Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Happiness is a physical good (as opposed to moral and metaphysical goods); it is good by definition of “physical good” and in no other sense. To say that a man has acquired physical good is to say precisely that he is happy (and vice versa). The first part of the sentence carries no more information than the second part. In other words, happiness does not “have the property” of being good; happiness is defined to be physical goodness. Now my happiness is a physical good, but it depends on goods other than myself. Considered as action-while-at-rest, to be happy about something requires (1) seeing a thing, (2) in seeing, possessing (e.g., comprehending) it, and (3) in possessing, enjoying it. While I have my own {humanity, personality, happiness}, the last one of these in its capacity as a good splits into its own troika, namely, {useful, virtuous, pleasant}. On the other hand, the state of affairs of “a man’s being happy” is an objective good, insofar as one enjoys it because it is good (and if one doesn’t, then he is in trouble), not the other way around as is the case with a subjective good, wherein something is good or a good, because it is loved. Note that happiness is subjective insofar as you alone feel it and are responsible for it. A good is subjective whenever it yields happiness.

Mark Johnson summarizes “psychological reductionism,” brilliantly, as follows: it is the view, he says “that truths about personal identity have as necessary and sufficient conditions statements about the holding of relations of mental continuity and connectedness. Connectedness involves the holding of direct psychological connections, such as the persistence of beliefs and desires, the connection between and intention and the later act in which the intention is carried out, and the connection between an experience and a memory of that experience.” (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 394)

Let’s spell this out. Person B at t₂ is person A at t₁ if and only if

(a) some beliefs and desires of A are found in B;

(b) those habits that are in B but not in A have been created in or acquired by B by means of A’s own actions;

(c) B remembers the state of his character in A and the steps A took to modify this character to become B.

Consider the following situation. A prays to God and says: “Change me into something other than what I am, such as B.” Can God modify A in an instant at 0 cost to him? Certainly not, because existing habits, like everything that is, have a certain authority; they have a power to endure, and they insist upon remaining what they are barring overwhelming force. So, if God were to change A into B in this manner, He would do violence to A’s nature. And grace is never violent but builds upon nature. The connection between A and B must therefore take the form “goal sought by A — goal accomplished in B.” A must first come to love his future self B more than his present self A. Then he must figure out how to attain B’s habits or virtues and, through them, acts. Finally, A must overcome the inertia of his own habits, their “authority,” their innate tendency to persist, and bend them to his will.

The crucial thing here is that A himself initiates and follows through with his metamorphosis into B. If his love, knowledge, or abilities are lacking somewhere so that A falters in his way toward B yet ought to become him, they may be enhanced via friendly help. But no one can do A’s job for him — A must demonstrate through action and struggle which has disutility of labor that he wants to be B no matter the cost.

And just as A keeps his eyes on the prize of being B as his goal while he is working on himself to become B, so B must also keep A and A’s exertions in memory in order for there to be continuity between them. Hence (c). There must be a contemplation of success, of victory by B over whatever deficiencies prevailed in A. Given these three individually necessary and jointly sufficient links, then, B can be said to have maintained his identity with A despite perhaps even drastic changes in his personality. Note that this does not contradict my previous suggestion that X is the same as Y if the four causes of X are identical with the four causes of Y. There is a world of difference between identity of things and personal identity of human beings. B is not identical to A, but person B is nevertheless the same person as A. Update. Identity through time, like trans-world identity, requires sortals. A and B, if to be considered the same, must be the same F. In our case B is not the same Dmitry, say, as A but the same person.

Now it is possible that some external event changes you. Then seemingly you don’t apply any effort to actuate the change. (For example, it may come in the form of an epiphany. I was once troubled by the thought that I did not love enough, did not have enough charity. And then it occurred to me: “Nobody loves enough!” And at that very moment my heart was healed.) True, but you allow it to take place and presumably love the change and come to know the “new you.” That is enough. There is no reason why some good things can’t be free. Just as action-toward-rest is required to morph from A into B, so action-while-at-rest is required to remain B. The latter is attended by self-love (of B) and self-knowledge (of B). But proper action-while-at-rest is assured if B was brought about in the manner outlined above, that is, by A’s and the intermediaries between A and B’s own self-directing actions which may include allowing externally induced changes to take effect. (If you know yourself as B_k and how to transition to B_k+1 via means M_k, then you know B_k+1 or, in this case, know yourself as B_k+1. It follows that at the end of the process you will know yourself as B.)

Johnson goes on in describing this view: “The identity over time of any particular human body or brain plays no strictly indispensable role in the identity of a particular person over time. Any particular human body or brain is just one causal means among others for the holding of the relations of psychological continuity and connectedness which constitute a particular person’s survival.” I agree completely. Though Johnson thinks otherwise, the role of the brain has been greatly exaggerated.

What Aquinas is saying here (ST, I, 5, 5), it seems to me, is that the essence of goodness in any piece of art, whether divine or human, consists in the proper application of the four causes to fashion it. Thus, the right materials (material cause) and the proper employment of the power of the artist (efficient cause) constitute “mode.” “The form itself [formal cause] is signified by the species; for everything is placed in its species by its form.” And the purpose, the part that the thing plays in the overall scheme of things, that is, the final cause, for the sake of which the form was given to matter and towards which it now “acts and tends” in accordance with the nature of the form, makes up “order”.

