Marcel

What I meant is, that if we read enough of such works, we could hold good and evil to be untrue or concocted.

And why we don't rape or murder for the survival of our race is because of our upbringing; it has given us a way to deal with our feelings of right or wrong. We have been conditioned to feel bad whenever we commit something which has to do with the violayion of somebdy's physical integrity.
I didn't say whether something is right or wrong de facto, but I did say that we hold things to be wrong.

Because life itself acts as if continuation of it is a necessity. An organism will rarely directly act against its existence; the fact that an organism develops actions which enable him to survive, is inherent to its ability to survive. Accumulated genetical or behavioral acts will prove to be successful if future offspring is being made. Acting counter-productively, will diminish the chance for offspring. Therefore we could say that feeling bad when something 'wrong'is being done, is an instrument for survival.

Clutch

Leibniz's Law is precisely what constitutionalists use in defending their views. For some such arguments, see Mark Johnston, “Constitution is not identity” (Mind, Vol. 101, No. 401. (Jan., 1992), pp. 89-105). For a response that I do not find compelling, but, unlike yours, at least contains arguments, see Harold Noonan, “Constitution is identity” (Mind, Vol. 102, No. 405. (Jan., 1993), pp. 133-146).No. You're treating the BT as if it's supposed to be consistent with diachronic identity, then triumphantly showing that it's not. That's just a basic mistake. The Bundle Theory was always opposed to strict diachronic identity. To point out its inconsistency with diachronic identity as if that were a problem is simply to betray a poor awareness of the position, its defenders, and its history.

Hence a Bundle Theorist will demur from your argument right at Assumption 1. S/he will count as someone who rationally denies diachronic identity in the first place. And, yep, ex-xian was explaining why s/he disagreed with your Assumption 1. See?

I suggest that you've misread both the philosophical opposition and your interlocutors here consistently enough that it's now time for you to stop popping off about who should read what.

Bill Snedden

I will confess unreservedly that the distinction between de re and de dicto is sometimes a difficult one for me to get my head around and I'm unsure of your meaning as you use it here. Perhaps you could clarify the statement that you see as having possible different ramifications depending upon whether it is seen de re or de dicto?

What I was getting at was something rather more along the line of an abstract concept such as a nominalist might consider a universal...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

mnkbdky

Ok, Mark's water and carbon argument is mistaken in several ways. First numerical identity never says what he makes it say. That is, water is numerically identical to H20. Rather what it does say is that any instance of H20 whether it is in liquid, solid, or vapor form is identical to itself. There are certain properties that liquid water has that the solid and vapor do not, namely that of being a liquid. Mutatis mutandis for solid and vapor.

The same can be said of diamonds and soot. Soot has the property of being a powder while the diamond has the property of being hard. Each one, however, is identical to itself. Mark himself gives this objection but thinks it falls into a reductio by saying.

1) If H20=H2O in a liquid state

2) and H2O=H2O in a vaporous state

3) and H2O=H2O in a solid/powdery state

4) then H2O in a liquid state=H2O in a solid/powdery state

This is an invalid sorites. In order for 4 to be true, 2 and 3 would have to contain the predicate of the one before it. But they don't.

Furhtermore, his whole agenda is ill-founded. He wants to make 1) true, but that is impossible because H2O is not just liquid. It can be frozen which we call ice, and it can be vapor which we call vapor. That is, ice is H20 at a temp sufficient for it to freeze, not just merely H20. It has added properties, and vapor is H20 at a sufficient temp to vaporize. If there is H20 then H20 is identical to itself whatever form it is in. H20 is the chemical compound of two self identical H's and one self identical O.

Mark says that, "What does the advocate of the view say about the relation among Water, Snow and Water Vapor? He had better not say that Snow = Water in a powdery condition and Water Vapor = Water in a vaporous condition. For, once again, how are we to understand the designators on the right hand sides of these identities? The dilemma, by now familiar is : Either we invoke the special construal in which case we push the bump to another point in the carpet, having to admit that Water merely constitutes Water in a vaporous condition or we face the absurd consequence that Water Vapor = Snow"

I am sorry to say that Water is merely the term we give to H20 in its liquid form. Therefore, Water in not equal to H20. H20 is identical to H20. Water is identical to H20 with the added property of liquidness, and Vapor is H20 with vapor properties and Ice is H20 with added frozen properties, each one being identical to itself. But H20 is identical to H20.

As I said above thoug, each instance of H is identical to itself and O to itself, temp is an accidental property. Any particular combination of H20 is indentical to that particular combination regardless of temp. Thus any particular lake, then is merely the sum of all its chemical parts. Lake is a linguistical term we give to that particular combination/ aggregate.

Mark is misusing numerical identity as language identity to prove his constitutional theory. Ultimately he fails. You can break it down as far and as small as things go, but everything is identical to itself, whether it endures or not.


Yes, BT denies diachronic identity. The point of the argument shows that BT is not even a viable option to use even for synchronic identity, because it is necessarily impossible. BT could not even possibly be true, even if one wanted to say we are synchronically identical to the entire stream of bundles. It could not possibly be true that we are bundles.

I believe I have not misread them. In fact, I think I understand them quiet well. If that is your opinion, though, perhaps we should start a thread that discusses these articles. We could have the assignment to read them and then come to discuss them at a certain date. That, I think, would actually be a lot of fun and probably far more productive than this back and forth banter. Let me know if you and/or anybody else would be up for that.

p.s., you still have not answered how psychological continuity works nor have answered how it is immune to the example of cloning. Hope to here this soon.

ex-xian

This discussion is progessing too quickly for me to be able to contribute in any meaningful way. Let me just make a few comments and then bow out, as, IMO, the OP has been sufficeintly disproven numerous times.

Firstly, the entire point of my previous posts is that it is impossible to say that any self exists at any one time. A self exists only as a set of experiences continuous in time and space. The remark about them being non-uninterrupted was to refute the common claims that sleep/unconsciousness contradicts this claim. If this point is belabored, I'm sure that someone else can adequately argue the point. People are not one person one moment, and another person the next because of experiences. Rather the person is the sum of experiences. This means that a self's personhood is continually in process. Indeed, I hold that all of reality is in process. See whitehead's "Process and Reality."

Second, it had been stated that the soul is non-spatial. I have no problem with that, as a soul is by definition immaterial. However, how is it that a non-spatial, immaterial "substance" is able to exert causitive influence over matter? How exactly does this influence happen. If one posits the existence of a soul, these are necessary questions that must be addressed for the theory to be valid. Otherwise, it is just fanciful thinking. Much like the invisible, incoporeal, silent dragon in my garage.

John Page

Irrespective of the red herring (kipper?) of morphology of substances, I have an issue with a statement "any instance of x is identical to itself". How can two instances of anything be identical?

I think, by identical, you must mean "of the same form" and, in the example given, the "form" H2O relates to atomic particle content but not the structure (stable relationship) between those particles.

Parmenides and the Third Man debate with Socrates is my fave example of a debate about form, so I'll suggest it as a reference point.

Cheers, John

Clutch

Maybe a good start would be for you to actually read the articles you say you know so well.

Your remarks have nothing to do with Johnston's "Constitution is not Identity". Indeed, it seems rather clear that you're talking about his J.Phil paper, "Manifest Kinds". (About which, moreover: your patient explanation as if to Johnston, that water is not identical to H2O, is actually MJ's conclusion. Good of you to pick up on it.)

Sheesh.

As for your claim about the BT: you have given exactly zero reason to think there's a problem with its synchronic definition of self. Could you try again, but with arguments this time? Thanks.

mnkbdky

I prefer to say that the opening paragraph has been ammended to adequately reflect my conclusion. (A1) was to strong for the conclusion I gave, that in order to maintain rationality and be a materialist one would have to deny numerical identity over time, so I am grateful that it was pointed out. Though, it took forever for me to understand what was being said, which is quiet common--I normally have to read and re-read and re-read.

Anyway, this thesis is realy nothing radical. In fact, it is, I think, quiet uncontroversial. However, since I believe numerical identity is the only way for us to have persons over time, and clearly the dualist has shown that this is a possible way, I think it is up to the materialist to offer a views of how identity could be maintained in the abscence of numerical identity. Everyone here agrees, I think, that if there were a soul that remained numerically identical to itself, then the soul would be identicle through time just in case it endured through time. However, I have not seen or read of one materialist account that does not succumb to objections--even the ones above, which Clutch waves his hand at.

Many people have been unsatisfied with the answer "it just does." And at first glance that answer does seem to avoid the question. The whole point is, however, that that is a question that cannot possible be answered--at least not be any human. I have said earlier it is like asking, "Why or how does the prick of a pin cause pain instead of pleasure?" One might answer, "because it causes a C-fiber to fire." Then the question become, "Why how does it do that?" "Why doesn't cause something else to fire." The only answer you can give to such question is that it just does. These are brute facts.

mnkbdky

Actually my response is to Johnston, though not in his "Constitution is not Identity." Rather it is to his paper "It Necessarily Ain't so." In which, he refers to his "Constitutiion is not Identity."

In this paper he says, "So whereas a water vapor is essentially vaporous, the quantity of H2O which makes it up is not essentially vaporous."

Then he says, "Therefore no water vapor is identical with the quantity of H2O which makes it up."

But how does this follow. Vapor is an accidental property of H20. H20 is always identical to itself, but can have the accidental props of steam, solid, and liquid. Vapor is essentially identical to H20 with the added property of heat.

Which is what I said above, "Water is identical to H20 with the added property of liquidness, and Vapor is H20 with vapor properties and Ice is H20 with added frozen properties, each one being identical to itself. But H20 is identical to H20."

Johnston is trying to make vapor, liquid and steam actual things apart from H20. They are not, consequentally they can have no essential properties apart from H20.

He later says, "The relation in question is material constitution, not numerical identity. When the instances of one kind, e.g H2O, in this way materially constitute the instances of another kind, e.g. H2O in a vaporous condition, I will mark the intimate relation between the kinds by saying that the first kind constitutes the second."

Something may only be constituted by what is made of and since each thing that it is made of is identical to itself, the thing in is identical is constituents.


I gave arguments, but perhaps I could run through them again. But I do ask that you give me a view of PC that does not fall prey to the clone object, or perhaps explain why you think that objection is not valid. The BT refutation will be on another post as soon as I finish it.

Clutch

Was this or was this not my point?

Wow. This is just getting weird.What's the problem supposed to be? There would, for a (very short, though the duration is irrelevant) time be two psychologically exactly similar but numerically (and physically!) distinct agents. Diachronically there's no obvious problem. As Parfit says, I survive as both. (Being, of course, identical to neither.) Synchronically, there's no obvious problem either. What does "I" refer to? Whoever says it, just like always.