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9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / c. Unity as conceptual

[unification of objects as only occurring in our minds]

11 ideas
A thing can become one or many, depending on how we talk about it [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is through discourse that the same thing flits around, becoming one and many in all sorts of ways.
     From: Plato (Philebus [c.353 BCE], 15d)
     A reaction: This is not scepticism about wholes on Plato's part, but a reminder of an obvious fact, that in thought we can break the world up and put it back together again. It is a touchstone of the debate, though.
Some things are unified by their account, which rests on a unified thought about the thing [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Other things get to be unities by dint of the fact that the account [logos] of them is single, ...a thought about which is a single thought, ...which is an indivisible thought, ..which is a thought about a formally or numerically indivisible object.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a28)
     A reaction: This highlights the distinction between things that seem intrinsically unified, and things on which we bestow unity. But note that towards the end of the quotation Aristotle elides the two together.
If I can separate two things in my understanding, then God can separate them in reality [Descartes]
     Full Idea: My ability clearly and distinctly to understand one thing without another suffices to make me certain that the one thing is different from the other, since they can be separated from each other (at least by God).
     From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.78)
To exist and be understood, a multitude must first be reduced to a unity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: A plurality of things can neither be understood nor can exist unless one first understands the thing that is one, that to which the multitude necessarily reduces.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Notes on Comments by Fardella [1690], Prop 3)
     A reaction: Notice that it is our need to understand which imposes the unity on the multitude. It is not just some random fiction, or a meaningless mechanical act of thought.
We find unity in reason, and unity in perception, but these are not true unity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: A pair of diamonds is merely an entity of reason, and even if one of them is brought close to another, it is an entity of imagination or perception, that is to say a phenomenon; contiguity, common movement and the same end don't make substantial unity.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
     A reaction: This invites the question of what you have to do to two objects to give them substantial unity. The distinction between unity 'of reason' and unity 'of perception' is good.
Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Leibniz is committed with apparent consistency to both a purely qualitative character of all thisnesses, and to primitiveness of individual identity. He regards thisnesses as conjunctions of simpler, logically independent suchnesses.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 5
     A reaction: Hence Leibniz is held to say that all of the qualitative properties are 'essential' to the object, since all of them are needed to constitute its identity. Hence absolutely nothing about an object, even an electron, could be different, which is daft.
We saw unity in things because our ego seemed unified (but now we doubt the ego!) [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: We borrowed the concept of unity from our 'ego' concept - our oldest article of faith. If we did not hold ourselves to be unified, we would never have formed the concept 'thing'. Now, somewhat late, we are convinced that the ego does not guarantee unity.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §635)
     A reaction: Nietzsche tells a similar story about the emergence and subsequent undermining of truth. I am becoming an enthusiast for Nietzsche's account of how our psychology has generated out metaphysics - which doesn't make the metaphysics false.
We should understand identity in terms of the propositions it renders true [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: We should understand the identity or being of an object in terms of the propositions rendered true by its identity rather than the other way round.
     From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I)
     A reaction: Behind this is an essentialist view of identity, rather than one connected with necessary properties.
Hierarchical set membership models objects better than the subset or aggregate relations do [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: It is the hierarchical conception of sets and their members, rather than the linear conception of set and subset or of aggregate and component, that provides us with the better model for the structure of part-whole in its application to material things.
     From: Kit Fine (Things and Their Parts [1999], §5)
     A reaction: His idea is to give some sort of internal structure. He says of {a,b,c,d} that we can create subsets {a,b} and {c,d} from that. But {{a,b},{c,d}} has given member sets, and he is looking for 'natural' divisions between the members.
Things are abstractions from structures [Ladyman/Ross]
     Full Idea: Individual things are locally focused abstractions from modal structure.
     From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4)
     A reaction: I am a fan of the role of abstraction in our understanding of the world, despite my limited progress in trying to explicate the idea. I can't decide whether or not there are any things. A bit basic, that!
Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: In a 'modally plenitudinous' ontology, wherever there is an object at all, there are objects with intrinsic modal properties instantiating every consistent modal profile.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.5)
     A reaction: [She cites K.Bennett, Hawley, Rea, Sidelle] I love this. At last a label for the view I have been espousing. I am a Modal Plenitudinist. I must get a badge made.