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All the ideas for 'Material Beings', 'Sameness and Substance' and 'Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself)'

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84 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Semantical fact is almost always more interesting than transcendental philosophical fiction.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1 n4)
     A reaction: An interesting expression of a more sophisticated recent allegiance to linguistic philosophy. There is still a strong allegiance to semantics as a major branch of philosophy, despite caution (e.g. from Nathan Salmon) about its scope.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 12. Paraphrase
We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: We could paraphrase 'some chairs are heavier than some tables' as 'there are xs that are arranged chairwise and there are ys that are arranged tablewise and the xs are heavier than the ys'.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 11)
     A reaction: Liggins notes that this involves plural quantification. Being 'arranged tablewise' has become a rather notorious locution in modern ontology. We still have to retain identity, to pick out the xs.
2. Reason / E. Argument / 1. Argument
Arguments are nearly always open to challenge, but they help to explain a position rather than force people to believe [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Philosophical arguments are never incontrovertible - well, hardly ever. Their purpose is to help expound a position, not to coerce agreement.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.419)
     A reaction: A bit over-cautious, perhaps. Most philosophers are converted to a position when they hear a single key argument, though it is probably 'tipping the balance' of previous discussions.
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi]
     Full Idea: Van Ingwagen writes of 'mereological nihilism' (that only mereological atoms exist) and of 'mereological universalism' (adhering to the principle of Unrestricted Composition).
     From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], p.72-) by Achille Varzi - Mereology 4.3
     A reaction: They both look mereologically nihilistic to me, in comparison with an account that builds on 'natural' wholes and their parts. You can only be 'unrestricted' if you view the 'wholes' in your vast ontology as pretty meaningless (as Lewis does, Idea 10660).
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: I think the validity of the 'Law' of Excluded Middle depends on the assumption that every proposition is definitely true or definitely false.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: I think this is confused. He cites vagueness as the problem, but that is a problem for Bivalence. If excluded middle is read as 'true or not-true', that leaves the meaning of 'not-true' open, and never mentions the bivalent 'false'.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 4. Variables in Logic
Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Explanations in terms of syntax do not satisfactorily distinguish true variables from dummy or schematic letters. Identifying variables with pronouns, however, provides a genuine explanation of what variables are.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02)
     A reaction: I like this because it shows that our ordinary thought and speech use variables all the time ('I've forgotten something - what was it?'). He says syntax is fine for maths, but not for ordinary understanding.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / b. The Heap paradox ('Sorites')
There are no heaps [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Fortunately ....there are no heaps.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: This is the nihilist view of (inorganic) physical objects. If a wild view solves all sorts of problems, one should take it serious. It is why I take reductive physicalism about the mind seriously. (Well, it's true, actually)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / d. Counting via concepts
Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: My thesis C says that to specify something or other under which a and b coincide is to specify a concept f which qualifies for this purpose only if it yields a principle of counting for fs. ...I submit that C is false, though a near miss.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.1)
The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: My principle C seems unnecessary ...since it is one thing to see how many fs there are...but another to have a perfectly general method. ...One could answer whether this f-compliant is the same as that one, but there are too many ways to articulate it.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.8)
     A reaction: His famous example is trying to count the Pope's crown, which is made of crowns. A clearer example might be a rectangular figure divided up into various overlapping rectangles. Individuation is easy, but counting is contextual.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth [Lewis]
     Full Idea: The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.412)
     A reaction: This seems to me the central truth about brains, and we should not be lured into abandoning it. We should not, however, exclude the possibility that there is a non-physical reality.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / b. Types of supervenience
Where pixels make up a picture, supervenience is reduction [Lewis]
     Full Idea: In the case of millions of pixels making up a picture on a computer screen, the supervenience is reduction.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.414)
     A reaction: Since 'supervenience' seems a suspect relationship about which no one is clear, this is a point very much worth making.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: I have a great deal of difficulty with an ontology that includes 'stuffs' in addition to things. ...I prefer to replace talk of sameness of matter with talk of sameness of particles.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14)
     A reaction: Van Inwagen is wedded to the idea that reality is composed of 'simples' - even if physicists seem now to talk of 'fields' as much as they do about objects in the fields. Has philosophy yet caught up with Maxwell?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The realist conceptualist may cheerfully admit that the sortal concepts of which we are possessed are the creatures of our interests; …and also that there need be no one way in which we must articulate reality.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.2)
     A reaction: Wiggins calls himself a 'realist conceptualist'. In his terminology, I seem to be an 'anti-conceptualist realist'. The issue concerns aspects of reality that extend beyond our concepts. The 99th d.p. of the mass of the electron.
Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: What Conceptualism entails is that, although horses and stars are not inventions or artefacts, in order to single out these things we must deploy a conceptual scheme which has been formed in such a way as to make singling them out possible.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.5)
     A reaction: I don't quite see why the 'singling out' role of the concepts is the only one that generates them, or makes them fit for purpose. In general, of course, our conceptual scheme is necessarily a response to our experience of the world.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / d. Vagueness as linguistic
Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Since singular terms can contain predicates, and since vague predicates are common, vague singular terms are common. For 'the tallest man that Sally knows' there are lots of men for whom it is unclear whether Sally knows them.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17)
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: A Chinese encyclopedia classifies animals as belonging to the Emperor, embalmed, tame, sucking pigs, sirens, fabulous, stray dogs, included in this classification, frenzied, innumerable, drawn with a fine brush, etcetera, or look for afar like flies.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.7 n18)
     A reaction: [This glorious quotation comes from a story by Borges, first spotted by Foucault]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A thing is a material object if it occupies space and endures through time and can move about in space (literally move, unlike a shadow or wave or reflection) and has a surface and has a mass and is made of a certain stuff or stuffs.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01)
     A reaction: It is not at all clear what electrons (which must count for him as 'simples') are made of.
Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: Van Ingwagen holds that although table-shaped collections of particles exist, tables do not.
     From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Ch.13) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 2.3
     A reaction: I find this idea appealing. See the ideas of Trenton Merricks. When you get down to micro-level, it is hard to individuate a table among the force fields, and hard to distinguish a table from a smashed or burnt table. An ontology without objects?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: A theory of individuation must comprise at least three things: an elucidation of the primitive concept of identity or sameness; what it is to be a substance that persists through change; and what it is for a thinker to single out the same substance.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1)
     A reaction: [compressed] Metaphysics seems to need a theory of identity, but I am not yet convinced that it also needs a theory of 'individuation'. Never mind, press on and create one, and see how it looks. Aristotle wanted to explain predication too.
Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Understanding the concepts involved in individuation can only be characterised by reference to observable commerce between things singled out and thinkers who think or find their way around the world precisely by singling them out.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1)
     A reaction: I take individuation to be relatively uninteresting, because I understand identity independently of how we single things out, but Wiggins's reliance on sortals implies that the very identity of things in the world is knee deep in mental activity.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / c. Individuation by location
Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The singling out of a substance at a time reaches backwards and forwards to time before and after that time.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2)
     A reaction: Presumably this is an inferred history and persistence conditions. Sounds fine in a stable world. We assume (a priori?) that any object will have a space-time line for its duration.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: There could be no singling out tout court unless there could be singling out 'as'.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2)
     A reaction: I find this claim baffling. Do animals categorise everything they engage with? Are we unable to engage with something if we have not yet categorised it? Surely picking it out is prior to saying that sort of thing it is?
In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: To say that x falls under f - or that x is an f - is to say what x is (in the sense Aristotle isolated).
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1)
     A reaction: This is a key claim in Wiggins's main principle. I'm not convinced. He wants one main sortal to do all the work. I don't think Aristotle at all intended the 'nature' of an individual thing to be given by a single sortal under which it falls.
Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: We can expect that, for every completely determinate continuant, there will be at least one sortal concept that it falls under and that determines a principle of persistence for it.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.4)
     A reaction: I think he has the 'determines' relation the wrong way round! Being a tiger doesn't determine anything about persistence. It is having that nature and those persistence conditions which make it a tiger. And why does he optimistically 'expect' this?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Nihilism about objects says there is a Y such that the Xs compose it if and only if there is only one of the Xs.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 08)
     A reaction: He says that Unger, the best known 'nihilist' about objects, believes a different version - claiming there are composites, but they never make up the ordinary objects we talk about.
