19 ideas
| 16078 | Clay is intrinsically and atomically the same as statue (and that lacks 'modal properties') [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: Arguments for statue being the clay are: that the clay is intrinsically like the statue, that the clay has the same atoms as the statue', that objects don't have modal properties such as being necessarily F, and the reference of 'property' changes. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], II) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of the arguments she identifies - see text for details] Rudder Baker attempts to refute all four of these arguments, in defence of constitution as different from identity. |
| 16077 | The clay is not a statue - it borrows that property from the statue it constitutes [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: I argue that a lump of clay borrows the property of being a statue from the statue. The lump is a statue because, and only because, there is something that the lump constitutes that is a statue. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], n9) | |
| A reaction: It is skating on very thin metaphysical ice to introduce the concept of 'borrowing' a property. I've spent the last ten minutes trying to 'borrow' some properties, but without luck. |
| 16080 | Is it possible for two things that are identical to become two separate things? [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: A strong intuition shared by many philosophers is that some things that are in fact identical might not have been identical. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV) | |
| A reaction: This flies in the face of the Kripkean view that if Hesperus=Phosphorus then the identity is necessary. I don't think I have an intuition that some given thing might have been two things - indeed the thought seems totally weird. Amoeba? Statue/clay? |
| 16076 | Constitution is not identity, as consideration of essential predicates shows [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: I want to resuscitate an essentialist argument against the view that constitution is identity, of the form 'x is essentially F, y is not essentially F, so x is not y'. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The point is that x might be essentially F and y only accidentally F. Thus a statue is essentially so, but a lump if clay is not essentially a statue. Another case where 'necessary' would do instead of 'essentially'. |
| 16081 | The constitution view gives a unified account of the relation of persons/bodies, statues/bronze etc [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: Constitution-without-identity is superior to constitution-as-identity in that it provides a unified view of the relation between persons and bodies, statues and pieces of bronze, and so on. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV) | |
| A reaction: I have a problem with the intrinsic dualism of this whole picture. Clay needs shape, statues need matter - there aren't two 'things' here which have a 'relation'. |
| 16082 | Statues essentially have relational properties lacked by lumps [Rudder Baker] |
| Full Idea: The statue has relational properties which the lump of clay does not have essentially. | |
| From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], V) | |
| A reaction: She has in mind relations to the community of artistic life. I don't think this is convincing. Is something only a statue if it is validated by an artistic community? That sounds like relative identity, which she doesn't like. |
| 5998 | From the necessity of the past we can infer the impossibility of what never happens [Diod.Cronus, by White,MJ] |
| Full Idea: Diodorus' Master Argument inferred that since what is past (i.e. true in the past) is necessary, and the impossible cannot follow from the possible, that therefore if something neither is nor ever will be the case, then it is impossible. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Michael J. White - Diodorus Cronus | |
| A reaction: The argument is, apparently, no longer fully clear, but it seems to imply determinism, or at least a rejection of the idea that free will and determinism are compatible. (Epictetus 2.19) |
| 20832 | The Master Argument seems to prove that only what will happen is possible [Diod.Cronus, by Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The Master Argument: these conflict 1) what is past and true is necessary, 2) the impossible does not follow from the possible, 3) something possible neither is nor will be true. Hence only that which is or will be true is possible. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Epictetus - The Discourses 2.19.1 | |
| A reaction: [Epictetus goes on to discuss views about which of the three should be given up] It is possible there will be a sea fight tomorrow; tomorrow comes, and no sea fight; so there was necessarily no sea fight; so the impossible followed from the possible. |
| 14304 | Conditionals are true when the antecedent is true, and the consequent has to be true [Diod.Cronus] |
| Full Idea: The connected (proposition) is true when it begins with true and neither could nor can end with false. | |
| From: Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 03.4 | |
| A reaction: [Mumford got the quote from Bochenski] This differs from the truth-functional account because it says nothing about when the antecedent is false, which fits in also with the 'supposition' view, where A is presumed. This idea adds necessity. |
| 6024 | Thought is unambiguous, and you should stick to what the speaker thinks they are saying [Diod.Cronus, by Gellius] |
