Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Stilpo, Andr Gallois and David Roochnik

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3 ideas

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
16233 Gallois hoped to clarify identity through time, but seems to make talk of it impossible [Hawley on Gallois]
     Full Idea: A problem for Gallois is that he leaves us no way to talk about questions of genuine identity through time, and thus undercuts one motivation for his own position.
     From: comment on André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.8
     A reaction: Gallois seems to need a second theory of identity to support his Occasional Identity theory. Two things need an identity each, before we can say that the two identities coincide. (Time to read Gallois!)
16025 If things change they become different - but then no one thing undergoes the change! [Gallois]
     Full Idea: If things really change, there can't literally be one thing before and after the change. However, if there isn't one thing before and after the change, then no thing has really undergone any change.
     From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], Intro)
     A reaction: [He cites Copi for this way of expressing the problem of identity through change] There is an obvious simple ambiguity about 'change' in ordinary English. A change of property isn't a change of object. Painting a red ball blue isn't swapping it.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
16026 4D: time is space-like; a thing is its history; past and future are real; or things extend in time [Gallois]
     Full Idea: We have four versions of Four-Dimensionalism: the relativistic view that time is space-like; a persisting thing is identical with its history (so objects are events); past and future are equally real; or (Lewis) things extend in time, with temporal parts.
     From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], §2.5)
     A reaction: Broad proposed the second one. I prefer 3-D: at any given time a thing is wholly present. At another time it is wholly present despite having changed. It is ridiculous to think that small changes destroy identity. We acquire identity by dying??