5 ideas
| 15456 | Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Kim, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Kim suggest that 'extrinsic' properties are those that imply 'accompaniment' (coexisting with some wholly distinct contingent object), whereas 'intrinsic' properties are compatible with 'loneliness' (being un-accompanied). | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Psychophysical supervenience [1982], 9th pg) by David Lewis - Extrinsic Properties II | |
| A reaction: The aim of Kim and Lewis is to get the ontological commitment down to a minimum - in this case just to objects (and mysterious 'implications'!). I like nominalism, but you can't just deny properties. 'Loneliness' is extrinsic! |
| 16025 | If things change they become different - but then no one thing undergoes the change! [Gallois] |
| Full Idea: If things really change, there can't literally be one thing before and after the change. However, if there isn't one thing before and after the change, then no thing has really undergone any change. | |
| From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Copi for this way of expressing the problem of identity through change] There is an obvious simple ambiguity about 'change' in ordinary English. A change of property isn't a change of object. Painting a red ball blue isn't swapping it. |
| 16026 | 4D: time is space-like; a thing is its history; past and future are real; or things extend in time [Gallois] |
| Full Idea: We have four versions of Four-Dimensionalism: the relativistic view that time is space-like; a persisting thing is identical with its history (so objects are events); past and future are equally real; or (Lewis) things extend in time, with temporal parts. | |
| From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], §2.5) | |
| A reaction: Broad proposed the second one. I prefer 3-D: at any given time a thing is wholly present. At another time it is wholly present despite having changed. It is ridiculous to think that small changes destroy identity. We acquire identity by dying?? |
| 16027 | If two things are equal, each side involves a necessity, so the equality is necessary [Gallois] |
| Full Idea: The necessity of identity: a=b; □(a=a); so something necessarily = a; so something necessarily must equal b; so □(a=b). [A summary of the argument of Marcus and Kripke] | |
| From: André Gallois (Identity over Time [2011], §3) | |
| A reaction: [Lowe 1982 offered a response] The conclusion seems reasonable. If two things are mistakenly thought to be different, but turn out to be one thing, that one thing could not possibly be two things. In no world is one thing two things! |
| 9425 | Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Later Lewis said we must choose between the intersection of the axioms of the tied best systems. He chose for laws the axioms that are in all the tied systems (but then there may be few or no axioms in the intersection). | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance [1980], p.124) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature |