Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'At the Existentialist Caf' and 'Ordinary Objects'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / c. Unity as conceptual
Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: In a 'modally plenitudinous' ontology, wherever there is an object at all, there are objects with intrinsic modal properties instantiating every consistent modal profile.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.5)
     A reaction: [She cites K.Bennett, Hawley, Rea, Sidelle] I love this. At last a label for the view I have been espousing. I am a Modal Plenitudinist. I must get a badge made.
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 / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
If the statue and the lump are two objects, they require separate properties, so we could add their masses [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: An objection to the idea that statues are not identical to material lumps of stuff is the proliferation of instances of properties shared by those objects. If the mass of the statue is 500kg, and the mass of the lump is 500kg, do we have 1000kg?
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.3)
     A reaction: [compressed; she cites Rea 1997 and Zimmerman 1995] To wriggle out of this we would have to understand 'object' rather differently, so that an independent mass is not intrinsic to it. I leave this as an exercise for the reader.
Given the similarity of statue and lump, what could possibly ground their modal properties? [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The 'grounding problem' is that given all that the statue and the lump have in common, what could possibly ground their different modal properties?
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.4)
     A reaction: Their modal properties are, of course, different, because only one of them could survive squashing. Thomasson suggests their difference of sort, but I'm not sure what that means, separately from what they actually are.