Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Practical Necessity' and 'Identity, Essence and Indiscernibility'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
14381 A statue is essentially the statue, but its lump is not essentially a statue, so statue isn't lump [Yablo, by Rocca]
     Full Idea: Yablo proposes the argument that Statue A is essentially a statue, and Lump 1 is not essentially a statue, so Statue A is not identical with Lump 1.
     From: report of Stephen Yablo (Identity, Essence and Indiscernibility [1987]) by Michael della Rocca - Essentialists and Essentialism I
     A reaction: Della Rocca and Yablo unashamedly elide necessary properties with essential properties, so this argument doesn't bother me too much. It concerns the statue and the clay having different modal properties.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 10. Impossibility
23283 Necessity implies possibility, but in experience it matters which comes first [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: Any notion of necessity must carry with it a corresponding notion of impossibility, …but it can make a difference which one of them presents itself first and more naturally.
     From: Bernard Williams (Practical Necessity [1982], p.127)
     A reaction: I like this because it connects modality with experience, rather than with formal logic. It seems right that in life we immediately see either a necessity or an impossibility, and inferring the other case is an afterthought.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.