And that makes sense, for if any one of causes is not correctly applied by the artist to his creation, the creation will not be perfect.

This argument for the existence of God tries to deduce from the meaning of the term “God” the fact that this term also has a referent. Normally, semiotics teaches that the signified is a different beast than the referent. But is that true for the signifier “God”? It seems that when God signifies “a being than which no greater can be thought,” this conception includes within itself the fact of God’s existence in reality. So, what we do when trying to think of the greatest possible being is we start enumerating its attributes: the being than which no greater can be thought must be omnipotent, omniscient, 3, 4, 5, actually existing, 7, 8… Now here I argue that its existence remains a conception, such that “from the idea of a perfect being only an idea of its actual existence follows, not its actual existence.” Am I right?

Consider a second version of the ontological argument. Let X be a being that is pure actuality. Let also it be possible for X to exist (lest it can be argued that in not existing X has no potency to come to exist, because its existence is impossible). Then if X did not exist or existed but could corrupt and perish, then existence would stand to X’s essence as act to potency, and X would no longer be pure act, contrary to the definition. In other words, the meaning of the term “pure actuality” entails existence of pure actuality. There are two interpretations of this argument. (1) If the concept of pure actuality is not incoherent, which it’s not, then X exists. (2) If anything is pure actuality, then it has existence by its very nature, i.e., X is imperishable.

Now I’d like to suggest that there are two distinct criteria for something’s existing at work here:

(a) (∃X)(X is pure actuality) (normal existential statement); and
(b) (∀X)(X is pure actuality → X exists) (from definition of pure actuality).

Suppose that (a) is false. Then “X is pure actuality” is false for all X, and the truth value of “X exists” is undefined. And that’s exactly, as far as I see it, what Aquinas says in (ST, I, 2, 1, ad 2): “Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist.” We can’t argue for the consequent of (b) unless we admit (a), and (a) is not self-evident. ◊(∃X)(X is pure actuality) is true, but we don’t know at this stage of our proof whether X exists in the actual world.

Update. (a) and (b) may be clarified as follows:

(a’) (∃X)(X’s essence is described by the phrase “pure actuality”);
(b’) (∀X)(X’s essence is described by the phrase “pure actuality” → X exists).

To illustrate some of the issues involved in the relationship between memory and enduring personal identity, Sydney Shoemaker and Derek Parfit postulate something they call quasi- or q-memory, that is, memory of either oneself doing A or someone else doing A but as though he were doing it, which Shoemaker calls memory “from the inside”; or memory of an event E due to either one’s own witnessing E or someone else’s witnessing E, called memory “from the outside.” Every instance of normal memory is an instance of q-memory, but the reverse obviously does not hold (because a q-memory might not in fact be one’s own). Further, in the actual world memory and q-memory are the same, but there exist possible worlds in which they are not the same. Now both authors consider the same objection to this division, e.g., Parfit:

One might say, “My apparent memory of having an experience is an apparent memory of my having an experience. So how could I q-remember my having other people’s experiences?”

This objection rests on a mistake. When I seem to remember an experience, I do indeed seem to remember having it. But it cannot be a part of what I seem to remember about this experience that I, the person who now seems to remember it, am the person who had the experience. That I am is something that I automatically assume. (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 370)

The first problem is metaphysical. For it is presupposed in my having a q-memory of someone else’s acting or witnessing an event that it was indeed someone else. But why can we not interpret the notion of personal identity such that I will be that very person? The argument that a certain genuine q-memory which is not also normal memory is occurring to me right now depends on the numerical distinction between me and the other person whose experience I am remembering. But it is precisely on that distinction that our memory examples are supposed to shed light. Our authors are basing an explanation on very phenomenon to be explained. It might be objected that I end at my body’s limits, and so does everyone else. But why must this be so? That in possible world W my personal identity may span bodies is no more outrageous a supposition than that in W I have the capacity to remember experiencing what allegedly other people (but perhaps as a matter of fact my very self) are doing from the inside.

My second comment will concern the epistemology of q-memory. If I remember P’s doing A as if I were doing A, how can banish from my mind the false belief that I and not P did A? Suppose there is a contradiction between two memories in my mind: on the one hand, I seem to remember visiting my grandmother at 4pm; on the other, I remember working on this blog entry at 4pm. Which memory is the real one? I don’t think there would be a way to tell. My and other people’s lives would be intertwined in my mind, such that to pry them apart and tell them from each other would be next to impossible.

The third problem is psychological, Again, experience is all we have. The I of personal identity is built up from experiences; and it is manifested and revealed in experience. Feeling other people’s sensations and thoughts and emotions will leave an indelible mark on one’s own personality. How, for example, are two different characters to be integrated if they have contrary to each other habits? Even if one were not those other people, even if it were possible to tell one’s own experiences from other’s experiences, being so closely united to them would easily alter one’s own character and even human nature in profound ways. Normally, one is closest and substantially united with himself, but allowing q-memories will cause one to be united at least almost as closely to other people. One would know, for example, their secret thoughts, something reserved for God alone. One would feel as responsible for others as he would for himself. It would wreak havoc with being human.

