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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On 'Physics'' and 'Works (refs to 8 vol Colli and Montinari)'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley]
     Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175
     A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things
God could make a successive thing so that previous parts cease to exist [Albert of Saxony]
     Full Idea: Something can be conceived of as successive simpliciter, with respect to both its substance and its state. For example, if Socrates were continually made and made again by the First Cause, as the Seine flow, so nothing of what preexists remains.
     From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.4
     A reaction: This is precisely the problem that modern stage theory faces, of knowing how to connect the stages together.
Successive entities just need parts to succeed one another, without their existence [Albert of Saxony]
     Full Idea: For existence to hold of completely successive entities it is not required that their parts exist, but that one part succeed another, as a future part succeeds a past part.
     From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3 ad 2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
     A reaction: A nice move, but it doesn't quite solve it. How can non-existent things 'succeed one another'? It is worrying for metaphysics that some things have entirely different concepts of persistence from other things.