| Full Idea: No one says or thinks anything ambiguous, and nothing should be held to be being said beyond what the speaker thinks he is saying. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 11.12.2 | |
| A reaction: A key argument in favour of propositions, implied in this remark, is that propositions are never ambiguous, though the sentences expressing them may be |
| 7404 | Nations are not obliged to help one-another, but are obliged not to harm one another [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius explored the implications of the idea that nation-states were under no obligation to help one another, but they were obliged not to harm each other. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This is quite a striking disanalogy between accepted personal morality and political morality. There are signs in recent years of some recognition that other nations should not just sit and watch suffering. |
| 7402 | Everyone has a right of self-preservation, and harming others is usually unjustifiable [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said that all men would agree that everyone has a fundamental right to preserve themselves, and that wanton or unnecessary injury to another person is unjustifiable. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Who cares if it is 'justifiable'? Do I have to 'justify' killing a mosquito if it lands on my arm? Grotius is taking a step beyond saying that people should defend themselves, to say that they have a 'right' to - the only truly basic right. |
| 21938 | Democracy needs respect for individuality, but the 'community of friends' implies strict equality [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: There is no democracy without respect for irreducible singularity, but there is no democracy with the 'community of friends' without the calculation of majorities, without identifiable representable subjects, all equal. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 7 | |
| A reaction: [source not given] Derrida calls this conflict 'tragic'. The obvious reply is that equality is not an absolute. We can be equal in voting rights while being unequal in height or musical talent. |
| 19845 | A person is free to renounce their state, as long as it is not a moment of crisis [Grotius, by Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Grotius thinks that each person can renounce his state and leave the country. (n15: provided it is not to evade one's duty the moment the homeland needs us; this would be criminal and punishable; it would not be withdrawal, but desertion) | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (tr Cress) III.18 | |
| A reaction: The obvious example is Britons going to America in 1939, or (more controversially) conscripts going to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. I'm unclear whether the idea in the note is that of Grotius or of Rousseau). Is tax exile OK, then? |
| 22133 | Grotius and Pufendorf based natural law on real (rather than idealised) humanity [Grotius, by Ford,JD] |
| Full Idea: Grotius and Pufendorf transformed the natural law tradition by starting from identifiable traits of human nature rather than ideas about what human beings ought to be. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by J.D. Ford - Pufendorf, Samuel p.863 |
| 7406 | A natural right of self-preservation is balanced by a natural law to avoid unnecessary harm [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: For Grotius, there was a fundamental 'natural right' of self-preservation upon which all known moralities and codes of social behaviour must have been constructed, but it is balanced by a fundament duty or 'natural law' to abstain from harming others. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This theory has the virtue of economy, but I don't see how you can clearly justify those particular natural rights and laws, without allowing others to creep in, such as a right to a decent share of food, or a law requiring some fairness. |
| 7403 | Grotius ignored elaborate natural law theories, preferring a basic right of self-preservation [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said there was a minimum core of morality (based on self-preservation), and disregarded the elaborate accounts of principles of natural law which Aristotelians had always sought to develop. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Aquinas would be the key Aristotelian here. I tend towards the Aristotelian view. If you go for the minimal view, it is not clear why there is a 'right' to self-preservation, rather than a mere desire for it. |
| 23585 | It is permissible in a just cause to capture a place in neutral territory [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: It is permissible for one who is waging a just war to take possession of a place situated in a country free from hostilities. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625], II.ii.x), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 15 n | |
| A reaction: This rejects Combatant Equality, allowing the just to do what is morally forbidden to the unjust. |
| 6892 | Moral principles have some validity without a God commanding obedience [Grotius, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In the Prolegomena to his work there is a famous statement that moral principles laid down in the work would have some degree of validity even if there was no God commanding obedience. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.229 | |
| A reaction: I am not clear why Grotius felt obliged to qualify his claim with the phrase 'some degree'. I don't see how God's command can affect the 'validity' of morality, or how there can be a middle ground between dependence on and independence of God. |