Thus, q-memories are hardly a coherent device. If they are therefore impossible, and we do have special epistemic access to our own pasts, then there is a chance that the memory criterion of personal identity will not be circular and will not be false.

I have written that the essence of a thing is constituted by its powers. Suppose that A subsists in itself, and B, in A. Then B is an accident of A. Thus, my skin has the power to appear white to observers. But this property, having white skin, is not essential to me. Does this contradict my claim that essences are sets of powers or causal dispositions? Not at all. The key here is “its own” powers. Appearing white in normal light is an essential property of whiteness. This disposition, therefore, makes up the essence of whiteness. I have whiteness accidentally, and whatever can be said of my own kind-nature (though not, of course, individual-nature) will exclude any reference to white skin.

1. A 3D enduring object is wholly present to us. But a 4D object which is extended also in the temporal dimension is not wholly present; only its time-slice right now is present to us. Its other temporal parts are nowhere to be seen. Hence it entails a controversial claim that presentism — the claim that only present objects exist — is false.

A related problem is a practical one. What can we do with a 4D thing? Its past is gone; its future is not yet, all we have is its present temporal slice. Of what use is postulating inaccessible to any human action parts? Few people think possible worlds to be more than conceptual devices, but four-dimensionists are hard-core realists about the past: they think it exists right now as a part of any 4D entity.

2. A 3D object can stay the same; it may be able to endure. But a 4D object does not actually perdure and stay the same; it grows with the passage of time. Friends of temporal parts say things like “a statue exists from 10:00 until 11:00″ (rather than at 10:00 and at 11:00). But a statue considered at 10:30 does not exist at 11:00. It keeps accumulating part after part every second. So, what causes this growth? How is ticking of a clock able to alter an innocent object so drastically?

In other words, a 4D object perdures only in its spatial aspect; as time goes on it changes. How counter-intuitive is that? A 3D theorist can, on the contrary, say, that the same object X has been persisting in being from 10 to 11 o’clock without having to make the strange claim that X has grown from an embryo into a fully actualized 4D worm just by sitting there and without consuming any food suitable for such creatures.

It is a well-known psychological fact of utmost practical importance that (1) Artisans / Guardians and (2) Rationals / Idealists are natural complements in marriage. If you intend to marry, then you’ll be well-advised to find out your own temperament and limit your search to your precise match. I’m not kidding: if you value your happiness, it’s crucial to do this.

Now I have suggested that the four causes can be matched up with the four temperaments. If form and matter, connected to (1), are natural complements, signifying act and potency, present in all nature and purely in God and “prime matter,” then the efficient and final causes, connected to (2), must be complements, as well. The question is, what do they mean? The answer is: variety and unity; the technical details and the big picture, so to speak. These are just as metaphysically primal as act and potency. An illustration is the means vs. ends. The end might be one in three: metaphysical, moral, and physical perfection, and the latter in particular, called happiness. So, the end is one, but the means to it are incredibly varied. God is pure unity, being simple and one. Prime matter, abstractly, is pure variety, making up a bewildering array of elementary particles, forces, elements, molecules, etc.

Now God contains within Himself the variety, virtually. As I write here, “Aquinas believes that God, too, is a unity in variety. It’s just that he holds that God’s variety is such that He is infinite and incomprehensible by any finite creature; and that His unity is such that He is a simple being. God is thus the limit of both categories (unity and variety).” And that coheres well with the fact that God is the source of matter, despite being pure act. He knows all possibilities and potentialities.

With respect to material objects, a thing remains the same if and only if its four causes remain the same. But given even the slightest change even in one of the causes, the old thing corrupts and a new thing is generated.

Thus, you can’t bathe in the same river twice, because, though the river’s form remain the same, its matter (water) changes; nor in the same water twice, because though the matter persists, the water’s form changes into a different river. But if we consider the form only, then you can bathe in the same river more than once; and if we consider matter only, then you can bathe in the same water more than once, if you run fast enough to where the old water has ended up.

The Theseus’s ship does not persist upon even a single new plank’s being installed. Matter must be numerically rather than merely qualitatively the same for identity to hold, so even if the new planks are made of the same kind of wood, there is no identity. (An argument can be made that two pieces of lumber qua matter are practically indiscernible. But they are not thereby made identical. So, it still matters whether the plank is old or new.) But if a new ship of the same form as the old one is made out of the old wooden planks (e.g., it follows the old ship and picks up the old planks which are thrown overboard), then given also the same efficient and final causes, that ship is identical to the old ship, while the renewed old ship is not.

With respect to human personal identity we must pay attention not only to the essence of a person, as defined by the four causes, but also to his self-knowledge and self-love. One’s personality cannot change very quickly, because any change must be “approved” (loved) and tracked and the resulting new person known. Update. In other words, even though in the strict sense I am not identical to the person “I” was yesterday, in a fast and loose sense I am (just as in such a sense a ship with just one plank replaced is identical to the old ship), but the identity is contingent on small changes accompanied by corresponding alterations in self-knowledge and self-love.

