Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Why Constitution is not Identity', 'Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought'' and 'Occasions of Identity'

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11 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
The early philosophers thought that reason has its own needs and desires [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: It is part of the notion of reason according to these philosophers [Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics] that reason has its own needs and desires.
     From: Michael Frede (Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought' [1996], p.5)
     A reaction: This sounds as if reason is treated as a separate person within a person. Anyone solving a logical puzzle feels that reason has its own compulsion. 'Boulesis' is the desire characteristic of reason.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail
A CAR and its major PART can become identical, yet seem to have different properties [Gallois]
     Full Idea: At t1 there is a whole CAR, and a PART of it, which is everything except the right front wheel. At t2 the wheel is removed, leaving just PART, so that CAR is now PART. But PART was a proper part of CAR, and CAR had the front wheel. Different properties!
     From: André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998], 1.II)
     A reaction: [compressed summary] The problem is generated by appealing to Leibniz's Law. My immediate reaction is that this is the sort of trouble you get into if you include such temporal truths about things as 'properties'.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Clay is intrinsically and atomically the same as statue (and that lacks 'modal properties') [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Arguments for statue being the clay are: that the clay is intrinsically like the statue, that the clay has the same atoms as the statue', that objects don't have modal properties such as being necessarily F, and the reference of 'property' changes.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], II)
     A reaction: [my summary of the arguments she identifies - see text for details] Rudder Baker attempts to refute all four of these arguments, in defence of constitution as different from identity.
The clay is not a statue - it borrows that property from the statue it constitutes [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: I argue that a lump of clay borrows the property of being a statue from the statue. The lump is a statue because, and only because, there is something that the lump constitutes that is a statue.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], n9)
     A reaction: It is skating on very thin metaphysical ice to introduce the concept of 'borrowing' a property. I've spent the last ten minutes trying to 'borrow' some properties, but without luck.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
Is it possible for two things that are identical to become two separate things? [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: A strong intuition shared by many philosophers is that some things that are in fact identical might not have been identical.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV)
     A reaction: This flies in the face of the Kripkean view that if Hesperus=Phosphorus then the identity is necessary. I don't think I have an intuition that some given thing might have been two things - indeed the thought seems totally weird. Amoeba? Statue/clay?
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 6. Constitution of an Object
Constitution is not identity, as consideration of essential predicates shows [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: I want to resuscitate an essentialist argument against the view that constitution is identity, of the form 'x is essentially F, y is not essentially F, so x is not y'.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], Intro)
     A reaction: The point is that x might be essentially F and y only accidentally F. Thus a statue is essentially so, but a lump if clay is not essentially a statue. Another case where 'necessary' would do instead of 'essentially'.
The constitution view gives a unified account of the relation of persons/bodies, statues/bronze etc [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Constitution-without-identity is superior to constitution-as-identity in that it provides a unified view of the relation between persons and bodies, statues and pieces of bronze, and so on.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], IV)
     A reaction: I have a problem with the intrinsic dualism of this whole picture. Clay needs shape, statues need matter - there aren't two 'things' here which have a 'relation'.
Statues essentially have relational properties lacked by lumps [Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: The statue has relational properties which the lump of clay does not have essentially.
     From: Lynne Rudder Baker (Why Constitution is not Identity [1997], V)
     A reaction: She has in mind relations to the community of artistic life. I don't think this is convincing. Is something only a statue if it is validated by an artistic community? That sounds like relative identity, which she doesn't like.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
Gallois hoped to clarify identity through time, but seems to make talk of it impossible [Hawley on Gallois]
     Full Idea: A problem for Gallois is that he leaves us no way to talk about questions of genuine identity through time, and thus undercuts one motivation for his own position.
     From: comment on André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.8
     A reaction: Gallois seems to need a second theory of identity to support his Occasional Identity theory. Two things need an identity each, before we can say that the two identities coincide. (Time to read Gallois!)
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
Gallois is committed to identity with respect to times, and denial of simple identity [Gallois, by Sider]
     Full Idea: Gallois's core claim is that the identity relation holds with respect to times, ...and he must claim that there is no such thing as the relation of identity simpliciter.
     From: report of André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.5
     A reaction: Gallois is essentially responding to the statue and clay problem, but it seems a bit drastic to entirely change our concept of two things being identical, such as Hesperus and Phosphorus. 'Identity' seems to have several meanings; let's sort them out.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Occasional Identity: two objects can be identical at one time, and different at others [Gallois, by Hawley]
     Full Idea: Gallois' Occasional Identity Thesis is that objects can be identical at one time without being identical at all times.
     From: report of André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.4
     A reaction: The analogy is presumably with two crossing roads being identical at one place but not at others. It is a major misunderstanding to infer from Special Relativity that time is just like space.