17555
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'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
There are two sorts of one. There is the one which is convertible with being, which adds nothing to being except being undivided; and this deprives of multitude. Then there is the principle of number, which to the notion of being adds measurement.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de Potentia Dei [1269], q3 a16 ad 3-um)
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A reaction:
[From a lecture handout] I'm not sure I understand this. We might say, I suppose, that insofar as water is water, it is all one, but you can't count it. Perhaps being 'unified' and being a 'unity' are different?
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17047
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If we imagine this table made of ice or different wood, we are imagining a different table [Kripke]
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Full Idea:
Though we can imagine a table identical to this one in this room, but made of ice (or different wood), it seems to me that this is not to imagine this table as made of ice, but to imagine another table, resembling this one, made of ice.
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From:
Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 3)
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A reaction:
This is the Necessity of Constitution thesis, which I doubt. Might this table have had one leg different? Why not? Then you have a Ship of Theseus question. How much could be different? How much of the constitution is necessary?
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5450
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For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Kripke, by Mautner]
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Full Idea:
Kripke makes the origin of an organism essential to it, according to Putnam the fundamental physical properties of a thing are essential, Wiggins sees an organism's essence in belonging to a particular kind, etc.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.179
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A reaction:
This is helpful for seeing where the problems remain, if you embrace essentialism (as I feel inclined to do). It is vital to remember Putnam's point, that we could suddenly discover that cats are alien robots. This seems to undermine Kripke and Wiggins.
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16955
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Kripke says internal structure fixes species; I say it is genetic affinity and a common descent [Kripke, by Dummett]
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Full Idea:
Kripke stresses that membership of a single animal species requires identity or similarity of internal structure. In my view, what matters is genetic affinity - a common descent. Internal structure is merely a clue.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Michael Dummett - Could There Be Unicorns? 2
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A reaction:
The crucial test question would be whether we can make a tiger artificially (even constructing the DNA). I would say that if you make a tiger, that's a tiger, so Kripke is right and Dummett is wrong. The species is what it is, not where it came from.
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13971
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Kripke claims that some properties, only knowable posteriori, are known a priori to be essential [Kripke, by Soames]
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Full Idea:
Kripke's first (good) route to the necessary a posteriori is based on the idea that certain properties of objects that they can be known to have only a posteriori, may be known a priori to be essential properties of anything that has them.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Scott Soames - Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori p.180
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A reaction:
Interesting, and a key issue. I think this is precisely where I disagree with the Kripkean view of necessities. Logicians want to know a priori what is essential for identity, but scientists want to know what makes things tick. See Kripke on pain.
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12100
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An essence is the necessary properties, derived from an intuitive identity, in origin, type and material [Kripke, by Witt]
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Full Idea:
For Kripke an object's essence simply consists of its necessary properties. ...His essential properties of individual objects follow from our intuitions about their identity. ...They are of three sorts: of origin, of sortals, and of material.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 6 n3
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A reaction:
This is because Kripke is only interested in identity, whereas Aristotle is interested in explanation. The sorts are efficient, formal, material. Big Q: could Aristotle's account of essence do all the work that is required of essences by Kripke?
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11867
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If we lose track of origin, how do we show we are maintaining a reference? [Kripke, by Wiggins]
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Full Idea:
Perhaps Kripke's argument for the necessity to a thing of its actual origin is that the speculator has to be able to rebut the charge that he has lost his grasp of his subject of discourse if he conceives of this subject with changed parents or origin.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.10
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A reaction:
On the whole Wiggins opposes necessity of origin (cf. Forbes, who defends it). If this idea is right, then any means of ensuring reference will do the job, and it clearly wouldn't be an argument that guaranteed necessity of origin.
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12018
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Kripke argues, of the Queen, that parents of an organism are essentially so [Kripke, by Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
If we generalise what Kripke says about the Queen, then he is arguing that the parents of any organism are essentially the parents of that organism.
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From:
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 6.1
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A reaction:
It strikes me that we have to be extremely careful in specifying what it is that Kripke is saying. I take it that either Kripke is saying something rather uninteresting, or he is saying what Forbes suggests. Parenthood is essential, not just necessary.
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8274
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Socrates can't have a necessary origin, because he might have had no 'origin' [Lowe on Kripke]
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Full Idea:
Against Kripke's thesis of 'necessity of origin' I will just point out the intuitive force of the claim that Socrates - that very person - could, logically, have had no beginning to his existence at all, or have come into existence ex nihilo.
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From:
comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], p.110-) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 6.5
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A reaction:
It also strikes me that one base-pair difference in his DNA (by a mutation, or a fractionally different parent) would still leave him as Socrates. People are not good candidates for 'rigid' designation. Counterparts seems a better account here.
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