Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics' and 'Personal Identity and Individuation'

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4 ideas

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.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
4375 Evaluations are not disguised emotions; instead, emotion is a type of evaluation [Achtenberg]
     Full Idea: The emotivist gets things backwards: evaluations are not disguised emotions; instead, emotions are types of evaluation.
     From: Deborah Achtenberg (Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics [2002], 6.1)
     A reaction: A nice comment, though a bit optimistic. It is certainly a valuable corrective to emotivist to pin down the cognitive and evaluative aspects of emotion, rather than regarding them as 'raw' feelings.
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.