Update 2. There is a certain amount of permanence in a human being enshrined in the distinction between nature and nurture. Some qualities, such as one’s temperament, do not change, while others do. This further serves to perpetuate the illusion of a persisting identity through time.

Allan Gibbard claims that while same-world identity need not be relative to a sortal, trans-world identities do need to be like that, that is, two things in different worlds cannot be the same simply but only the same “F.” “We speak and think of ‘the same person’ but not of ‘the same entity’.” (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 106) Are these claims true? Suppose I tell you that Qwerty is identical to Poiuyt, though Qwerty is a Ruritarian term, and Poiuyt is a Waldavian term. You say: “Interesting, I’ll keep that in mind; but to what single entity do both Qwerty and Poiuyt refer?” And I reply, “A computer keyboard.” The talk of entities leaves us wanting more information, but it is hardly meaningless.

Now consider the following questions: Could Richard Nixon have been a different

(1) entity
(2) man
(3) president
(4) Nixon

than what he in fact was?

Answers:

(1) Since every property is accidental to Nixon qua entity, yes. There is no reason why he could not be, say, a bottle of wine.
(2) Yes, if, e.g., he had been, contrary to fact, defeated by Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election.
(3) Yes, if he had not been implicated in Watergate, or if he had disliked poker, etc.
(4) No, because every property of Nixon is now essential to him.

So, sortals do change the outcome in questions of trans-world identity.

Kripke surely said something important in arguing that we don’t “discover” possible worlds as if examining through a telescope various actors on a distant planet. (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 78) Instead, possible worlds are posited, stipulated, conceived, and ultimately created in one’s imagination. Our dealings with possible worlds are games. Consider reading fiction or playing a game like World of Warcraft. You say: I am playing the role of such and such class, e.g., a mage. If you get tired of playing a mage, you delete the character and create another, say, warrior, and say that in the Warcraft universe you are that. Nothing unites you and the character: the Warcraft world is about as far away from the real world as a world could possibly be.

On Kripke’s theory we could simply stipulate that in a possible world I am currently considering that fat male sailor is Cleopatra. The possible worlds are ours to play with. But, someone who worries about trans-world identity might object: really, what would that accomplish? We have to figure out when identity is preserved through change and when it is not. What we are dealing with, then, is a perturbation problem: How much can we muck around with Cleopatra’s character before it would no longer be reasonable to call her by her actual-world name?

The main question regarding trans-world identity is, Which of your properties are essential and which are accidental to you? If is clear that Cleopatra can’t be a musical performance, because it is her essence to be human. The name Cleopatra is a rigid designator vis-a-vis her humanity: it picks out a human being in all possible worlds in which Cleopatra exists. On the other hand, it is probably not her essence to be blond, though who knows: if she had not been blonde, Mark Anthony might not have taken a liking to her. But what of a property like being female? I think that between essential and accidental properties we must situate something called “proper accidents.” A proper accident is not officially part of the essence of a thing, but it follows from its essence, such that to remove it would change the thing into a monster. One standard example is the capacity of laughing: a human being is not defined by it, but a creature who is incapable of laughter would scarcely be human. Cleopatra’s being female would seem to be her proper accident; it is arguable that she would be unrecognizable if she were put into the body of a male.

Thus, as Robert M. Adams puts it, we must engage in both “conceptual legislation” and “metaphysical discovery.” (182)

He writes:

Perhaps I can evoke the appropriate sense of bewilderment as follows. Mathematicians may conceivably be said to be necessarily rational and not necessarily two-legged; and cyclists necessarily two-legged and not necessarily rational. But what of an individual who counts amond his eccentricities both mathematics and cycling? Is this concrete individual necessarily rational and contingently two-legged or vice versa? (quoted in Metaphysics: An Anthology, 145)

This is a case of confusion of necessity of the consequent with necessity of the consequence. In order to conclude that

(30) Zwier is necessarily bipedal,

we need

(31) Cyclists are necessarily bipedal

and

(32) Zwier is a cyclist.

But (31) can be read as N(X is a cyclist → X is bipedal), in which case it’s true, yet (30) does not follow; or as (X is a cyclist → N(X is bipedal)), from which (30) would follow but which is unfortunately false.

In other words, we have the following 4 true statements:

(1) N(X is a mathematician → X is rational)
(2) ~N(X is a mathematician → X is bipedal)
(3) N(X is a cyclist → X is bipedal)
(4) ~N(X is a cyclist → X is rational).

Suppose in the actual world X is both a mathematician and a cyclist. Then he is both rational and bipedial. Suppose in some world W our X is a cyclist and is irrational. Then in that world he is not a mathematician. And so on. Whence the bewilderment?

The argument continues in Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity, which I’ve yet to read.

