60 ideas
14227 | 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. |
10662 | 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). |
17587 | 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'. |
17558 | 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. |
17583 | 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) |
17578 | 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? |
17582 | 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) |
16665 | There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez] |
Full Idea: Beyond the entities there are certain real 'modes', which are positive, and in their own right act on those entities, giving them something that is outside their whole essence as individuals existing in reality. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
A reaction: Suárez is apparently the first person to formulate a proper account of properties as 'modes' of a thing, rather than as accidents which are separate, or are wholly integrated into a thing. A typical compromise proposal in philosophy. Can modes act? |
16666 | A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez] |
Full Idea: The inherence of quantity is called its mode, because it affects that quantity, which serves to ultimately determine the state and character of its existence, but does not add to it any new proper entity, but only modifies the preexisting entity. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
A reaction: He seems to present mode as a very active thing, like someone who gives it a coat of paint, or hammers it into a new shape. I don't see how a 'mode' can have any ontological status at all. To exist, there has to be some way to exist. |
17556 | 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. |
8264 | 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? |
17565 | 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. |
14228 | 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. |
14468 | 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. |
17571 | 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. |
16667 | Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: In the view of Suárez, substances are radically incomplete entities that cannot exist at all until determined in various ways by things of another kind, modes. …Modes are regarded as completers for their subjects. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
A reaction: This is correct. In order to be a piece of clay it needs a shape, a mass, a colour etc. Treating clay as an object independently from its shape is a misunderstanding. |
17562 | 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). |
17574 | 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. |
17007 | Forms must rule over faculties and accidents, and are the source of action and unity [Suárez] |
Full Idea: A form is required that, as it were, rules over all those faculties and accidents, and is the source of all actions and natural motions of such a being, and in which the whole variety of accidents and powers has its root and unity. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.1.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4 | |
A reaction: Pasnau emphasises that this is scholastics giving a very physical and causal emphasis to forms, which made them vulnerable to doubts among the new experiment physicists. Pasnau says forms are 'metaphysical', following Leibniz. |
16780 | Partial forms of leaf and fruit are united in the whole form of the tree [Suárez] |
Full Idea: In a tree the part of the form that is in the leaf is not the same character as the part that is in the fruit., but yet they are partial forms, and apt to be united ….to compose one complete form of the whole. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.30), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.6 | |
A reaction: This is a common scholastic view, the main opponent of which was Aquinas, who says each thing only has one form. Do leaves have different DNA from the bark or the fruit? Presumably not (since I only have one DNA), which supports Aquinas. |
16758 | The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being [Suárez] |
Full Idea: The most powerful arguments establishing substantial forms are based on the necessity, for the perfect constitution of a natural being, that all the faculties and operations of that being are rooted in one essential principle. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.64), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4 | |
A reaction: Note Idea 15756, that this stability not only applies to biological entities (the usual Aristotelian examples), but also to non-living natural kinds. We might say that the drive for survival is someone united around a single entity. |
17531 | 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. |
16743 | We can get at the essential nature of 'quantity' by knowing bulk and extension [Suárez] |
Full Idea: We can say that the form that gives corporeal bulk [molem] or extension to things is the essential nature of quantity. To have bulk is to expel a similar bulk from the same space. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.4.16), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 539 | |
A reaction: This is one step away from asking why, once we knew the bulk and extension of the thing, we would still have any interest in trying to grasp something called its 'quantity'. |
17560 | 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] |
17561 | 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) |
17566 | 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. |
14230 | 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. |
17557 | 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. |
17564 | 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! |
17575 | 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. |
16742 | We only know essences through non-essential features, esp. those closest to the essence [Suárez] |
Full Idea: We can almost never set out the essences of things, as they are in things. Instead, we work through their connection to some non-essential feature, and we seem to succeed well enough when we spell it out through the feature closest to the essence. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.4.16), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 | |
A reaction: It is a common view that with geometrical figures we can actually experience the essence itself. So has science broken through, and discerned actual essences of things? |
17577 | 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'. |
17589 | 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 |
22143 | Identity does not exclude possible or imagined difference [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: To be really the same excludes being really other, but does not exclude being other modally or mentally. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.65) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: So the statue and the clay are identical, but they could become separate, or be imagined as separate. |
22144 | Real Essential distinction: A and B are of different natural kinds [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The Real Essential distinction says if A and B are not of the same natural kind, then they are essentially distinct. This is the highest degree of distinction. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: Boulter says Peter is essentially distinct from a cabbage, because neither has the nature of the other. |
22146 | Minor Real distinction: B needs A, but A doesn't need B [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The Minor Real distinction is if A can exist without B, but B ceases to exist without A. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: This is one-way independence. Boulter's example is Peter and Peter's actual weight. |
22145 | Major Real distinction: A and B have independent existences [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The Major Real distinction is if A can exist in the real order without B, and B can exist in the real order without A. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: Boulter's example is the distinction between Peter and Paul, where their identity of kind is irrelevant. This is two-way independence. |
22147 | Conceptual/Mental distinction: one thing can be conceived of in two different ways [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The Conceptual or Mental distinction is when A and B are actually identical but we have two different ways of conceiving them. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: This is the Morning and Evening Star. I bet Frege never read Suarez. This seems to be Spinoza's concept of mind/body. |
22148 | Modal distinction: A isn't B or its property, but still needs B [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The Modal distinction is when A is not B or a property of B, but still could not possibly exist without B. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: Duns Scotus proposed in, Ockham rejected it, but Suarez supports it. Suarez proposes that light's dependence on the Sun is distinct from the light itself, in this 'modal' way. |
17588 | 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. |
17572 | 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. |
22149 | Scholastics assess possibility by what has actually happened in reality [Suárez, by Boulter] |
Full Idea: The scholastic view is that Actuality is our only guide to possibility in the real order. One knows that it is possible to separate A and B if one knows that A and B have actually been separated or are separate. | |
From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
A reaction: It may be possible to separate A and B even though it has never happened, but it is hard to see how we could know that. (But if I put my pen down where it has never been before, I know I can pick it up again, even though this has not previously happened). |
17579 | 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) |
17590 | 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) |
17591 | 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) |
20041 | Intentional actions are those which are explained by giving the reason for so acting [Anscombe] |
Full Idea: Intentional actions are those to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting. | |
From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Intention [1957], p.9), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 2 'Two kinds' | |
A reaction: This works better for grand large-scale actions than for small ones, like taking the knife out of the drawer before the fork. Kahnemann nowadays tells us that the reasons we articulate might not be the ones that are operative. |
17563 | 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. |
17559 | 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. |
17586 | 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. |
17568 | 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) |
17581 | 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. |
17567 | 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? |
17576 | 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. |
17584 | 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. |
17569 | 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) |
17580 | 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'. |
17570 | 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) |
17585 | 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. |
17573 | 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. |
16682 | Other things could occupy the same location as an angel [Suárez] |
Full Idea: An angelic substance could be penetrated by other bodies in the same location. | |
From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.2.21), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.3 | |
A reaction: So am I co-located with an angel right now? |