Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'What Numbers Could Not Be' and 'De ente praedicamentali'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

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 / 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 / 6. Successive Things

16700	In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff]
	Full Idea: It is clear from the way in which one must speak about time and other successive entities that talk about 'the present' must be enlarged. Otherwise it would have to be denied that any successive entity could exist, which is impossible.
	From: John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
	A reaction: This is a lovely idea, even if it is not quite clear what it means. The mind seems to stretch out the now anyway (as the 'specious present'), so why not embrace that in language and conscious thought?

16701	To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant [Wycliff]
	Full Idea: If something is successive, it is successive with respect to its individual parts, which cannot exist at the same instant. Therefore it follows that many of its parts are lodged outside that instant.
	From: John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
	A reaction: An obvious would be to say that there are therefore no successive entities, but Wycliff is appealing to our universal acceptance of them, and offering a transcendental argument. Nice move.

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects

9905	Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf]
	Full Idea: Identity statements make sense only in contexts where there exist possible individuating conditions.
	From: Paul Benacerraf (What Numbers Could Not Be [1965], III)
	A reaction: He is objecting to bizarre identifications involving numbers. An identity statement may be bizarre even if we can clearly individuate the two candidates. Winston Churchill is a Mars Bar. Identifying George Orwell with Eric Blair doesn't need a 'respect'.