If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Van Inwagen says 'there are no tables', and 'there are tables' means 'there are some things arranged tablewise'. Presumably 'there are no tables' negates the latter claim, saying no things are arranged tablewise. But he should think that is false.
     From: comment on Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction 3
     A reaction: Liggins's nice paper shows that Van Inwagen is in a potential state of contradiction when he starts saying that there are no tables, but that there are things arranged tablewise, and that they amount to tables. Liggins offers him an escape.
Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: All the activities apparently carried out by shelves and stars and other artefacts and natural bodies can be understood as disguised cooperative activities. And, therefore, we are not forced to grant existence to any artefacts or natural bodies.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12)
     A reaction: In 'the crowd tore her to pieces' are we forced to accept the existence of a crowd? We can't say 'Jack tore her to pieces' and 'Jill tore her to pieces'. If a plural quantification is unavoidable, we have to accept the plurality. Perhaps.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: The thesis about composition and parthood that I am advocating has far-reaching ontological consequences: that every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10)
     A reaction: A 'simple' is a placeholder for anything considered to be a fundamental unit of existence (such as an electron or a quark). This amazingly sharp distinction strikes me as utterly implausible. There is too much in the middle ground.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Those who believe that the statue is distinct from the lump should concede that whatever shares a part with the statue shares a part with the lump but deny that the statue is a part of the lump.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 05)
     A reaction: Standard mereology says if they share all their parts then they are the same thing, so it is hard to explain how they are 'distinct'. The distinction is only modal - that they could be separated (by squashing, or by part substitution).
If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: If you can make a (random) gollyswoggle by accident by kneading clay, then you must be causing the generation and corruption of a series of objects of infinitesimal duration. ...We have not augmented the furniture of the world but only rearranged it.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13)
     A reaction: Van Inwagen's final conclusion is a bit crazy, but I am in sympathy with his general scepticism about what sorts of things definitively constitute 'objects'. He overrates simples, and he overrates lives.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 3. Matter of an Object
I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: I assume in this book that matter is ultimately particulate. Every material being is composed of things that have no proper parts: 'elementary particles' or 'mereological atoms' or 'metaphysical simples'.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Pref)
     A reaction: It may be that modern physics doesn't support this, if 'fields' is the best term for what is fundamental. Best to treat his book as hypothetical - IF there are just simples, proceed as follows.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 5. Composition of an Object
If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, if I cause the cue ball to rebound from the eight ball, do I thereby create a short-lived object shaped like two slightly flattened spheres in contact?
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 03)
     A reaction: [compressed]
If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, that tells us that the bricks of a house compose at least one thing; it does not tell us that they also compose at most one thing.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 04)
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects
I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: I propose that parthood essentially involves causation. Too many philosophers have supposed that objects compose something when and only when they stand in some (more or less stable) spatial relationship to one another.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09)
     A reaction: I have to say that I like this, even though it comes from a thinker who is close to nihilism about ordinary non-living objects. He goes on to say that only a 'life' provides the right sort of causal relationship.
We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins]
     Full Idea: Van Inwagen's claim that nothing has parts causes incredulity. ..But the problem is not with endorsing the sentence 'Some things have parts'; it is with interpreting this sentence by means of singular resources rather than plural ones.
     From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 7) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction
     A reaction: Van Inwagen notoriously denies the existence of normal physical objects. Liggins shows that modern formal plural quantification gives a better way of presenting his theory, by accepting tables and parts of tables as plurals of basic entities.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: The Special Composition Question asks, In what circumstances is a thing a (proper) part of something?
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02)
     A reaction: [He qualifies this formulation as 'misleading'] It's a really nice basic question for the metaphysics of objects.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Among the best candidates to play the roles of sortal and substantial predicates are the natural kind words.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1)
     A reaction: There is always a danger of circularity with this kind of approach. How do we distinguish the genuine natural kinds from the dubious ones?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: I think it is part of the essence of a star that the radiation pressures that oppose the star's tendency to gravitational collapse has its source in the release of no-longer-needed nuclear binding energy when colliding nuclei fuse in the star's hot core.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07)
     A reaction: A perfect example of giving the essence of something as the bottom level of its explanation. This even comes from someone who doesn't really believe in stars!
