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17509 | Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers] |
Full Idea: Some hold that the 'covering concept' completes the incomplete concept of identity, determining the kind of sameness involved. Others strongly deny the identity itself is incomplete, and locate the covering concept within the necessary act of reference. | |
From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
A reaction: [a bit compressed; Geach is the first view, and Quine the second; Wiggins is somewhere between the two] |
17512 | If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers] |
Full Idea: Why are covering concepts required for diachronic identities, when they must be supposed unnecessary for synchronic identities? | |
From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') |
13953 | An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R] |
Full Idea: For an ostension to be successful it is surely not necessary that I gather what sort of object it is you have indicated, such as being a horse or a zebra. I may even gather which thing you have indicated without knowing that it is a mammal or even alive. | |
From: Richard Cartwright (Some Remarks on Essentialism [1968], p.157) | |
A reaction: This nicely articulates the objection I have always felt to Geach's relative identity. 'Oh my God, what the hell is THAT???' is probably going to be a successful act of verbal reference, even while explicitly denying all knowledge of sortals. |