Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'System of Logic' and 'Philosophy of Mind'

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5 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail
16058 Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria]
     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.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48
     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.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects
9806 Whatever is made up of parts is made up of parts of those parts [Mill]
     Full Idea: Whatever is made up of parts is made up of parts of those parts.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 3.24.5)
     A reaction: Mill considers this principle to be fundamental to the possibilities of arithmetic. Presumably he thought of it as an inductive inference from our dealings with physical objects.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
11156 The essence is that without which a thing can neither be, nor be conceived to be [Mill]
     Full Idea: The essence of a thing was said to be that without which the thing could neither be, nor be conceived to be.
     From: John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 1.6.2)
     A reaction: Fine cites this as the 'modal' account of essence, as opposed to the 'definitional' account.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
16059 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 / 9. Ship of Theseus
4592 If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil]
     Full Idea: If a boat can continue to exist after the planks that currently make it up have ceased to exist, and if the planks could continue to exist when the boat does not, then a boat cannot be identified with the planks that make it up at a given time.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This seems obvious, but it opposes Locke's claim that the particles of an object are its identity. Does this mean identities are entirely in our heads, and not a feature of nature? I want to resist that.