|
1350
|
Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence….Otherwise we must suppose a being to exist after it has ceased to exist, and to have existed before it was produced, which are manifest contradictions.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
I take the point to be that if something is supposed to survive a gap in its existence, that must imply that it somehow exists during the gap. If a light flashes on and off, is it really a new entity each time?
|
|
21322
|
We treat slowly changing things as identical for the sake of economy in language [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
All bodies, as they consist of innumerable parts, are subject to continual changes of their substance. When such changes are gradual, because language could not afford a different name for each state, it retains the same name and is considered the same.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
This is hard to deny. We could hardly rename a child each morning. Simlarly, we can't have a unique name for each leaf on a tree. Economy of language explains a huge amount in philosophy.
|
|
23643
|
We all trust our distinct memories (but not our distinct imaginings) [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Every man feels he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason for his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly; whereas, when he merely distinctly imagines a thing, he has no belief in it upon that account.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
The word 'distinct' is doing some heavy work here. I fear that believing the memory is the only criterion we have for calling it distinct. As a boy I was persuaded to change my testimony about a car accident, and I realised I was not distinct about it.
|
|
1356
|
A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
The identity of a person is a perfect identity: wherever it is real, it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible that a person should be in part the same, and in part different; because a person is a 'monad', and is not divisible into parts.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
I don't accept this, because I don't accept the metaphysics needed to underpin it. To watch a person with Alzheimer's disease fade out of existence before they die seems sufficient counter-evidence. I believe in personal identity, but it isn't 'perfect'.
|
|
1359
|
Personal identity is the basis of all rights, obligations and responsibility [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Identity, when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, and admits of no degrees. It is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and of all accountableness.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to me to be one of the key mistakes in all of philosophy - thinking that items must always be all-or-nothing. If a person deteriorates through Alzheimer's, there seem to be obvious degrees of personhood. Responsibility comes in degrees, too.
|
|
21323
|
The identity of a thief is only known by similarity, but memory gives certainty in our own case [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
A man challenges a thief in possession of his horse only on similarity. The testimony of witnesses to the identity of a person is commonly grounded on no other evidence. ...Evidence of our own identity is grounded in memory, and gives undoubted certainty.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
With other people the best we can hope for is type-identity, hoping that each individual being is a unique type, but with otherselves we are always confident of establishing token identity. Could I have been someone different yesterday, without realising?
|
|
21325
|
Boy same as young man, young man same as old man, old man not boy, if forgotten! [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Suppose a brave officer, flogged as a boy for robbing an orchard, to have captured a standard in his first campaign, and become a general in advanced life. [If the general forgets the flogging] he is and at the same time is not the same as the boy.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
|
|
A reaction:
The point is that strict identity has to be transitive, and if the general forgets his boyhood that breaks the transitivity. If identity is less strict there is no problem. The general may only have memories related to some part of his boyhood.
|
|
1352
|
Thoughts change continually, but the self doesn't [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
My thoughts, and actions, and feelings, change every moment: they have no continued, but a successive, existence: but that self, or I, to which they belong, is permanent.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
|
|
A reaction:
The word 'permanent' may be excessive, but one could hardly say there is nothing more to personal identity than the contents of consciousnes, given how much and how quickly those continually fluctuate.
|
|
23794
|
Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte]
|
|
Full Idea:
Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual.
|
|
From:
report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4
|
|
A reaction:
McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'.
|
|
16366
|
The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
|
|
Full Idea:
If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'.
|
|
From:
Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3
|
|
A reaction:
Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one.
|
|
6660
|
Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe]
|
|
Full Idea:
Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action.
|
|
From:
report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9
|
|
A reaction:
Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness.
|