more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Maybe strict identity only applies to the particulars (the molecules) in a case of vague identity. …It seems, however, utopian to suppose that we will ever reach a level of ultimate, basic particulars for which identity relations are never vague.
Gist of Idea
We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18)
Book Ref
Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.51
A Reaction
I agree with this. Ladyman and Ross laugh at the unscientific picture found in dreams of 'simples'.
| 11209 | The simple's whatness is its very self [Avicenna] |
| 13170 | The analysis of things leads to atoms of substance, which found both composition and action [Leibniz] |
| 14166 | Unities are only in propositions or concepts, and nothing that exists has unity [Russell] |
| 23467 | Objects are simple [Wittgenstein] |
| 17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
| 16070 | There are no objects with proper parts; there are only mereological simples [Unger, by Wasserman] |
| 14593 | Quantum field theory suggests that there are, fundamentally, no individual things [Swoyer] |
| 6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |