Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Analyzing Modality' and 'Infinitism not solution to regress problem'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Being a physical object is our most fundamental category [Jubien]
     Full Idea: Being a physical object (as opposed to being a horse or a statue) really is our most fundamental category for dealing with the external world.
     From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2)
     A reaction: This raises the interesting question of why any categories should be considered to be more 'fundamental' than others. I can only think that we perceive something to be an object fractionally before we (usually) manage to identify it.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
Haecceities implausibly have no qualities [Jubien]
     Full Idea: Properties of 'being such and such specific entity' are often called 'haecceities', but this term carries the connotation of non-qualitativeness which I don't favour.
     From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2)
     A reaction: The way he defines it makes it sound as if it was a category, but I take it to be more like a bare individual essence. If it has not qualities then it has no causal powers, so there could be no evidence for its existence.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail
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 / 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?