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Full Idea
A river is a process through time, and the river stages are its momentary parts. Identification of the river bathed in once with the river bathed in again is just what determines our subject matter to be a river process as opposed to a river stage.
Gist of Idea
A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process
Source
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 1)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'From a Logical Point of View' [Harper and Row 1963], p.65
A Reaction
So if we take a thing which has stages, but instead of talking about the stages we talk about a single thing that endures through them, then we are talking about a process. Sounds very good to me.
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |