Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Presentism', 'The Unimportance of Identity' and 'The Absurd'

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18 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel]
2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths
The weaker version of Truthmaker: 'truth supervenes on being' [Crisp,TM]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 9. Making Past Truths
The Truthmaker thesis spells trouble for presentists [Crisp,TM]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Truthmaker has problems with generalisation, non-existence claims, and property instantiations [Crisp,TM]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
Worm Perdurantism has a fusion of all the parts; Stage Perdurantism has one part at a time [Crisp,TM]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification
Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 4. Split Consciousness
It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / f. Eternalism
'Eternalism' is the thesis that reality includes past, present and future entities [Crisp,TM]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
The only three theories are Presentism, Dynamic (A-series) Eternalism and Static (B-series) Eternalism [Crisp,TM]