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 11. Essence of Artefacts
Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Ordinary artefacts are individuated, rather indeterminately and arbitrarily, by reference to a parcel of matter so organised as to subserve a certain function.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3)
The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Statements that are apparently about the persistence of artifacts make covert reference to the dispositions of intelligent beings to maintain certain arrangements of matter.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13)
     A reaction: If you build a self-sustaining windmill that pumps water, that seems to have an identity of its own, apart from the intentions of whoever makes it and repairs it. The function of an artefact is not just the function we want it to have.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Nominal essences are unsatisfactory because they fail either of necessity or of sufficiency for membership of the intended kind, they leave unexplained how sortals can evolve, and there is no room for culture or context in our reference to kinds.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1)
     A reaction: [a compression of a paragraph] I would have thought that Locke would just say it is tough luck if nominal essences can't do all these things, because that's just the way it is, folks.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The question 'what is it?' refers to the persistence and lifespan of an entity, and so manifests the identity over time of an entity and its persistence, between persistence and existence, and between its existence and being the kind of thing it is.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1)
     A reaction: The idea that establishing the kind of a thing can do all this work strikes me as false. The lifespan of a 'human' can be between five minutes and a hundred years. Humans have a clear death, but thunderstorms don't.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 7. Intermittent Objects
A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: We can say of Hume's church that the present church is the same 'church' as the old parish church but not the same 'building' or the same 'stonework' as the old parish church.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.5)
     A reaction: Unconvinced. This seems to make a 'church' into an abstraction, which might even exist in the absence of any building. And it seems to identify a building with its stonework. Wiggins yearns for a neat solution, but it ain't here.
When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Is the 'new' electron in the lower orbit the one that was in the higher orbit? Physics, as far as I can tell, has nothing to say about this.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14)
     A reaction: I suspect that physicists would say that philosophers are worrying about such questions because they haven't grasped the new conceptual scheme that emerged in 1926. The poor mutts insist on hanging on to 'objects'.
A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: A thing starts existing only once; and in the case of a clock its proper beginning was at about the time when its maker finished it.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3)
     A reaction: I love the example that challenges this. Take the clock's parts and use them to make other clocks, then collect them up and reassemble the first clock. If the first clock has persisted through this, you have too many clocks. Wiggins spots some of this.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 9. Ship of Theseus
If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: If you have rejected the Principle of the Transitivity of (vague) Identity, it is hard to see how the problem of the Ship of Theseus could arise.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: I think this may well be the best solution to the whole problem
Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Dispute might break out between priests who favoured the working ship and antiquarians who preferred the reconstruction.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3)
     A reaction: This captures the contextual nature of the dispute very succinctly. Wiggins, of course, thinks that sortals will settle the matter. Fat chance.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: In some contexts, the principle of 'the transitivity of identity' should be called 'the transitivity of definite identity'.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: He is making room for a person to retain identity despite having changed. Applause from me.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity
Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Since any definition is an identity, identity itself cannot be defined.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2 n7)
     A reaction: This sounds too good to be true! I can't think of an objection, so, okay, identity cannot possibly be defined. We can give synonyms for it, I suppose. [Wrong, says Rumfitt! Definitions can also be equivalences!]
Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The principle of Leibniz's Law marks off what is peculiar to identity and differentiates it in a way in which transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity (all shared by 'exact similarity, 'equality in pay', etc.) do not.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2)
Identity is primitive [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Identity is a primitive notion.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1)
     A reaction: To be a true primitive it would have to be univocal, but it seems to me that 'identity' comes in degrees. The primitive concept is the minimal end of the degrees, but there are also more substantial notions of identity.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The famous proof of Barcan Marcus about necessity of identity comes down to simply this: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.3)
     A reaction: Since the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus was an a posteriori discovery, this was taken to be the inception of the idea that there are a posteriori necessities. The conclusion seems obvious. One thing is necessarily one thing.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The full Identity of Indiscernibles excludes the existence in this world of a symmetrical object, which is reduced to half of itself by the principle. If symmetrical about all planes that bisect it, it is precluded altogether from existence.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.2)
     A reaction: A really nice objection. Do the parts even need to be symmetrical? My eyeballs can't be identical to one another, presumably. Electrons already gave the principle big trouble.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 9. Sameness
We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The notion of sameness or identity that we are to elucidate is not that of any degree of qualitative similarity but of coincidence as a substance - a notion as primitive as predication.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2)
     A reaction: This question invites an approach to identity through our descriptions of it, rather than to the thing itself. There is no problem in ontology of two substances being 'the same', because they are just one substance.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality
Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A proof of actuality is a proof of possibility, but that does not invariably explain the possibility whose existence it demonstrates, for we may know that a certain thing is actual (and hence possible) but have no explanation of how it could be possible.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12)
     A reaction: I like this, because my project is to see all of philosophy in terms of explanation rather than of description.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: It is hard or impossible to conceive of Caesar's not being a man (human).
