Indeterminate Identity

Indeterminate Identity PDF Author: Terence Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198250449
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Terence Parsons presents a lively and controversial study of philosophical questions about identity. Is a person identical with that person's body? If a ship has all its parts replaced, is the resulting ship identical with the original ship? If the discarded parts are reassembled, is the newlyassembled ship identical with the original ship? Because these puzzles remain unsolved, some people believe that they are questions that have no answers, perhaps because the questions are improperly formulated; they believe that there is a problem with the language used to formulate them. Parsonsexplores a different possibility: that such puzzles lack answers because of the way the world is (or because of the way the world is not); there is genuine indeterminacy of identity in the world. He articulates such a view in detail and defends it from a host of criticisms that have been levelledagainst the very possibility of indeterminacy in identity.

Indeterminate Identity

Indeterminate Identity PDF Author: Terence Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198250449
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Terence Parsons presents a lively and controversial study of philosophical questions about identity. Is a person identical with that person's body? If a ship has all its parts replaced, is the resulting ship identical with the original ship? If the discarded parts are reassembled, is the newlyassembled ship identical with the original ship? Because these puzzles remain unsolved, some people believe that they are questions that have no answers, perhaps because the questions are improperly formulated; they believe that there is a problem with the language used to formulate them. Parsonsexplores a different possibility: that such puzzles lack answers because of the way the world is (or because of the way the world is not); there is genuine indeterminacy of identity in the world. He articulates such a view in detail and defends it from a host of criticisms that have been levelledagainst the very possibility of indeterminacy in identity.

Indeterminacy, Vagueness, and Truth

Indeterminacy, Vagueness, and Truth PDF Author: Ken Akiba
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031741757
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Get Book Here

Book Description


Leibniz's Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles

Leibniz's Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles PDF Author: Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198712669
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Examines the place and role of the identity of indisernibles, which rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things, in Leibniz's philosophy.

Material Beings

Material Beings PDF Author: Peter Van Inwagen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501713035
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book Here

Book Description
According to Peter van Inwagen, visible inanimate objects do not, strictly speaking, exist. In defending this controversial thesis, he offers fresh insights on such topics as personal identity, commonsense belief, existence over time, the phenomenon of vagueness, and the relation between metaphysics and ordinary language.

The Metaphysics of Identity

The Metaphysics of Identity PDF Author: André Gallois
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135015678
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
The philosophical problem of identity and the related problem of change go back to the ancient Greek philosophers and fascinated later figures including Leibniz, Locke, and Hume. Heraclitus argued that one could not swim in the same river twice because new waters were ever flowing in. When is a river not the same river? If one removes one plank at a time when is a ship no longer a ship? What is the basic nature of identity and persistence? In this book, André Gallois introduces and assesses the philosophical puzzles posed by things persisting through time. Beginning with essential historical background to the problem he explores the following key topics and debates: mereology and identity, including arguments from 'Leibniz's Law' the constitution view of identity the 'relative identity' argument concerning identity temporary identity four-dimensionalism, counterpart and multiple counterpart theory supervenience the problem of temporary intrinsics the necessity of identity Indeterminate identity presentism criteria of identity conventionalism about identity. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative introduction to and assessment of the metaphysics of identity.

Sameness and Substance Renewed

Sameness and Substance Renewed PDF Author: David Wiggins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521456197
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance (1980), David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy.

Occasions of Identity

Occasions of Identity PDF Author: André Gallois
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199261833
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this exploration of timeless philosophical issues regarding persistence, change, time, and sameness Andre Gallois offers a critical survey of a number of rival views about the nature of identity and change and proposes his own original theory in the face of the prevailing orthodoxy.

Forms of Thought

Forms of Thought PDF Author: E. J. Lowe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354757
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Forms of thought are involved whenever we name, describe, or identify things, and whenever we distinguish between what is, might be, or must be the case. It appears to be a distinctive feature of human thought that we can have modal thoughts, about what might be possible or necessary, and conditional thoughts, about what would or might be the case if something else were the case. Even the simplest thoughts are structured like sentences, containing referential and predicative elements, and studying these structures is the main task of philosophical logic. This clear and accessible book investigates the forms of thought, drawing out and focusing on the central logical notions of reference, predication, identity, modality and conditionality. It will be useful to students and other interested readers in epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and philosophical logic.

The Possibility of Metaphysics

The Possibility of Metaphysics PDF Author: E. Jonathan Lowe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198236832
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency between entities of different categories. He proceeds to set out a unified and original metaphysical system: he defends a substanceontology, according to which the existence of the world as one world in time depends upon the existence of persisting things which retain their identity over time and through processes of qualitative change. And he contends that even necessary beings, such as the abstract objects of mathematics, dependultimately for their existence upon there being a concrete world of enduring substances. Within his system of metaphysics Lowe seeks to answer many of the deepest and most challenging questions in philosophy.

The Significance of Indeterminacy

The Significance of Indeterminacy PDF Author: Robert H. Scott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351383302
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
While indeterminacy is a recurrent theme in philosophy, less progress has been made in clarifying its significance for various philosophical and interdisciplinary contexts. This collection brings together early-career and well-known philosophers—including Graham Priest, Trish Glazebrook, Steven Crowell, Robert Neville, Todd May, and William Desmond—to explore indeterminacy in greater detail. The volume is unique in that its essays demonstrate the positive significance of indeterminacy, insofar as indeterminacy opens up new fields of discourse and illuminates neglected aspects of various concepts and phenomena. The essays are organized thematically around indeterminacy’s impact on various areas of philosophy, including post-Kantian idealism, phenomenology, ethics, hermeneutics, aesthetics, and East Asian philosophy. They also take an interdisciplinary approach by elaborating the conceptual connections between indeterminacy and literature, music, religion, and science.