Abstract
It seems then that the STC theorist has a lot to do before he can convincingly present STC, qualified in terms of both qualitative continuity and sortal coverage, as an adequate criterion of identity over time. However, there is a much deeper feature of the various continuity criteria which must be exhibited, a feature which is logically independent of the necessity, sufficiency or lack thereof of any of them, though the correct way of approaching this feature will affect our construal of the counter-examples.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Dummett uses the precise expression ‘partial grasp of sense’ only once (1981a, p.99), and in a context not immediately relevant to the current problem.
Dumrnett, ibid, p.572. It is true that there are also places where Dummett seems to suggest that the application conditions of a sortal can be grasped prior to its identity criterion, but it is not clear. In (1981a), p.573, he says ‘I can understand when it is right to say, “That is a book”, before knowing any criterion for the identity of books’; but he immediately adds that ‘there is no one object which can rightly be said to be a book in both senses of “book”’ (namely, the senses associated with criteria of application and identity respectively). In (1981b) p.217, he agrees with Strawson that ‘one can learn to recognize the presence of a cat without yet knowing that there is any place for distinguishing between the reappearance of the same cat and the appearance of a different one, any more than there is with rainbows’. But the above remark about the two senses of ‘book’, and the fact that he firmly links grasp of application conditions in such circumstances to the use of demonstratives, suggest that he does not believe one can ‘advance from crude predications to the use of basic count nouns’ (1981b, p.217) without acquiring a criterion of identity. Moreover, one could not, on his view, have the grasp of a sortal, without that of an identity criterion, required by the STC theorist for his full-blooded account of the synthesis of diachronic from synchronic identity; for such an account goes beyond the mere grasp of demonstrative expressions such as ‘This is a cat’.
See the discussion in Lowe (1988b) pp.61–78, at pp.63–7.
Membership Rigidity for sets can be derived using the Axiom of Extensionality and set abstraction, but it also requires a not uncontroversial (but still defensible) application of Leibniz’s Law within a modal context; from these we can derive (αεX) → ☐(αεX). This possibility should provide a chastening reminder to those who would readily reduce an object to some set of entities with which it is in fact only contingently associated.
Aristotle, Metaphysics Δ, 1018a 7–9 (entry under ‘sameness’).
Pointed out by Harold Noonan in (1989) pp.167–8, to justify what, in the light of remarks in this chapter, is an implausible ‘multiple occupancy thesis’ for persons — that before personal fission occurs, two people are present where there appears only to be one. The Geachian overtones of this approach are evident. Neutral counting does not, as is made clear, purport to serve as an aid to certain metaphysical claims.
Is the following quotation from Hilaire Belloc’s The Path to Rome (1902) illustrative of neutral counting? ‘… Rome, that now more and more drew me to Herself as She approached from 6 to 5, from 5 to 4, from 4 to 3 — now she was but three days off. The third sun after that I now saw rising would shine upon the City’ (p.401). The adherent of ordinary counting as the only way of counting would insist that Belloc is really talking about appearances of the sun, or sunrises etc.; but once the possibility of neutral counting is realised, there is no reason why Belloc should not be taken at his word.
Neutral counting, then, explicitly does not involve ontological commitment. Compare this to the interesting paper by Butchvarov, ‘Identity’ (1977, pp.70–89), where he makes a distinction between objects and entities in order to resolve the unity-plurality problem for identity statements. Butchvarov seems to be making an ontological claim, though he is not altogether clear; perhaps neutral counting can achieve the same end without excess ontological baggage.
Throughout this discussion, one would do well to bear in mind E.J. Lowe’s remark: ‘The problem is that such a presupposition [of the type we allege] may be buried fairly deeply, so that no explicit or formal circularity can be discerned in the statement of the proposed criterion’ (1989a, pp.1–21 at p.8).
Quaere the familiar behaviour of children who, during a typical lesson in ordinary counting, lapse into neutral counting (‘One’ (pointing to x), ‘Two’ (pointing to y), ‘Three’ (pointing to x again)…).
It should be noted in passing that Hirsch (1982) entertains the concept of nondispersiveness as a test of sortalhood: ‘A term like “wood” is dispersive because any stretch (quantity, bit) of wood will extensively overlap numerous other stretches of wood that make it up’ (p.42). But Brennan (1988, p.8 n.) erroneously claims that Hirsch defines ‘sortal’ in terms of nondispersiveness; rather, Hirsch claims it is necessary but not sufficient (1982, p.40). It should be added that it is not necessary either, if, as claimed, ‘portion of M’ is a sortal term, since such terms are dispersive.
Note Parfit’s remark: ‘When R takes a one-one form, we can use the language of identity’ (1984, p.262). We can, he believes, choose to keep our ordinary locutions when continuity is non-branching — as it mostly is — but we should not assume that there is a deep metaphysical fact underlying them, the metaphysics being quite different. Hence, to take his passing favourable remarks about non-branching continuity as an endorsement of a metaphysically robust — albeit extrinsic — criterion of personal identity is to miss the point of his approach altogether.
‘Are Persons Bodies?’, in Williams (1973) pp.64–81 at p.78.
Perry (1972) pp.463–88. Importantly, Parfit uses temporal part (or stage) language more freely and generally in ‘Lewis, Perry and What Matters’, in Rorty (1976) pp.91–107.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 David S. Oderberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Oderberg, D.S. (1993). Continuity as the Criterion of Identity over Time: Continuity without Stages?. In: The Metaphysics of Identity over Time. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377387_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377387_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-39138-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37738-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)