Combining Philosophers

Ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Allan Gibbard and Wolfgang von Goethe

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3 ideas

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Claims on contingent identity seem to violate Leibniz's Law [Gibbard]
     Full Idea: The most prominent objection to contingent identity (as in the case of the statue and its clay) is that it violates Leibniz's Law.
     From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], V)
     A reaction: Depends what you mean by a property. The trickiest one would be that the statue has (right now) a disposition to be worth a lot, but the clay doesn't. But I don't think that is really a property of the statue. Properties are a muddle.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
Two identical things must share properties - including creation and destruction times [Gibbard]
     Full Idea: For two things to be strictly identical, they must have all properties in common. That means, among other things, that they must start to exist at the same time and cease to exist at the same time.
     From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], I)
     A reaction: I don't accept that coming into existence at time t is a 'property' of a thing. Coincident objects give you the notion of 'existing as' something, which complicates the whole story.
Leibniz's Law isn't just about substitutivity, because it must involve properties and relations [Gibbard]
     Full Idea: As a general law of substitutivity of identicals, Leibniz's Law is false. It is a law about properties and relations, that if two things are identical, they have the same properties and relations. It only works in contexts which attribute those.
     From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], V)
     A reaction: I'm not convinced about relations, which are not intrinsic properties. Under different descriptions, the relations to human minds might differ.