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5515
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Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
I believe it is worth considering imaginary cases (such as Teletransportation), as we can use them to discover, not what the truth is, but what we believe.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
The trouble is that we might say that IF I were suddenly turned into a pig, then I would come to believe in dualism, but that will not and cannot happen, because dualism is false. It seems essential to accept the natural possibility of the case.
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10438
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Definite descriptions are usually rigid in subject, but not in predicate, position [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Definite descriptions used with referential intentions (usually in subject position) are normally rigid, ..but in predicate position they are normally not rigid, because there is no referential intention.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.5)
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A reaction:
'The man in the blue suit is the President' seems to fit, but 'The President is the head of state' doesn't. Seems roughly right, but language is always too complex for philosophers.
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5516
|
Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
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Full Idea:
We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.').
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From:
report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction.
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8983
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If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
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A reaction:
Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?
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8986
|
We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
We must reject the classical picture of classification by pigeon-holes, and think in other terms: classifying can be, and often is, clustering round paradigms.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §8)
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A reaction:
His conclusion to a discussion of the problem of vagueness, where it is identified with concepts which have no boundaries. Pigeon-holes are a nice exemplar of the Enlightenment desire to get everything right. I prefer Aristotle's categories, Idea 3311.
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8984
|
If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?
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8985
|
Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Boundaryless concepts tend to come in systems of contraries: opposed pairs like child/adult, hot/cold, weak/strong, true/false, and complex systems of colour terms. ..Only a contrast with 'adult' will show what 'child' excludes.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
This might be expected. It all comes down to the sorites problem, of when one thing turns into something else. If it won't merge into another category, then presumably the isolated concept stays applicable (until reality terminates it? End of sheep..).
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5514
|
Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
When psychologists discuss identity, they are typically concerned with the kind of person someone is, or wants to be (as in an 'identity crisis'). But when philosophers discuss identity, it is numerical identity they mean.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
I think it is important to note that the philosophical problem breaks down into two areas: whether I have numerical identity with myself over time, and whether other people have it. It may be that two different sets of criteria will emerge.
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5521
|
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314)
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A reaction:
I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings.
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1392
|
If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people.
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|
From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1)
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|
A reaction:
Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons.
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5519
|
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If I am largely paralysed, and my twin brother is dying of brain disease, then if the operation to graft my head onto his body is offered, I should accept the operation, and it is irrelevant whether this person would be me.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.308)
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A reaction:
Parfit notes that the brain is a particularly significant part of the process. The fact that I might cheerfully accept this offer without philosophical worries doesn't get rid of the question 'who is this person?' Who should they remain married to?
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5520
|
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
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|
Full Idea:
If there is someone with my head and my brother's body, it is a merely verbal question whether that person will be me, and that is why, even if it won't be me, that doesn't matter. ..What matters is not identity, but the facts of which identity consists.
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|
From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.310)
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A reaction:
It strikes me that from the subjective psychological point of view identity is of little interest, but from the objective external viewpoint (e.g. the forensic one) such questions are highly significant, and rightly so.
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1391
|
Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity.
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|
From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6)
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|
A reaction:
This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson.
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9762
|
We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
It becomes more plausible, when thinking morally, to focus less upon the person, the subject of experiences, and instead to focus more upon the experiences themselves.
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|
From:
Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons [1984], §116)
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|
A reaction:
This pinpoints how Parfit moves from a view of persons in terms of continuity of consciousness to a utilitarian morality. It brings out nicely what is wrong with utilitarianism - the reductio of a great ball of nice experiences, with no one having them.
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10431
|
Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
On one common use of the notion of a function, something can possess a function which it does not, or even cannot, perform. A malformed heart is to pump blood, even if such a heart cannot in fact pump blood.
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|
From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.2)
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|
A reaction:
One might say that the heart in a dead body had the function of pumping blood, but does it still have that function? Do I have the function of breaking the world 100 metres record, even though I can't quite manage it? Not that simple.
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