PHILOSOPHY

NLDestiny
20 Mar 08
Philosophy
Dan Cuppett
Paper 1 essay
Mereological Essentialism

“Mereological essentialism”

Philosophers for centuries have put forward the question what makes a person a person, or what makes a thing a thing. This is Mereological Essentialism. Every one of the philosophers had their own ideas on this subject, few of them agree, a good many of them disagree. In this essay I will argue that subject, as I lay out the premises from a couple of those philosophers, as well as their arguments. As you will see, the idea and the answer of what makes a person a person, or what makes a thing a thing, is not as simple as one may think it to be. I will also express why identity is so important to each one of us, and why it still remains a popular debate today, after centuries of debates.

As Irvin Copi once said in an article titled, “Identity Over Time”, “If a changing thing really changes, there can't literally be one and the same thing before and after the change.

However, if a changing thing literally remains one and the same thing (i.e., retains its identity) throughout the change, then it can not really have changed.” Copi then goes on to discuss how Aristotle views how a thing can change in two different ways. One way a thing can change is accidental, and the other is essential. Accidental is for exapmle when a person dies their hair, or when a house is painted, or when a person puts on clothes. Essential is for example when a house burns down to ashes, or when a person dies, or when a person has a kidney transplant. But many philosophers had trouble with this distinction of what constitues the terms of “accidental” and what constitutes the terms “essential.” As it is not so much as the identity wherein lies the debates, as much as it is in the “change” within the original identity, this is where the debates get cumbersome.

Is it the same identity after the change as it was before the change? Well how can anything be the same if it has only accidentally changed? How can anything be different when it hasn’t changed essentially? How can anyone say that a and b are the same, when there can only be one original a? That makes b automatically different than a, therefore b is false even if b looks identical to a. If things have parts, and a has all the original parts, how can b be identical to a, because it can not possibly have original parts of a.

Only a has those parts. Copi tells us this, “At first sight this problem evaporates once we draw the time honored distinction between numerical and qualitative identity. To say that a and b are qualitatively identical is to say is to say that a exactly resembles b. To say that a and b are numerically identical is, at least, to say a and b are one thing and not two. Whether a and b can have all their qualities in common without being numerically identical is controversial.” “Many philosophers think not. Many philosophers, in fact, seem to suppose that anyonewho raises the question whether mereological sums can change their parts displays thereby a failure to grasp an essential feature of the concept “mereological sum,”according to an article,”Can Mereological Sums Change their Parts? Peter van Inwagen.”

“For example (on this understanding) ‘mereological sum’ might be defined as ‘object that is identical with its parts’ or ‘object that is nothing over and above its parts’ or ‘object that is nothing more than the sum of its parts’. ” This is where the debates continue, can A and B = A if b is identical to A, yet has replaced some of its parts, yet looks just like A. Don’t we then have neither A nor C, but C. B can’t be a if its parts are not original. If b had any change at all, the sums of B, can not equal A. But then is B an identical of A, no B is now neither A nor B, but C because B was A but B has changed not into A, nor is it B anymore, once it has changed from B, it is now a sum of both A & B to = C. For another example, Chisholm goes on to say that if we change a tire on our original car, that came with those 4 original tired, and we change one of those original tires, is the car as a sum of the whole, the same car? If we take one of those original tires on the original car, suppose it was a mustang, and put that one tire on a different car, suppose it is a corvette, are we now changing the whole, rather than the part of the whole? We now look as the tire as the whole, rather than the part, hence, the whole has changed because we put a new part, the new car body, onto the whole, tire.

Most people would look at the question at hand as though the tire was still a part not the sum, the whole.

The intricacy of identity can be very complex to comprehend; this is why we have so many debates and so many views on this subject. And it does not seem that there will be no simple answer any time soon.

The mereological sum consists of all the parts that constitute the identity of the thing or person. It is not a part of the parts, within the parts their selves, but the sum. This seems to be a contradictory in itself because the sum is part of the parts, without the parts, there would be no sum.

Without a sum, there is no parts. It seems neither can be without the other.

If we use Theseus’s ship as another example, this can further point out the intricacy of a sum and what constitutes parts and sums. If Theseus’s ship’s original windsails are old and need to be replaced, and they are replaced, does Theseus’s ship remain the same ship, even though an accidental change has been made according to Copi and Aristotle? The new sails were never a part of the original ship, therefore it can not be Theseus’s ship any longer once there has been a change. It only appears to be the same ship, according to them both.

