15990
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Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
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Full Idea:
I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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A reaction:
This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.
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1350
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Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
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Full Idea:
Identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence….Otherwise we must suppose a being to exist after it has ceased to exist, and to have existed before it was produced, which are manifest contradictions.
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From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
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A reaction:
I take the point to be that if something is supposed to survive a gap in its existence, that must imply that it somehow exists during the gap. If a light flashes on and off, is it really a new entity each time?
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21322
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We treat slowly changing things as identical for the sake of economy in language [Reid]
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Full Idea:
All bodies, as they consist of innumerable parts, are subject to continual changes of their substance. When such changes are gradual, because language could not afford a different name for each state, it retains the same name and is considered the same.
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From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
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A reaction:
This is hard to deny. We could hardly rename a child each morning. Simlarly, we can't have a unique name for each leaf on a tree. Economy of language explains a huge amount in philosophy.
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