Our author tries to understand when a lump of clay and a statue made from this lump are identical. There are situations in which they are not, if the clay and the statue are generated or corrupt at different times. But: “I make a clay statue of the infant Goliath in two pieces, one part above the waist and the other part below the waste. Once I finish the two halves, I stick them together, thereby bringing into existence simultaneously a new piece of clay and a new statue. A day later I smash the statue, thereby bringing to an end both statue and piece of clay. The statue and piece of clay persisted during exactly the same period of time.” (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 102) Gibbard in this part of the paper thinks of the statue as form-in-matter: “By a statue here, I do not mean a shape of which there could be more than one token, but a concrete particular thing… A clay statue consists of a piece of clay in a specific shape.” (101) And he thinks of the clay as matter-having-a-particular-form: “They began at the same time, and on any usual account, they had the same shape, location, color, and so forth at each instant in their history; everything that happened to the one happened to the other…” (102) Obviously, the two are one and the same thing, even if different aspects of them are emphasized in their definitions.

But later on Gibbard contradicts himself: “Take a possible world in which I squeeze Lumpl into a ball, and suppose all the molecules involved are clearly identified. There are still two distinct things in that world, the statue Goliath which I destroy by squeezing, and the piece of clay Lumpl which survives the squeezing.” (107) If Lumpl survives the squeezing, then its particular shape cannot be its essential but must inevitably be an accidental property. But the statue’s exact shape is essential to it. If it were remade into a statue of David, then the old statue would cease to exist and a new statue would come into being. What our author calls “persistence criteria” for the two things differ. Goliath’s persistence criteria are more stringent that Lumpl’s. Hence the two properties are not identical (the property “humanoid shape” of both Goliath and Lumpl itself has a property with different values, viz., its modality: for Goliath it is essential or necessary, for Lumpl, merely contingent), and so Lumpl and Goliath are numerically distinct.

Gibbard’s case is that given that the two are identical in the actual world, and that both are rigid designatiors (relative to a sortal: one of them names the same Goliath in each possible world or the the same Lumpl in each possible world, but it is meaningless to say, Gibbard asserts, that they name the same thing in each world), they fail to be identical in the possible world in which the statue is squeezed into a ball. I, however, would describe the situation differently. We don’t need to invoke possible worlds and counterfactuals to show that this is so. Lumpl has the power to endure even if squeezed into a ball. Goliath does not have this power. Consequently, their essences differ. Therefore, this is not a case of contingent identity, because it is not a case of identity at all. The two things are not the same even in the actual world.

It may be objected that the meaning of the term “power” or “disposition” can only be understood in terms of possible worlds. I don’t think that’s true. Consider sentences of the form Sx → (Fx ↔ Bx), where S is an observation term describing a test condition, F is a theoretical term, and B is an observation term describing an outcome of the test. An example of this is defining the term “fragile.” One apparent possibility is to write Fx ↔ (Sx → Bx) or “something if fragile iff if you strike it, then it breaks.” But what if you never strike it? Then Fx will be true, since falsehood logically implies anything. Hence the original definition which reads “if you strike something, then it is fragile iff it breaks.” This avoids the problem of the first definition by making Fx undefined unless x is actually struck. Here we only have material conditionals. Second, it could be said that the modality of the form is a queer property and is precisely the reason for the contingency of identity between Goliath and Lumpl. For if Lumpl is matter-having-a-particular-form, then in the actual world Lumpl maintains that form. Maybe, but would we in ordinary language say after the statue is broken that Goliath and Lumpl were two names for the same thing?

Finally, a puzzle and a request for help. Gibbard distinguishes between individuals or concrete objects and “individual concepts.” At first glance this seems like a terminological refinement: concrete things exist only in the actual world (which is why he later says that concrete things have no de re properties nor dispositions, both of which might require them to exist in possible worlds, as well), while concepts exist in possible worlds. Is it because a thing cannot “exist” in a world that “does not exist”? But what does it have to do with the author’s main thesis?

In saying “A is the same as B” or “A is identical with B” must we always add a “sortal” or modifier: “the same F as” or “relative to F,” where F is a property? When we say that A = B, we need not necessarily know what A and B are — what their essence is. John Perry argues that “the role of the general term [F] is to identify the referents — not to identify the ‘kind of identity asserted’.” (Metaphysics: An Anthology, 92) The kind of identity means identity relative to something, such as F.

Let’s look at some examples. Consider the following list of words:

A. Bull
B. Bull
C. Cow

There are three “tokens” here of two “types.” Peter Geach, whom Perry criticizes, argues that “there are not two kinds of objects to be counted, but two different ways of counting the same object. And the reason there are two ways of counting the objects is that there are two different ‘criteria of relative identity’.” (93) So it seems that we can claim that

(1) A is the same word type as B, but A and B are different word tokens.

In addition, it is uninformative to say that A is the same as B simpliciter. Perry replies that “If ‘A’ and ‘B’ refer to the same objects throughout (1), the first conjunct of (1) is not an identity statement, and the counterexample fails. If both conjuncts are identity statements in the required sense, ‘A’ and ‘B’ must refer to word types in the first conjunct and word tokens in the second, and the counterexample fails.” (94) In other words, if A and B are taken to refer to tokens, then with respect to their type A is not numerically identical with B, but rather both share a property, “being of the same type” or “being equiform.”

