesis is that objects can be identical at one time without being identical at all times.
     From: report of André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.4
     A reaction: The analogy is presumably with two crossing roads being identical at one place but not at others. It is a major misunderstanding to infer from Special Relativity that time is just like space.
If two things are equal, each side involves a necessity, so the equality is necessary [Gallois]
     Full Idea: The necessity of identity: a=b; □(a=a); so something necessarily = a; so something necessarily must equal b; so □(a=b). [A summary of the argument of Marcus and Kripke]
     From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], §3)
     A reaction: [Lowe 1982 offered a response] The conclusion seems reasonable. If two things are mistakenly thought to be different, but turn out to be one thing, that one thing could not possibly be two things. In no world is one thing two things!
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
If two things might be identical, there can't be something true of one and false of the other [Hawley]
     Full Idea: We can call the 'transference principle' the claim that if it is indeterminate whether two objects are identical, then nothing determinately true of one can be determinately false of the other.
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 4.9)
     A reaction: The point is that Leibniz's Law could immediately be invoked to show there is no possibility of their identity.