Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Coste' and 'The Essential Child'

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2 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 / 12. Origin as Essential
Peope favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is [Gelman]
     Full Idea: People favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is. ...An object looking like a knife is less likely to be called 'a knife' if it is described as having been created by accident.
     From: Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 06 'Essentialism')
     A reaction: I like this because it talks, suggestively, of 'historical paths' rather than of 'origin'. Thus we might judge a person's identity by their traumatic experience rather than by their birth. This doesn't challenge necessity of origin, but affects labels.