If we take the name Theseus’s ship and change it to theseus’s ship, is it still the original ship? According to them, it has changed from T to t. Change, therefore indicates it is no longer Theseus’s ship. According to Inwagen, the whole has changed. According to Chisholm, the sum has changed as well, because Theseus’s ship is the whole sum, the parts that make up the ship are just that, parts of the ship. So the name Theseus is the whole sum. The Identity of the ship lies both in the sum and the parts, while each are separates, conforming to an image of a sum. Each of the three perspectives of Copi, Chisholm, and Inwegan are unique as they are the same. Copi looks through his eyes and Aristotles and others, to form the conclusion there can be no identicals of A, B merely appears that way. Chisholm’s perspective is that the sum depends on what the change is, accidental or essential. If we have a house on Monday that is green, then on Tuesday the house is blue, it is accidental to him, therefore it remains to be A. However, it can not be A. Monday, A was green. Inwegan’s perspective is the sum is not part of the parts but a separate. He poses the question if a pile of bricks were in the yard on Monday, and a house was built with them on Tuesday, then are the pile of bricks, still a pile of bricks on Tuesday, or are they a house? Nothing has changed other than the order of the bricks, but there is the contridiction, “other than the order”. So change has occurred, then the pile of bricks=A, are no longer A, they are now B. Is B, then A. Only if the pile of bricks are as they were on Monday, otherwise they are B. In conclusion, it all comes down to interpretations; they are as varied as are the questions and the answers. No one has a clear, definitive, un-arguable answer. Everything can be argued for or against. Therefore its as simple or as complex as choosing only one.

It is like choosing anything in life, research it, look at both sides of the issue or topic, choose one according to your own value system, you own beliefs. If there is a best answer to all things in life, whoever has it, we have not seen yet, we just think we have, ourselves. Identity I believe is the sum of all that you or any “thing” is made up of.

Whether it be your thoughts, your soul, your body parts, your clothes you wear, the words you speak, the blood within you, you’re DNA from centuries before, your personality, your heart, your attitude, etc. All of these things make you A. There can never be a B because B can never be A, only A can be A. B can only simulate to be A. Reproductions, identicals, replicas have names other than A, because they are not A’s.

Sources: “Identity Over Time” First published Fri 18 Mar, 2005 By Irving Copi “Can Mereological Sums Change their Parts?” By Peter van Inwagen Published in: The Journal of Philosophy "Parts as Essential to Their Wholes," Review of Metaphysics, XXV, By Chisholm's essay on this topic (1973), 581-603. in Metaphysics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 65-82. Source Links & Emails: http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=45 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-time/ Email: peter.vaninwagen.1@nd.edu

NLDestiny
27 April 08
Paper Essay 2
The Meaning Of Life.

“The Meaning Of Life”:

Philosophers for centuries have put forth the question what is the meaning of life? Many answers have been given, studied and dissected. However, not a single person to date has been able to come up with an answer that everyone can accept.

So, is the answer so complex that humans simply cannot fathom it? Or is it that the truth is so simple; that we cannot believe that it can be the answer? In this essay I will argue that subject, as I lay out the arguments from a few persons who believe they have the answer or answers, to the meaning of life. You will soon learn, seeking the answer of the meaning of life is far easier than finding the answer of the meaning of life. I will also examine the possibility that perhaps there is no answer that we are like dogs chasing out own tails.

According to an article written by www.mylife.org, 17 January 1996, author unknown, the author poses the question, “Do you suppose purpose of your life is restricted to following the good life according to the requisites of civilization, and, if you will excuse the expression, to gratifying the physical appetites? And do you suppose the sole aim of the delicate and subtle senses, the sensitive faculties and members, the well-ordered limbs and systems, the inquisitive feelings and senses included in the machine of your life is restricted to satisfying the low desires of the base soul in this fleeting life?” “There are two basic aims for their being created in your being and included within your nature: The First consists of making known to you all the varieties of all the bounties of the True Bestower, and causing you to offer Him thanks. And you should be aware of this, and offer Him thanks and worship. The Second is to make known to you by means of those faculties each of all the sorts of the manifestations of the Sacred Divine Names manifested in the world and to cause you to experience them. And you, by recognizing them through experiencing them, should come to believe in them. Thus, man's perfections develop through the achievement of these two basic aims. Through them, man becomes a true human being. Look through the meaning of the following comparison, and see that the faculties of humanity were not given in order to gain worldly life like an animal.

