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All the ideas for 'Are Persons Bodies?', 'Reference and Generality (3rd ed)' and 'talk'

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8 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / d. Counting via concepts

12154	Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry]
	Full Idea: If we list the words 'bull', 'bull' and 'cow', it is often said that there are three 'word tokens' but only two 'word types', but Geach says there are not two kinds of object to be counted, but two different ways of counting the same object.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Perry - The Same F II
	A reaction: Insofar as the notion that a 'word type' is an 'object', my sympathies are entirely with Geach, to my surprise. Geach's point is that 'bull' and 'bull' are the same meaning, but different actual words. Identity is relative to a concept.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects

8969	We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: Geach argued that the notion of absolute identity should be abandoned. ..We can only grasp the meaning of a count noun when we associate it with a criterion of identity, expressed by a particular relative identity sortal.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Hawthorne - Identity
	A reaction: In other words, identity needs categorisation. Hawthorne concludes that Geach is wrong. Geach clearly has much common usage on his side. 'What's that?' usually invites a categorisation. Sameness of objects seems to need a 'respect'.

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity

16075	Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach]
	Full Idea: Geach's denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory. He must deny the axiom of extensionality in set theory, for example.
	From: comment on Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6
	A reaction: I'm beginning to think we have two entirely different concepts here - the logicians' and mathematicians' notion of when two things are identical, and the ordinary language concept of two things being 'the same'. 'We like the same music'.

12152	Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach]
	Full Idea: Identity is relative. When one says 'x is identical with y' this is an incomplete expression. It is short for 'x is the same A as y', where 'A' represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance.
	From: Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980], p.39), quoted by John Perry - The Same F I
	A reaction: Perry notes that Geach's view is in conscious opposition to Frege, who had a pure notion of identity. We say 'they are the same insofar as they are animals', but not 'they are the same animal'. Perfect identity involves all possible A's.

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law

16073	Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: Geach rejects the standard formulation of Leibniz's Law as incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6
	A reaction: Not many people accept Geach's premiss that identity is a relative matter. I agree with Wiggins on this, that identity is an absolute (and possibly indefinable). The problem with the Law is what you mean by a 'property'.

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination

6901	Understanding is needed for imagination, just as much as the other way around [Betteridge]
	Full Idea: Although it might be right to say that imagination is required in order to make reasoning and understanding possible, this also works the other way, as imagination cannot occur without some prior understanding.
	From: Alex Betteridge (talk [2005]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: This strikes me as a very illuminating remark, particularly for anyone who aspires to draw a simplified flowdiagram of the mind showing logical priority between its various parts. In fact, the parts are interdependent. Maybe imagination is understanding.

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?