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.5)
     A reaction: So is it 'hard' or is it 'impossible'? Older generations of philosophers simply didn't read enough science fiction. Any short story could feature Caesar's failure to be a man. His assassination was a disaster for the Martian invasion of 44 BCE.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Counterpart Theory essentially reduces all problems about counterfactual identity to problems about choosing appropriate similarity relations. That is, Counterpart Theory essentially eliminates problems of counterfactual identity as such.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14)
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / e. Possible Objects
A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: The notion of a merely possible object is an even more defective notion than the notion of a borderline object; after all, a merely possible object is an object that definitely isn't there.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19)
Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Talk of merely possible objects may be redeemed in either maximally consistent sets of properties or in haecceities.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19)
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 5. Language Relativism
Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: What sortal concepts we can bring to bear upon experience determines what we can find there.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.6)
     A reaction: Wiggins would wince at being classed among linguistic relativists of the Sapir-Whorf type, but that's where I'm putting this idea. Wiggins is a realist, who knows there are things out there our concepts miss. He compares it to a fishing net. He's wrong.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / b. Purpose of mind
A mind is an organ of representation [Lewis]
     Full Idea: A mind is an organ of representation.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.421)
     A reaction: This does not seem to necessarily involve awareness, so it seems to put intentionality at the centre of things. It is a good slogan.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Human pain might be one thing. Martian pain might be something else.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.420)
     A reaction: A key suggestion in support of type-type physicalism, and against the multiple realisability objection to the identity theory
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis]
     Full Idea: My reductionism about mind began as part of an a priori reductionism about everything.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.412)
     A reaction: He says this is 'a priori' to avoid giving hostages to fortune, but I think is the best explanation of the total evidence facing us
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology makes good predictions, by associating mental states with causal roles [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Folk psychology is a powerful instrument of prediction, …which associates with each mental state a typical causal role.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.416)
     A reaction: This seems a good account of why we should take folk psychology very seriously, even if it is sometimes wrong (e.g. about people who are mentally ill).
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I don't believe that folk psychology says there is a language of thought.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.422)
     A reaction: This is aimed at Jerry Fodor. Certainly folk psychology is a strong theory, but a so-called 'language of thought' (the brain's machine code) seems a much weaker one.
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis]
     Full Idea: If the famous brain in a bottle is your exact duplicate in brain states, but only experiences the computer's virtual reality, so that you share no objects of acquaintance, then according to externalists you share no beliefs whatsoever.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.424)
     A reaction: A very nice reductio ad absurdum of the idea that all concepts and beliefs have external meaning.
Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis]
     Full Idea: There is nothing to support the thesis that wide content is the only kind of content, or that it is any way pre-eminent or basic.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.424)
     A reaction: The idea that all content is 'wide' seems quite wrong. We can't all be wrong about the meaning of a word, because the underlying facts have not yet been discovered.
A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis]
     Full Idea: According to externalists, Davidson's 'swampman' is your exact duplicate in brains states, but hasn't had time to become acquainted with much, so he has virtually no beliefs.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.425)
     A reaction: An implausible fantasy, but it does highlight the fact that beliefs and concepts are primarily internal states.
Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Wide content is derivative, a product of narrow content and relationships of acquaintance with external things.