And this will be our pattern. Having all their properties in common is at least a necessary condition for some two objects to be numerically one (or for two names to refer to the same object). (For a defense of insufficiency of this criterion see Max Black’s paper “The Identity of Indiscernibles,” 66) Now if A is identical with B, then for any property F that A has we can say, if we care to, that A is the same F as B. But if there exists a property which A has and B doesn’t or vice versa, then the two objects are guaranteed not to be the same, and so it may be valuable to find out which properties they do share. In this case we are justified in saying “A is the same F as B but not the same G as B.”

Geach’s worry is that we might conclude that A is identical with B prematurely. As we learn more about these things our “ideology” may well change and so may our judgment of identity between A and B, if, e.g., we discover new properties not shared by A and B. But identity relative to any particular property will never be challenged by new information. So, we would be well advised not to make rush decisions and speak only of kinds of identity rather than identity as such. It is an odd argument, to be sure. And I think it can be countered by saying that it is useful to take a risk and act with the belief that A and B are identical, if all evidence points to it. We may have to revise this claim as time goes by, but we can’t escape the imperative to make such judgments, more or less contingent though they may be.

Another example: let there be “a certain set of predicables that are true of men but do not discriminate between two men of the same surname. If the ideology of a theory T is restricted to such predicables, the ontology of T calls into being a universe of androids… who differ from men in just this respect, that two different ones cannot share the same surname. I call these androids surmen…” (96) Then two people, A and B, can be the same surman yet different men. Well, “being the same surman” can be cashed out as “having the same surname,” again sharing one property and failing to share another, “being the same man.” Thus our A and B are not numerically identical. It is not meaningless or dangerous or in any way improper to say so.

Continuing in this manner,

Suppose Smith offered Jones $5,000 for a clay statue of George Washington. Jones delivers a statue of Warren Harding he has since molded from the same clay, and demands payment, saying, “This is the same thing you bought last week.”

It is the same piece of clay, but a different statue. It seems that we can form the awkward but true conjunction “This is the same piece of clay as the one you bought last week, but this is a different statue from the one you bought last week.” (97)

The statue is form-in-matter or informed matter. We can look at it in its aspect of its material cause or in its aspect of its formal cause. The former is the same; the latter is different. So the two objects, the future and as yet unmade statue Smith bought and the actual statue that was delivered are not identical. They share a property of “having the same matter” or “being made of the same clay,” but they are different in the value of the property “what the statue is” or “of whom the statue is.” Similarly, suppose both the formal and material causes of the statue are the same, but Smith wanted it to be made by Jones, a famous sculptor, himself, whereas Jones had one of his apprentices make it. We see that the efficient cause is different, and therefore the statue ordered and the statue received are, once again, not identical. Lastly, let all three of the foregoing causes be the same; except that Smith intended to re-sell the statue at a profit but found out a few days after making his purchase that he could not do so. Now the final causes are different, and so are the statue’s temporal stages. (Update: in the last case Smith considered the statue to be equivalent to, via exchange of property titles, some amount of money, but events proved him wrong. Is it a change in the statue or in Smith or in what?)

Finally, let A and B be in genus G, though A is species S₁, and B is species S₂ within that genus. It will be correct to say that A and B are the same genus but different species. But again, it can be asserted that A is not the same as B, because they don’t share all of their properties.

As a consequence of A’s being identical with B, for any F that A has, A is the same F as B, and B is the same F as A. But “A is the same as B” asserts more than merely the convergence of all their properties, both known and unknown, as pointed out also by Black. It is a stronger statement, and for that reason it is true that we should be cautious in asserting it. But assert it we surely can. My final point is that our counterexamples are fairly contrived. If A and B are the same apple, penny, poem, etc., then we can safely conclude that they are identical simply.

Rigid designators are names which pick out the same object in every possible world in which that object exists. Whether RDs exist depends on whether things have essences. If they do, then in any possible world a thing is either identical to some corresponding thing in the actual world or not. Otherwise, things in possible worlds or counterfactual situations resemble the original object in the actual world more or less; they are mere “counterparts.” Even if by “Cicero” we mean “the man who wrote such and such works in Latin,” the description is of an accident, whereas the name refers to an essence. Therefore, in some possible world there may be a person called Cicero who, however, failed to write anything. An interesting question, discussed by Kripke, is whether Cicero is necessarily identical to Tully, whom we can define, again, by an accident of having denounced Cataline, if it so happens that in the actual world Cicero and Tully are one and the same person. Kripke argues that yes, both Cicero and Tully are rigid designators and are therefore identical in every possible world. Now if the only way we can identify Cicero is by the works he wrote, and in some possible world he did not write these works, then how can we possibly find him in that world? Thankfully, this is an epistemological rather than metaphysical question. If we knew Cicero in exhausting detail, e.g., as God knows him, then we could separate his essence from his accidents and find out quite easily whether any given possible world does or does not contain his essence.

