13 ideas
| 5515 | Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: I believe it is worth considering imaginary cases (such as Teletransportation), as we can use them to discover, not what the truth is, but what we believe. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293) | |
| A reaction: The trouble is that we might say that IF I were suddenly turned into a pig, then I would come to believe in dualism, but that will not and cannot happen, because dualism is false. It seems essential to accept the natural possibility of the case. |
| 13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points. | |
| From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13 | |
| A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry. |
| 5516 | Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG] |
| Full Idea: We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.'). | |
| From: report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction. |
| 5514 | Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: When psychologists discuss identity, they are typically concerned with the kind of person someone is, or wants to be (as in an 'identity crisis'). But when philosophers discuss identity, it is numerical identity they mean. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293) | |
| A reaction: I think it is important to note that the philosophical problem breaks down into two areas: whether I have numerical identity with myself over time, and whether other people have it. It may be that two different sets of criteria will emerge. |
| 5521 | If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314) | |
| A reaction: I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings. |
| 5522 | Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: We should revise our view about identity over time: what matters isn't that there will be someone alive who will be me; it is rather that there should be at least one living person who will be psychologically continuous with me as I am now. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.316) | |
| A reaction: Parfit and Locke seem to agree on this, and it is no accident that they both like 'science fiction' examples. Apparently Parfit wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone threatened to cut his corpus callosum. I rate it as a catastrophe for my current existence. |
| 5519 | It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: If I am largely paralysed, and my twin brother is dying of brain disease, then if the operation to graft my head onto his body is offered, I should accept the operation, and it is irrelevant whether this person would be me. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.308) | |
| A reaction: Parfit notes that the brain is a particularly significant part of the process. The fact that I might cheerfully accept this offer without philosophical worries doesn't get rid of the question 'who is this person?' Who should they remain married to? |
| 5520 | If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: If there is someone with my head and my brother's body, it is a merely verbal question whether that person will be me, and that is why, even if it won't be me, that doesn't matter. ..What matters is not identity, but the facts of which identity consists. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.310) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me that from the subjective psychological point of view identity is of little interest, but from the objective external viewpoint (e.g. the forensic one) such questions are highly significant, and rightly so. |
| 5518 | It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit] |
| Full Idea: It is quite uninteresting whether, with half its components replaced, I have the same audio system, and also whether I exist if half of my body were simultaneously replaced. | |
| From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.302) | |
| A reaction: It is impossible to deny this, if the part replaced is not the brain. My doubt about Parfit's thesis is that while I may not care whether some modified thing is still me, my lawyers and the police might be very concerned. |
| 23395 | Mohists desire wealth, population and social order as the best consequences [Mozi, by Norden] |
| Full Idea: The consequentialist Mohists give a fairly objective characterisation of benefits as wealth, populousness, and social order, and harm as poverty, depopulation, and social chaos. | |
| From: report of Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.I | |
| A reaction: That is a formula favoured by many authoritarian leaders in modern times. |
| 23394 | If people regarded other states as they did their own, they would never attack them [Mozi] |
| Full Idea: If people regarded other people's states in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another? | |
| From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.I | |
| A reaction: A nice case of the application of golden rule thinking to states, instead of to individuals. I can't see Putin (in 2022) being impressed by 'how would you like it if another country invaded Russia?'. The Golden Rule is an analogy argument. |
| 23396 | Mozi condemns partiality, which is the cause of all the great harms in the world [Mozi] |
| Full Idea: It is those who are partial in their dealings with others who are the real cause of all the great harms in the world. That is why our teacher Mozi says 'I condemn partiality'. | |
| From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.II | |
| A reaction: This is morality as the rule of law, rather than as the result of human affections. He is on the same wavelength as Kant. Mozi was criticising Confucius, who favoured family over strangers. |
| 23397 | Those who are against impartiality still prefer impartial protectors [Mozi] |
| Full Idea: Even though one may not advocate impartiality, one would certainly want to entrust one's family to the person who is impartial. | |
| From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.II | |
| A reaction: In the modern world his example would be the police, so he effectively he wants the impartiality of the law. But who wants legal impartiality within the affairs of a family? |