Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Identity', 'Causation and Supervenience' and 'On the Individuation of Attributes'

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22 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / c. Counting procedure
It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties
Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity
Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan]
Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan]
Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan]
Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan]
Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley]
Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation
We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / a. Observation of causation
Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley]
The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley]
Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley]