16058
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Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon?
[Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria]
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Full Idea:
If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished.
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From:
report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48
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A reaction:
[SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him.
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15537
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If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many
[Lewis]
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Full Idea:
To deny that there are many cats on the mat (because removal of a few hairs seems to produce a new one), we must either deny that the many are cats, or else deny that the cats are many. ...I think both alternatives lead to successful solutions.
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From:
David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'The paradox')
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A reaction:
He credits the problem to Geach (and Tibbles), and says it is the same as Unger's 'problem of the many' (Idea 15536).
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13437
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A CAR and its major PART can become identical, yet seem to have different properties
[Gallois]
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Full Idea:
At t1 there is a whole CAR, and a PART of it, which is everything except the right front wheel. At t2 the wheel is removed, leaving just PART, so that CAR is now PART. But PART was a proper part of CAR, and CAR had the front wheel. Different properties!
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From:
André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998], 1.II)
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A reaction:
[compressed summary] The problem is generated by appealing to Leibniz's Law. My immediate reaction is that this is the sort of trouble you get into if you include such temporal truths about things as 'properties'.
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14740
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If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one
[Sider]
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Full Idea:
This powerful puzzle (known to the Stoics, introduced by Geach, popularised by Wiggins) has a cat Tibbles and a proper part Tib, which is all of Tibbles except the tail. If Tibbles loses her tail, the two were distinct, but they now coincide.
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From:
Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1)
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A reaction:
[compressed] Compare a few people leave a football ground, and what was a large part of the crowd becomes the whole of the crowd. Which suggests that there is no problem if cats are like crowds. But we don't like that view of cats.
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12857
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Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't
[Simons]
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Full Idea:
There mere fact that Tibbles can survive the mutilation of losing a tail, whereas the sum of Tib and the tail cannot, is enough to distinguish them, even if no such mutilation ever occurs.
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From:
Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.1)
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A reaction:
See Idea 12835 for details of the Tibbles example. Either we go for essentialism here, or the whole notion of identity collapses. But the essential features of a person are not just those whose loss would kill them.
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