Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Are Persons Bodies?', 'Ways Worlds Could Be' and 'Later Letters to Dedekind'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / a. Axioms for sets

17831	Cantor gives informal versions of ZF axioms as ways of getting from one set to another [Cantor, by Lake]
	Full Idea: Cantor gives informal versions of the axioms of ZF as ways of getting from one set to another.
	From: report of George Cantor (Later Letters to Dedekind [1899]) by John Lake - Approaches to Set Theory 1.6
	A reaction: Lake suggests that it should therefore be called CZF.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds

15432	Structural universals might serve as possible worlds [Forrest, by Lewis]
	Full Idea: Forrest proposed that structural universals should serve as ersatz possible worlds.
	From: report of Peter Forrest (Ways Worlds Could Be [1986]) by David Lewis - Against Structural Universals 'Intro'
	A reaction: I prefer powers to property universals. Perhaps a possible world is a maximal set of co-existing dispositions?

16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 1. Existence of Persons

3238	'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If we say (in opposition to a physical view of identity) that when Jones dies 'Jones ceases to exist' but 'Jones' body does not cease to exist', this shouldn't be pressed too hard, because it would make 'dead person' a contradiction.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.74)
	A reaction: A good point, which nicely challenges the distinction between a 'human' and a 'person', but the problem case is much more the one where Jones gets advanced Alzheimer's, rather than dies. A dead body ceases as a mechanism, as well as as a personality.

3239	You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If you love a person as a type instead of as a token (i.e. a "person", instead of a physical body) you might prefer a run-down copy of them to no person at all, but at this point our idea of loving a person begins to crack.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.81)
	A reaction: Very persuasive. If you love a person you can cope with them getting old. If you own an original watercolour, you can accept that it fades, but you would replace a reproduction of it if that faded. But what, then, is it that you love?