Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Eucleides, Lynne Rudder Baker and Carl Friedrich Gauss

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


3 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
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.
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.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
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?