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Single Idea 16991

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

Full Idea

Adequate necessary and sufficient conditions for identity which do not beg the question are very rare. …I don't know of such conditions for identity of material objects over time, or for people. Everyone knows what a problem this is.

Gist of Idea

No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time

Source

Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 1)

Book Ref

Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.43

A Reaction

Typical of Kripke, who only seems to commit to conclusions suggested to him by his modal logic, and is baffled by almost everything else. I think one can at least attempt an essentialist approach to this problem.

Related Idea

Idea 16995 Given that a table is made of molecules, could it not be molecular and still be this table? [Kripke]

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]