Notes for 4/1/2026

  

4/1/2026

[Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")]

[Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408]

 

Can you think of something that can’t be thought of?

 

 

“I am not the man I was.”

-      Ebeneezer Scrooge (in A Christmas Carol)

 

 

 

Scrooge’s claim is strange.

Let x = The ‘I’ of the present

Let y = The ‘I’ of the past

 

Scrooge seems to be saying “x is not y.”

 

But at the same time, the pronoun “I” appears twice and appears to refer to the same person: “I was y but now I am x.”

 

The most plausible reading is really something like this: “I used to be a jerk, but I’m not anymore.”

Or:

“I used to have the properties of a bad person, but now I have the properties of a good person.”

 

That is, the moral properties Scrooge identifies are not essential to him, and therefore he can change them without loss of identity.

 

The traditional view is that not all properties of a thing can be inessential (accidental) if it remains the same over time. There must be at least one essential property that is the invariant bearer of the thing’s identity over time.

 

 

The English philosopher John Locke REJECTS this view.

 

The basis of Locke’s rejection is his theory of ideas.

-      To think is to have ideas.

-      There are no thoughts that are not made up of ideas.

-      All ideas ultimately originate in experience.

 

Locke didn’t think we could meaningfully distinguish:

a)         The conditions for a thing’s being identical over time

b)        Our idea that a thing is identical over time

 

(We can’t get beyond our ideas.)

Locke thought the limits of human experience and knowledge implied that in many cases the true essences of things are unknowable.

 

This means that we can’t think of diachronic identity in terms of essential properties, since we can’t know what those properties are.

 

 

So, how IS it possible for us to think of diachronic identity?

(Where in our experience does the idea of diachronic identity come from?)

 

 

What is the difference between the idea of IDENTITY and the idea of EXACT SIMILARITY (to us)?

 

The question isn’t how we could KNOW the difference, but rather how we can THINK it.

 

Locke’s answer is that in similarity, we think of x and y as being in different places at the same time (or x as existing at time1 but not at time2, while y exists at time2).

 

In synchronic identity, we think of x and y as being in the same place at the same time.

 

In diachronic identity, we think of x and y as originating in the same place at the same time.

 

Locke’s view of the idea of diachronic identity is the same as the idea of persisting. Experientially, this has its origin in the experience of looking at the same thing from moment to moment.

 

When our perception is interrupted, our minds apply the idea of persistence to the earlier and later perceptions.

 

 

‘Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates, when I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, "Do I know you?”’

-      Comedian Steven Wright

 

 

Locke’s treatment of diachronic identity with change starts with several general examples:

-    Artifacts (such as ships)

-    Plants

-    Animals

-    Human bodies

 

All of these concern objects made up of parts. We THINK the object retains identity when we can apply the idea of persistence to the majority of parts and where replacement of parts is gradual.

 

Our minds link these changes together in a chain so that eventually all parts can end up replaced.

(I call this the “chain of stages” theory of diachronic identity.)

On this view, there is no invariant (essential) property that underlies the idea of the thing’s identity across changes.

 

But there is another element Locke thinks is important:

 

Suppose x is this statue:

 

And y is this pile of dust:

 

Is x=y?

 

Locke says “yes and no.”

X and y are the same matter, but not the same statue because part of what makes the statue is its shape (its “manner of organization.”)

 

So, the idea of diachronic identity is made by applying the idea of persistence to a chain of stages where a majority of parts persists at each stage and the thing retains its overall manner of organization.

 

Next time: personal identity.