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The Schematics of Continuant Identity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Nollaig MacKenzie
Nollaig MacKenzie
Affiliation:
Glendon College, York University
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Extract

A natural, and popular, way to approach the identity of a continuant under a sortal F is to suppose there to be:

(a) A synchronic F-unity relation, binding bits of a world-slice into discrete F-stages.

(b) A diachronic F-unity relation, binding series of F-stages into F's.

In a Minkowskian world, of course, the synchronic and diachronic relations must reveal themselves as simply aspects of a single unity relation for F. But since the proper time of the continuant itself is the most natural generator of space and time axes, the decomposition of the unity-relation into (a) and (b) will normally be effortless.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Summer 1986 , pp. 245 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1986

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References

1 Wiggins, David, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity(Oxford: Blackwell; 1967), 76. My views have been influenced by Wiggins' work, but courtesy requires me to note that, going byGoogle ScholarSameness and Substance (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), he would find my position repellentGoogle Scholar.

2 Findcon will nicely handle Bernard Williams' problem about cases (v) and (vi) in “The Self and the Future”, Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)Google Scholar. To maintain clarity I leave out some detail. In the end one would want to mention such things as: (1) differences in “purity” of continuity from Tl stage to T2 stage; (2) differences in viability among T2 stages; (3) normalcy (for F-identity) of the causal routes to one or another T2 stage; (4) shifts in the way a criterion of identity is applied to broken things. I should take this opportunity to bring up to date footnote 9 of my “Can 1 Cease to Be a Person”, Dialogue 21/2 (June 1982), 241:Google Scholar replace reference to nested loops and recursion with a pointer to Findcon.