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15222
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Some individuals can gain or lose capacities or powers, without losing their identity [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
Some individuals to gain or lose certain capacities or powers, but do not thereby lose their identity. They still have the same nature. A drug, or photographic paper, may lose effectiveness over time.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
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A reaction:
Damn! I thought I was the first to spot this problem! I, however, take it to be much more metaphysically significant than Harré and Madden do. The question is whether those properties were essential, since they can be lost. Essential but not necessary!
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15296
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A particular might change all of its characteristics, retaining mere numerical identity [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
Change might mean that a particular lost some or perhaps all of its previous characteristics and retained at worst only a dubious numerical identity derived from temporal continuity of the occupation of a place or continuous sequence of places.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.II)
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A reaction:
If all that is left is its location, that seems like passing-away rather than change. A dead leaf retains mere numerical identity while losing its essence. A burnt-up leaf might have a location, but it hardly qualifies as a 'leaf'.
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15275
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'Dense' time raises doubts about continuous objects, so they need 'continuous' time [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
Since discontinuities in a dense set of temporal points lead to doubts about the existential integrity of a thing, the thing-ontology demands that a dense time be continuous.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
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A reaction:
This seems to be a rather unequivocal assertion about a rather uncertain topic. If quanta can move in 'leaps', which appear to abolish the notion of what happens 'between' two states, who can say what objects might manage to do?
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15271
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If things are successive instantaneous events, nothing requires those events to resemble one another [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
If events are instantaneous time-slices of a physical thing, the persistence of the pattern is an inexplicable fact in that there is no requirement for the successive time-slices to bear any resemblance to the event previously occurring at that place.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
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A reaction:
The Humean four-dimensional view doesn't seem to require an explanation of this (or of much else), and takes it as a brute fact that slices resemble. Something has to be a brute fact, I suppose.
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15256
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Humeans cannot step in the same river twice, because they cannot strictly form the concept of 'river' [Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
A Humean cannot step in the same river twice, not because the river is always a different river, but because he can strictly have no such concept as 'river'.
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From:
Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.II)
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A reaction:
This arises from a discussion of induction. What is a Humean to make of an object which keeps changing? They only have connected impressions, and no underlying essence to hold the impressions together.
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