Combining Texts

Ideas for 'From Stimulus to Science', 'Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence' and 'Naming and Necessity lectures'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Any individual thing must be a thing of some general kind - because, at the very least, it must belong to some ontological category.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2)
     A reaction: Where does the law that 'everything must have a category' come from? I'm baffled by remarks of this kind. Where do we get the categories from? From observing the individuals. So which has priority? Not the categories. Is God a kind?
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions [Kripke]
     Full Idea: If the man who invented bifocals was the first Postmaster General of the United States - that they were one and the same - it's contingently true. …So when you make identity statements using descriptions, that can be a contingent fact.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2)
If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different [Kripke]
     Full Idea: If Hesperus and Phosphorus are one and the same, then in no other possible world can they be different.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2)
     A reaction: If we ask whether one object could possibly be two objects, and deny that possibility, then Kripke's novel thought seems just right and obvious.