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Single Idea 14958

[filed under theme 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time ]

Full Idea

Why should not 'Napoleon' be a type, of which 'Napoleon in 1805' and 'Napoleon in 1813' are instances?

Gist of Idea

A continuous object might be a type, with instances at each time

Source

J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6)

Book Ref

Ladyman,J/Ross,D: 'Every Thing Must Go' [OUP 2007], p.296

A Reaction

That is very nice. That might be a view that suits presentism, where the timed instances never co-exist, and so have the sort of abstract existence that we associate with types.

The 16 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about sameness of objects over time]:

1504 Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides]
12503 Identity means that the idea of a thing remains the same over time [Locke]
13182 Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz]
21300 A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume]
21299 Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume]
1350 Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
5626 An a priori principle of persistence anticipates all experience [Kant]
16991 No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time [Kripke]
16503 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins]
9663 A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis]
16025 If things change they become different - but then no one thing undergoes the change! [Gallois]
16233 Gallois hoped to clarify identity through time, but seems to make talk of it impossible [Hawley on Gallois]
14958 A continuous object might be a type, with instances at each time [Ladyman/Ross]
15396 Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron]
22612 Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson]
22625 Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson]