17447
|
Parsons says counting is tagging as first, second, third..., and converting the last to a cardinal [Parsons,C, by Heck]
|
|
Full Idea:
In Parsons's demonstrative model of counting, '1' means the first, and counting says 'the first, the second, the third', where one is supposed to 'tag' each object exactly once, and report how many by converting the last ordinal into a cardinal.
|
|
From:
report of Charles Parsons (Frege's Theory of Numbers [1965]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds good. Counting seems to rely on that fact that numbers can be both ordinals and cardinals. You don't 'convert' at the end, though, because all the way you mean 'this cardinality in this order'.
|
16236
|
Maybe our persistence conditions concern bodies, rather than persons [Olson, by Hawley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Instead of attributing person-like persistence conditions to bodies, we could attribute body-like persistence conditions to persons, …so human persons are identical with human organisms.
|
|
From:
report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.10
|
|
A reaction:
In the case of pre-birth and advanced senility, Olson thinks we could have the body without the person, so person is a 'phase sortal' of bodies. A good theory, which seems to answer a lot of questions. 'Person' may be an abstraction.
|
6669
|
For 'animalism', I exist before I became a person, and can continue after it, so I am not a person [Olson, by Lowe]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to 'animalism', I existed before I was a person and I may well go one existing for some time after I cease to be a person; hence, I am not essentially a person, but a human organism.
|
|
From:
report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10
|
|
A reaction:
There is a very real sense in which an extremely senile person has 'ceased to exist' (e.g. as the person I used to love). On the whole, though, I think that Olson is right, and yet 'person' is an important concept. Neither concept is all-or-nothing.
|