Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'Truth-maker Realism' and 'Introduction to 'Personal Identity''

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6 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism
18469 God might necessitate that something happen, but He is not the truth-maker for it [Smith,B]
     Full Idea: Suppose that God wills that John kiss Mary now. God's willing thereby necessitates the truth of 'John is kissing Mary'. But God's act is not a truth-maker for this judgement.
     From: Barry Smith (Truth-maker Realism [1999], p.6), quoted by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.2
     A reaction: The point is that truth-making relates to the fact that it happened, not what necessitated it to happen. But Armstrong might reply that his truth-maker 'necessitation' primitive is not the kind of necessitation found in worldly relations.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
5503 Maybe personal identity is not vital in survival, and other continuations would suffice [Martin/Barresi]
     Full Idea: A modern question is whether personal identity is primarily what matters in survival; that is, people might cease and be continued by others whose continuation the original people would value as much.
     From: R Martin / J Barresi (Introduction to 'Personal Identity' [2003], p.3)
     A reaction: When put like this, the proposal seems hard to grasp. It only makes sense if you don't really believe in a thing called 'personal identity'. I don't see how you can believe in it without also believing that for you it has central importance.
5504 Maybe we should see persons in four dimensions, with stages or time-slices at an instant [Martin/Barresi]
     Full Idea: Some recent philosophers have argued that we should replace the three-dimensional view of persons with a four-dimensional view according to which only time-slices, or 'stages', of persons exist at short intervals of time.
     From: R Martin / J Barresi (Introduction to 'Personal Identity' [2003], p.3)
     A reaction: At first glance this seems to neatly eliminate lots of traditional worries. But why would I want to retain my identity, if someone threatened to brainwash me. I also want to disown my inadequate earlier selves. Interesting, though. Lewis.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 2. Self as Social Construct
5502 Locke's intrinsic view of personal identity has been replaced by an externalist view [Martin/Barresi]
     Full Idea: In modern times the Lockean intrinsic relations view of personal identity has been superseded by an extrinsic relations view (also called the 'closest-continuer' or 'externalist' view).
     From: R Martin / J Barresi (Introduction to 'Personal Identity' [2003], p.1)
     A reaction: Sounds sweeping. My suspicion is that there is a raging fashion for externalist views of everything (justification, content etc.), but this will pass. I take Parfit to be the source of the modern views.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument
20713 God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
     Full Idea: Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
     From: report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
     A reaction: Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
5505 For Aristotle the psyche perishes with the body (except possibly 'nous') [Martin/Barresi]
     Full Idea: In Aristotle's view, with the possible exception of 'nous' the psyche and all its parts come into being at the same time as its associated body; it is inseparable from the body, and perishes along with it.
     From: R Martin / J Barresi (Introduction to 'Personal Identity' [2003], p.8)
     A reaction: It is suggested that he thought there was only one 'nous', which all humans share (p.9). If he wants to claim that one part is immortal, he doesn't have much evidence. If psyche is the form of the body, it is bound to perish.