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16730
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If matter is entirely atoms, anything else we notice in it can only be modes [Gassendi]
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Full Idea:
Since these atoms are the whole of the corporeal matter or substance that exists in bodies, if we conceive or notice anything else to exist in these bodies, that is not a substance but only some kind of mode of the substance.
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From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
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A reaction:
If the atoms have a few qualities of their own, are they just modes? If they are genuine powers, then there can be emergent powers, which are rather more than mere 'modes'.
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14508
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A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1)
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A reaction:
These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'.
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12034
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If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again.
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14510
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Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!).
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16455
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Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
[my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described.
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11901
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Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons.
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From:
report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been
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A reaction:
I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality.
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16619
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We observe qualities, and use 'induction' to refer to the substances lying under them [Gassendi]
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Full Idea:
Nothing beyond qualities is perceived by the senses. …When we refer to the substance in which the qualities inhere, we do this through induction, by which we reason that some subject lies under the quality.
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From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
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A reaction:
He talks of 'induction' (in an older usage), but he seems to mean abduction, since he never makes any observations of the substances being proposed.
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12032
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Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2)
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A reaction:
One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't.
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16593
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Atoms are not points, but hard indivisible things, which no force in nature can divide [Gassendi]
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Full Idea:
The vulgar think atoms lack parts and are free of all magnitude, and hence nothing other than a mathematical point, but it is something solid and hard and compact, as to leave no room for division, separation and cutting. No force in nature can divide it.
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From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.3.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.2
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A reaction:
If you gloatingly think the atom has now been split, ask whether electrons and quarks now fit his description. Pasnau notes that though atoms are indivisible, they are not incorruptible, and could go out of existence, or be squashed.
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16729
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How do mere atoms produce qualities like colour, flavour and odour? [Gassendi]
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Full Idea:
If the only material principles of things are atoms, having only size, shape, and weight, or motion, then why are so many additional qualities created and existing within the things: color, heat, flavor, odor, and innumerable others?
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From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.5.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
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A reaction:
This is pretty much the 'hard question' about the mind-body relation. Bacon said that heat was just motion of matter. I would say that this problem is gradually being solved in my lifetime.
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