5 ideas
| 15391 | A substance is, roughly, a basic being or subject at the foundation of reality [Robb] |
| Full Idea: A substance is a basic being, something at reality's foundation. What exactly this means is a matter of some controversy. Some philosophers think of substance as an ultimate subject, something that has properties but isn't a property. | |
| From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: This seems to capture the place of 'substance' in contemporary metaphysics. I think of 'substance' as a placeholder for some threatened account, even in Aristotle. |
| 15392 | If an object survives the loss of a part, complex objects can have autonomy over their parts [Robb] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes a whole can survive a loss of parts: the chair would still exist if it lost one of its legs. This seems to give complex objects a sort of autonomy over their parts. | |
| From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Ident') | |
| A reaction: There is then a puzzle as to how much loss of parts the whole can survive, and why. The loss of a major part could be devastating, so why do all wholes not exhibit this relation to all their parts? I demand rules, now! |
| 16236 | Maybe our persistence conditions concern bodies, rather than persons [Olson, by Hawley] |
| Full Idea: Instead of attributing person-like persistence conditions to bodies, we could attribute body-like persistence conditions to persons, …so human persons are identical with human organisms. | |
| From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.10 | |
| A reaction: In the case of pre-birth and advanced senility, Olson thinks we could have the body without the person, so person is a 'phase sortal' of bodies. A good theory, which seems to answer a lot of questions. 'Person' may be an abstraction. |
| 6669 | For 'animalism', I exist before I became a person, and can continue after it, so I am not a person [Olson, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: According to 'animalism', I existed before I was a person and I may well go one existing for some time after I cease to be a person; hence, I am not essentially a person, but a human organism. | |
| From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: There is a very real sense in which an extremely senile person has 'ceased to exist' (e.g. as the person I used to love). On the whole, though, I think that Olson is right, and yet 'person' is an important concept. Neither concept is all-or-nothing. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |