Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Articulating Reasons: Intro to Inferentialism' 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.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
7765 The use of a sentence is its commitments and entitlements [Brandom, by Lycan]
     Full Idea: Brandom develops a particular conception of 'use', according to which a sentence's use is the set of commitments and entitlements associated with public utterance of that sentence.
     From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Articulating Reasons: Intro to Inferentialism [2000]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.6
     A reaction: It immediately strikes me that a sentence could only have commitments and entitlements if it already had a meaning. However, the case of money shows how there might be nothing more to a thing's significance than its entitlements.
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.