Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Personal Identity and Individuation' and 'The Web of Belief'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis
8460 Philosophers have given precise senses to deduction, probability, computability etc [Quine/Ullian]
     Full Idea: Successful explications (giving a precise sense to a term) have been found for the concepts of deduction, probability and computability, to name just three.
     From: W Quine / J Ullian (The Web of Belief [1970], 65), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3
     A reaction: Quine also cites the concept of an 'ordered pair'. Orenstein adds Tarski's definition of truth, Russell's definite descriptions, and the explication of existence in terms of quantifications. Cf. Idea 2958.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
7946 The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: The memory criterion for personal identity permits 'branching' (where two things can later meet the criteria of persistence of a single earlier thing), which presents it with serious problems.
     From: report of Bernard Williams (Personal Identity and Individuation [1956]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.4
     A reaction: Of course, any notion of personal identity would have serious problem if people could branch into two, like fissioning amoeba. If that happened, we probably wouldn't have had a strong notion of personal identity in the first place. See Parfit.
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.