Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Explaining the A Priori', 'Can there be Vague Objects?' and 'Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory'

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23 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
16129 Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: Evans tries to derive a contradiction from the supposition that a given identity statement is of indeterminate truth-value. (As it happens, I consider that this argument is flawed)
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.3
     A reaction: A priori, I wouldn't expect to be able to settle the question of whether there are any vague objects simply by following some logical derivation. Empirical examination, and conceptual analysis (or stipulation) have to be involved.
16459 Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans]
     Full Idea: Maybe the world is vague, and vagueness is a necessary feature of any true description of it. Also identities may lack a determinate truth value because of their vagueness. Hence it is a fact that some objects have fuzzy boundaries. But is this coherent?
     From: Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978])
     A reaction: [compressed] Lewis quotes this introduction to the famous short paper, to show that Evans wasn't proposing a poor argument, but offering a reductio of the view that vagueness is 'ontic', or a feature of the world.
16460 Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis]
     Full Idea: The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts his reader (unwisely) to take for granted that there are vague identity statements, that a proof of the contrary cannot be right, and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of the fallacy.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319
     A reaction: [Lowe 199:11 is a culprit!] Lewis put this interpretation to Evans, who replied 'Yes, yes, yes!'.
16457 There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis]
     Full Idea: One problem with Evans's argument that there are no such thing as vague identity statements is that its conclusion is plainly false. Example: 'Princeton = Princeton Borough', where it is unsettled what region 'Princeton' denotes.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319
     A reaction: Lewis endorses the view that vagueness is semantic. I certainly don't endorse Evans's argument, which hinges on a weird example of a property, as applied to Leibniz's Law.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
14484 If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson]
     Full Idea: We cannot accept the existence of vague objects, according to Evans's argument that there cannot be indeterminacy of identity. ...From the assumption that it is indeterminate whether a = b, we conclude, determinately, that it's not the case that a = b.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 05.6
     A reaction: I think we should keep intrinsic identity separate from identity between entities. A cloud can be clearly identified, while being a bit fuzzy. It is only when you ask whether we saw the same cloud that Evans's argument seems relevant.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
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?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 13. No Identity over 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.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
21320 Identity is familiar to common sense, but very hard to define [Reid]
     Full Idea: Every man of common sense has a clear and distinct notion of identity. If you ask for a definition of identity, I confess I can give none. It is too simple a notion.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: 'Identical' seems to be a two-place predicate, but the only strict way two things can be identical is if there is actually just one thing. In which case just drop the word 'identity' (instead of defining it), and say there is just one thing here.
1367 Identity can only be affirmed of things which have a continued existence [Reid]
     Full Idea: Identity can only be affirmed of things which have a continued existence.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: This doesn't mean that Reid thinks there is nothing more to the identity than their similitude. But he, like Hume, denies that there is personal identity at any given instant. Reid is better at criticism than at formulating his own theory.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
16224 There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG]
     Full Idea: Two things can't be vaguely identical, because then a would have an indeterminacy which b lacks (namely, being perfectly identical to b), so by Leibniz's Law they can't be identical.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978], 4.7) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: [my summary of Katherine Hawley's summary (2001:118) of Evans] Hawley considers the argument to be valid. I have grave doubts about whether b's identity with b is the sort of property needed for an application of Liebniz's Law.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
23644 Without memory we could have no concept of duration [Reid]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to show how we could acquire a notion of duration if we had no memory.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], 1)
     A reaction: We would probably not have a notion of duration if we possessed a memory, but nothing ever changed. Maybe in Shoemaker's frozen worlds they retain memories, but nothing happens?
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.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
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'.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 2. Persons as Responsible
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.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 3. Persons as Reasoners
21319 I can hardly care about rational consequence if it wasn't me conceiving the antecedent [Reid]
     Full Idea: The conviction of personal identity is indispensably necessary to all exercise of reason. Reasoning is made up of successive parts. Without the conviction that the antecedent have been seen by me, I could have no reason to proceed to the consequent.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: Society needs philosophers precisely to point such things out. It isn't conclusive, but populist waffle about the self not existing undermines the very concept of a 'train of thought', which everybody is signed up to. Trains of thought can take years.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
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?
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / c. Inadequacy of mental continuity
21321 Memory reveals my past identity - but so does testimony of other witnesses [Reid]
     Full Idea: Although memory gives the most irresistible evidence of my being the identical person that did such a thing, I may have other good evidence of things which befell me. I know who bare me and suckled me, but I do not remember those events.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: A splendidly accurate and simple observation. Reid's criticisms of Locke are greatly superior to those of Butler. We now have vast collections of photographs showing our past identities.
21324 If consciousness is transferable 20 persons can be 1; forgetting implies 1 can be 20 [Reid]
     Full Idea: If the same consciousness can be transferred from one intelligent being to another, then two or twenty beings may be the same person. If he may lose the consciousness of actions done by him, one intelligent being may be two or twenty different persons.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: Reid says Locke was aware of these two implications of his theory of personal identity (based on consciousness). The first example is me replicated like software. The second is if I forget that I turned the light off, then who did turn the light off?
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.
21327 If a stolen horse is identified by similitude, its identity is not therefore merely similitude [Reid]
     Full Idea: When a stolen horse is claimed, the only evidence that this is the same horse is similitude. But would it not be ridiculous from this to infer that the identity of a horse consists in similitude only?
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: Actually that is exactly Hume's view of the matter (Idea 21292). For a strict empiricist there is nothing else be close resemblance over time. I prefer Reid's account to Hume's. - but then I am not a 'strict' empiricist.
1366 If consciousness is personal identity, it is continually changing [Reid]
     Full Idea: Is it not strange that the identity of a person should consist in a thing (consciousness) which is continually changing?
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: This is the panicky slippery slope view of Locke, that sees his doctrine as the first step to the destruction of religion. The fact is, though, that parts of my consciousness changes continually, but other parts stay the same for years on end.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 7. Self and Thinking
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.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / a. Origin of concepts
17722 The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: The possession conditions for the concept 'red' of the colour red are tied to those very conditions which individuate the colour red.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (Explaining the A Priori [2000], p.267), quoted by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.5
     A reaction: Jenkins reports that he therefore argues that we can learn something about the word 'red' from thinking about the concept 'red', which is his new theory of the a priori. I find 'possession conditions' and 'individuation' to be very woolly concepts.