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5515
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Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
I believe it is worth considering imaginary cases (such as Teletransportation), as we can use them to discover, not what the truth is, but what we believe.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
The trouble is that we might say that IF I were suddenly turned into a pig, then I would come to believe in dualism, but that will not and cannot happen, because dualism is false. It seems essential to accept the natural possibility of the case.
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18914
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Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen]
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Full Idea:
An alternative, and still controversial, extension of first-order logic is due to Donald Davidson, who allows for quantification over events.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3
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A reaction:
I'm suddenly thinking this is quite an attractive proposal. We need to quantify over facts, or states of affairs, or events, or some such thing, to talk about the world properly. Objects, predicates and sets/parts is too sparse. I like facts.
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14004
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We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne]
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Full Idea:
Davidson claims that we require the existence of events in order to make sense of a) action statements, b) causal statements, c) explanation, d) the mind-body problem, and e) the logic of adverbial modification.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], Intro IIb) by Craig Bourne - A Future for Presentism
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A reaction:
Events are a nice shorthand, but I don't like them in a serious ontology. Prior says there objects and what happens to them; Kim reduces events to other things. Processes are more clearly individuated than events.
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5516
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Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
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Full Idea:
We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.').
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From:
report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction.
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19554
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Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
How could we know that P and Q but not be in a position to know that P (as deniers of closure must say)? If my glass is full of wine, we know 'g is full of wine, and not full of non-wine'. How can we deny that we know it is not full of non-wine?
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From:
John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2)
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A reaction:
Hawthorne merely raises this doubt. Dretske is concerned with heavyweight implications, but how do you accept lightweight implications like this one, and then suddenly reject them when they become too heavy? [see p.49]
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5514
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Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
When psychologists discuss identity, they are typically concerned with the kind of person someone is, or wants to be (as in an 'identity crisis'). But when philosophers discuss identity, it is numerical identity they mean.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
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A reaction:
I think it is important to note that the philosophical problem breaks down into two areas: whether I have numerical identity with myself over time, and whether other people have it. It may be that two different sets of criteria will emerge.
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5521
|
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314)
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A reaction:
I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings.
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5519
|
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If I am largely paralysed, and my twin brother is dying of brain disease, then if the operation to graft my head onto his body is offered, I should accept the operation, and it is irrelevant whether this person would be me.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.308)
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A reaction:
Parfit notes that the brain is a particularly significant part of the process. The fact that I might cheerfully accept this offer without philosophical worries doesn't get rid of the question 'who is this person?' Who should they remain married to?
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5520
|
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
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Full Idea:
If there is someone with my head and my brother's body, it is a merely verbal question whether that person will be me, and that is why, even if it won't be me, that doesn't matter. ..What matters is not identity, but the facts of which identity consists.
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From:
Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.310)
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A reaction:
It strikes me that from the subjective psychological point of view identity is of little interest, but from the objective external viewpoint (e.g. the forensic one) such questions are highly significant, and rightly so.
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