What about the identity of heat and the motion of molecules? It is an a posteriori scientific claim. How can it possibly be necessary? Kripke imagines Martians who had a different neural structure from ourselves and felt heat when exposed to cold and felt cold when exposed to heat. “But still,” he writes, “heat would be heat, and cold would be cold.” It seems to me that he claims that we learn what heat is by feeling it. Then science tells us what heat is physically. Again, heat is contingently identified via “the fact that there happen to be creatures on this planet — (namely, ourselves) who are sensitive to it in a certain way.” But that’s not the essence of heat. The essence of heat is fast molecular motion. Hence “heat” and “fast molecular motion” are rigid designators, and so identity between them is necessary. Kripke’s analysis is misleading. Heat is a sensation, an experience that a creature feels; it is not “really” “the motion of molecules,” no more than an experience of, say, reaching a decision is “really” an excitation of C-fibers in the brain. He might want to define heat as “the sensation that would be felt by humans when exposed to fast molecular motion, if they lived on earth.” But then he could only argue that molecular motion causes or is correlated with the sensation of heat. But the Martians wouldn’t think that. Hence the identity is not necessary.

The pattern then is as follows. Let A = B, and let an accidental aspect of A be described by one contingent statement α, and of B, by another contingent statement β. But if both A and B referred to the same essence, then that essence must persist in every possible world regardless of what happens to α and β, and therefore A is identical with B necessarily.

Kenneth Konyndyk defines these two as follows: “Modality de re is modality thought of as applying to a thing (res), more precisely, as a way a thing possesses a property. For example, one thing might be said to possess a property necessarily, or something can be said to possibly have some given property, as in the claims that Socrates is necessarily rational or Socrates is possibly a sailor. Modality de dicto is the modality applied to a statement (dictum). It refers to the manner or mode of a statement’s being true. For example, it is necessarily true that all bachelors are unmarried. Here it is the statement (the dictum) that is said to be necessary. More exactly, it is the statement’s being true that is necessary.” (Introductory Modal Logic, 78ff)

Sometimes it is useful to interpret a proposition either de re or de dicto. For example, “The number of planets in the Solar system is 8,” when interpreted de re, means “It is true of the number which is equal to the number of planets in the Solar system that that number is 8.” Since the number of planets in the Solar system is, indeed, 8, the de re reading is a trivial “8 = 8.” In order to carry information, our proposition must be read de dicto. On the other hand, “Agatha believes that the tallest spy is a spy,” when considered de dicto, is analytic and self-evidently true. Of course, the tallest spy is a spy! He must be, necessarily. The de re reading, on the contrary, looks like this: “There is an object in the actual world, x, of which Agatha believes something, namely that he is a spy; in addition, perhaps unbeknownst to her, x also happens to be the tallest spy out there.” This is much more meaningful. Consider the statement, “George IV wondered whether the author of Waverley was such-and-such.” The de re reading is inappropriate, because it means: “George IV wondered of x which had the properties (1) of existing; (2) of being unique; (3) of having written Waverley, whether x was such-and-such.” He may not have realized that x had these properties, though if he did, the de re reading would be equivalent to the de dicto reading.

In the statement “Socrates is necessarily rational” the modal modifier “necessarily” is applied de re, and the statement is true (it is the essence of men to be rational); in the statement “It is necessary that Socrates is rational” the same modifier is applied de dicto, and the statement is false, because Socrates does not exist in all possible worlds. On the other hand, “Necessarily, what is seen sitting is sitting” is de dicto and true; “What is seen sitting is sitting necessarily” is de re and false.

Some more connections:

They are sort of philosophical hypocrisy, in which the very act of arguing for something refutes your argument. For example,

1. Let propositions be the only things that can be true or false. Consider the statement (p) “There are no propositions.” If this claim itself is not expressed in a proposition, then it’s neither true nor false and therefore says nothing about whether there are, in fact, propositions. Otherwise, in the very act of presenting this argument you by necessity use a proposition, thereby contradicting yourself. The reason is that no argument can get off the ground without asserting propositions. It follows that (p) is itself a proposition and is therefore false.
2. Suppose you argue: “it is good for people to be dead.” Rothbard points out that “any person participating in any sort of discussion, including one on values, is, by virtue of so participating, alive and affirming life. For if he were really opposed to life, he would have no business in such a discussion, indeed he would have no business continuing to be alive. Hence, the supposed opponent of life is really affirming it in the very process of his discussion, and hence the preservation and furtherance of one’s life takes on the stature of an incontestable axiom.” (Ethics of Liberty, 32ff) In other words, if it really were true that as an imperative it is good for people to be dead, then instead of arguing for the truth of this proposition in a disputation, its defender should be out there committing suicide, thereby making indeed the best possible case for it. The fact that he is not doing that casts suspicion on the claim.
3. Let’s test Carnap’s thesis that it is meaningless to say: (m) “there exist material things in space” as an answer to a metaphysical question. Now the essence of a thing, if one exists, is the enumeration of its powers, and powers are manifested in acts. It cannot be doubted that acts are performed: by saying that (m) is meaningless you are executing an action, or at least are “in act,” i.e., something is going on. But therefore you are exercising a power, therefore having a essence, therefore being a thing. Your very act of arguing against existence of things speaks for their existence and against your argument.

First, see William Lane Craig’s discussion of it and the cited literature.

Suppose that instead of the human agent we had a computer programmed with a fairly complex algorithm to output either 1, corresponding to “box 2 only,” or 2, corresponding to “both boxes.” Also, instead of the being-predictor let’s add to our picture the computer’s programmer who predicts the result of the computer’s calculation by working out the algorithm manually on paper over the period of several days. Given that prediction, he either places the $1,000,000 into box 2 or does not. Now the well-wisher has not had access to the program and has only the programmer’s action to guide him on what the computer will output. Finally, all the money goes to the well-wisher.

Suppose the well-wisher sees that box 2 is empty. He says to himself, “I’m unlucky; the computer will output 2.” Suppose he sees that box 2 has a check for a million dollars in it. He could say: “I wish the computer would output 2; then I’ll get $1,001,000!” But that would be stupid. It is impossible for the computer to output 2. The well-wisher should say instead: “Great! I’m getting a million bucks!”

Let’s go back to the original problem. If the being is infallible, then the situations of (a) the agent’s choosing both boxes and getting $1,001,000 and (b) the agent’s choosing box 2 and getting $0 either will not occur or are totally impossible, depending on whether the infallibility is limited to the actual world or spans all possible worlds. The well-wisher may always wish that the agent takes both boxes. But if he sees a million dollars in box 2, then he should realize that the agent will not choose both boxes (though he remains capable of doing so). The agent’s action was predicted with the same certainty as the computer’s output. The agent can’t escape being seen making his choice by the being. The wishing is an empty reaction in this situation.

The same action, choosing either both boxes or box 2 alone, has two effects: the fates of both the $1,000,000 and the $1,000 are separately decided. The two-box strategy seems to be one extreme, because it ignores the former completely: suppose there is no predictor or the $1,000,000; there may just be something valuable in the second box. The decision to pick both boxes is obvious: you see the two boxes standing there; there is no foul play; of course, it’s better to grab the extra thousand! But unfortunately, the reasoning in favor of this decision remains exactly the same if the puzzle setup is Newcombian. Now let’s consider the second extreme: if you choose just the second box, then a robotic arm extends and deposits a check for a million dollars into the box; if you choose both boxes, then no such event takes place. The one-box strategy is now self-evident, because you cause the money to appear in the second box in a straightforward manner. This solution now ignores the fact that in the Newcomb problem the money is either already there or not.

In what sense then is it up to the agent to fill the second box? The prediction truth value turns out to depend counterfactually on some future event. If that event, e.g., choosing box 2, were to take place, then the being would know it; if the opposite event, e.g., choosing both boxes, were to take place, then being would know that. It is not as if my choice backwardly causes the being’s foreknowledge. The knowledge is rather due to the being’s impressive ability to comprehend fully all the complexity of the world. So, the being, knowing your ins and outs, predicts your choice. For example, (I predict that) Craig would choose one box; and Azimov, both boxes, each for his own reasons. What I do when I choose is supply the conditions under which the being’s prediction turns out to be true. In one sense I had to do it, because, assuming the predictor is God, ~(God predicts X → X happens) = “God predicts X & X does not happen” is false. But at the same time “God predicts X & X happens & ◊(X does not happen)” is true. If X was not fated to happen, then God would have known differently. And that’s what Terence Horgan calls the “backtracking” resolution of vagueness of the relevant counterfactuals.

The two-boxers look at the problem from the point of view of human action. What is taking one box supposed to accomplish? How does it alter the course of future events so as to benefit the agent? It doesn’t. The boxes remain untouched. If the end is through normal forward-looking action to improve your well-being as much as possible, the means to that end is to take both boxes. The Newcomb problem, however, adds a nasty trick to the standard setup. It postulates that the amount of money in the 2nd box is counterfactually though not causally dependent on your decision. The decision is already known, and you will simply fulfill it. I both can’t help fulfilling the prediction and want to do what is best for me. Supposing the predictor is God, who’s in control then, God or I? On the one hand, I am, because if I choose box 2, then it’s as if I tell God to put the million in it. My motive could be to use God to get the money. God is a passive observer and responded robotically to my decision. On the other hand, it’s God, because He foreknew I’d want to use Him, and knowing that desire He did something. He could do something else, such as send an angel to kick my ass. I cannot avoid being scanned by Him at the moment of choice.

So, my own will is free to use any motivation for choosing how many boxes to take (even in order to “snap the finger in the face of the Almighty”), and God remains omniscient to predict my move.

It seems that whether the money’s in box 2 is a “metaphysical” fact, but the Newcomb paradox is an “epistemological” puzzle, which arises because I don’t know what’s in box 2. If I did know, then I could easily frustrate God’s prediction. I discuss some problems with prophecies here.

If there is nothing else “really” but quarks and electrons, are we not ascribing some primal existence to things which, in Thomist’s words, “least exist”?

If there was such a thing as prime matter, would we confer on this pure potentiality the exalted status of “building blocks” of every material object?

I think what matters here is not just the quarks and electrons or whatever but also the unifying forces that cause them to make up atoms, molecules, and, finally, various more-or-less complex objects.

For example, cells are unified into organs; and organs, into living bodies. The source of the unity is something other than the things unified, even though each thing has its own set of causal dispositions, such as an oxygen atom having a propensity to combine with two hydrogen atoms, forming water. The unifier and the unified together are necessary and sufficient for describing everything that exists.