     From: David Lewis (Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself) [1994], p.430)
     A reaction: I would say: content is a mental state, but it is created and fixed by a community, and wide content is the part fixed by experts in the community. We can all be wrong about meanings, and occasionally most of us are wrong about a specialised meaning.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / b. Empirical concepts
We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: The mind conceptualises objects, yet objects impinge upon the mind.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.5)
     A reaction: A very nice statement of the relationship, and the fact that we don't just make our concepts up.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / f. Theory theory of concepts
A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: A 'conception' of horse is a theory of what a horse is, or what it is to be a horse. The conception is in no way the same as the concept. The conception is of the concept.
     From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1)
     A reaction: Wiggins sounds confident about a sharp distinction here, which I doubt, but some such distinction seems to required. I quite like Williams's 'fat' and 'thin' concepts.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 3. Chromodynamics / a. Chromodynamics
The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: The strong force doesn't always pull nucleons together, but pushes them apart if they get too close.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07)
     A reaction: Philosophers tend to learn their physics from other philosophers. But that's because philosophers are brilliant at picking out the interesting parts of physics, and skipping the boring stuff.
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements
Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A physicist once told me that of course a gold atom was a piece of gold, and a physical chemist has assured me that the smallest possible piece of gold would have to be composed of sixteen or seventeen atoms.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01)
     A reaction: The issue is at what point all the properties that we normally begin to associate with gold begin to appear. One water molecule can hardly have a degree of viscosity or liquidity.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: The lives of the lower links of the Great Chain of Being trail off into vague, temporary episodes of molecular interaction.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: His case involves conceding all sorts of vagueness to life, but asserting the utter distinctness of the full blown cases of more elaborate life. I don't really concede the distinction.
A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A tumour is not an organism (or a parasite) and there is no self-regulating event that is its life. It does not fill one space, but is a locus within which a certain sort of thing is happening: the spreading of a certain sort of (mass-term) life.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09)
Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Being caught up in the life of an organism is, like being rich or being tall, a matter of degree, and is in that sense a vague condition.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17)
     A reaction: Van Inwagen is trying to cover himself, given that he makes a sharp distinction between living organisms, which are unified objects, and everything else, which isn't. There may be a vague centre to a 'life', as well as vague boundaries.
Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: There are events of which it is neither definitely true nor definitely false that those events are lives. I do not see how we can deny this.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: Very frustrating, since this is my main objection to Van Inwagen's distinction between unified lives and mere collections of simples. Some boundaries are real enough, despite their vagueness, and others indicate that there is no real distinction.
Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A wave is not a 'jealous' event. Lives, however, are jealous. It cannot be that the activities of the Xs constitute at one and the same time two lives. Only in certain special cases can two lives overlap.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09)
One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: One's life - not simply one's mental life - is centered in the activity of the simples that virtually compose one's brain in a way in which it is not centered in the activity of any of the other simples that compose one.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 15)
     A reaction: This justifies the common view that 'one follows one's brain'. I take that to mean that my brain embodies my essence. I would read 'centered on' as 'explains'.
A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: A flame, though it is a self-maintaining event, does not seem to be nearly so well individuated as a life.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09)
     A reaction: This is to counter the standard problem that if you attempt to define 'life', fire turns out to tick nearly all the same boxes. The concept of 'individuated' often strikes me as unsatisfactory. How does a bonfire fail to be individuated?
If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: If God were to 'reassemble' the atoms that composed me ten years ago, the resulting organism would certainly not be me.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13)
     A reaction: What is obvious to Van Inwagen is not obvious to me. He thinks lives are special. Such examples just leave us bewildered about what counts as 'the same', because our concept of sameness wasn't designed to deal with such cases.
The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: There are sixteen or so chemical elements involved in those chemical reactions that collectively constitute the life of a human being.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09)
Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: Individual human lives are infected with vagueness at both ends. ...But could there be a 'borderline life'?
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18)
     A reaction: Van Inwagen says (p.239) that there may be wholly vague lives, though it would suit his case better if there were not.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: There is no reason to suppose - whatever Saint Anselm and Descartes may have thought - that mere existence is a valuable thing.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12)
     A reaction: This is one of the simplest and most powerful objections to the Ontological Argument. God's existence may be of great value, but the existence of Hitler wasn't.