For example, someone gave one of his servants twenty gold pieces, telling him to get himself a suit of clothes made out of a particular cloth. The servant went and got himself a fine suit out of the highest grade of the cloth, and put it on. Then he saw that his employer had given another of his servants a thousand gold pieces, and putting in the servant's pocket a piece of paper with some things written on it, had sent him to conclude some business. Now, anyone with any sense would know that the capital was not for getting a suit of clothes, for, since the first servant had bought a suit of the finest cloth with twenty gold pieces, of course these thousand gold pieces were not to be spent on that. So should the second servant not read the paper in his pocket, and looking at the first servant, give all the money to a shopkeeper for a suit of clothes, and then receive the very lowest grade of cloth and a suit fifty times worse that his friend's. For sure his employer would reprimand him severely for his utter stupidity, and punish him angrily. O my dear friend! Come to your senses!

Do not spend the capital and potentialities of your life on pleasures of the flesh and this fleeting life like an animal, or even lower.

Otherwise, although you are fifty times superior with regard to capital than the highest animal, you will fall fifty times lower than the lowest.

If you want to understand to a degree both the aim of your life and its essence, and the form of your life, and the true meaning of your life, and your life's perfect happiness, then look! The summary of the aims of your life consists of nine matters: The First is this: To weigh up on the scales of the senses put in your being the bounties stored up in the treasuries of Divine Mercy, and to offer universal thanks. The Second: To open with the keys of the faculties placed in your nature the hidden treasuries of the Sacred Divine Names.

The Third: To consciously display and make known through your life in the view of the creatures in this exhibition of the world the wondrous arts and subtle manifestations which the Divine Names have attached to you. The Fourth: To proclaim your worship to the Court of the Creator's Dominicality verbally and through the tongue of your disposition.

The Fifth: Like a soldier wears all the decorations he has received from his king on ceremonial occasions, and through appearing before the him, displays the marks of the king's favour towards him. This is to consciously adorn yourself in the jewels of the subtle senses which the manifestations of the Divine Names have given you, and to appear in the witnessing view of the Pre-Eternal Witness. The Sixth: To consciously observe the salutations of living beings to their Creator, known as the manifestations of life, and their glorification of their Maker, known as the signs of life, and their worship of the Bestower of Life, known as the aims of life, and by reflecting on them to see them, and through testifying to them to display them. The Seventh: Through taking as units of measurement the small samples of attributes like the partial knowledge, power, and will given to your life, it is to know through those measures the absolute attributes and sacred qualities of the All-Glorious Creator.

For example, since, through your partial power, knowledge, and will, you have made your house in well-ordered fashion, you should know that the Maker of the palace of the world is its Disposer, and Powerful, Knowing, and Wise to the degree it is greater than your house. The Eighth: To understand the words concerning the Creator's Unity and Maker's

Dominicality uttered by each of the beings in the world in its particular tongue. The Ninth: To understand through your impotence and weakness, your poverty and need, the degrees of the Divine Power and Dominical Riches. Just as the pleasure and degrees and varieties of food are understood in relation to the degrees of hunger and the sorts of need, so too you should understand the degrees of the infinite Divine Power and Riches through your infinite impotence and poverty.

Thus, the aims of your life, briefly, are matters like these. Now consider the essence of your life; its summary is this: It is an index of wonders concerning the Divine Names, and a scale for measuring the Divine attributes, and a balance of the worlds within the universe, and a list of the mighty world, and a map of the cosmos, and a summary of the mighty book of the universe, and a bunch of keys with which to open the hidden treasuries of Divine Power, and a most excellent pattern of the perfection scattered over beings and attached to time. The essence of your life consists of matters like these.” Therefore, mylife.org suggests to us, humans = a = having all the gifts that God has given to us as humans, such as sight, touch, knowledge, emotions.

To have them in the first place gives our lives priority over everything in the world. In addition to having these gifts, we must also use them in useful ways, such as to learn, to help others, to love, cry, experiences of failure, triumphs, all of which= b. If a + b + c, then = d. C=happiness, joy, meaning. Gods gifts + using Gods gifts + happiness & meaning = d = a purposeful life, unlocking the keys God has given each individual human being according to mylife.org. Hense, a+b without c can not =d. So the meaning to life = having Gods gifts to you and using them in useful and meaningful ways to help others and yourself to be happy, equals a happy & purposeful life. So, we are not chasing our tails like animals, we are seeking meaning and purpose in our lifes. Without any of the above factors we can’t have D. It is not enough to be sitting happy, in the Happy Chair, we must of reached the Happy Chair in a meaningful, purposeful way, in order to be truly happy in it. So if we skip all the crap in between, we are just happy brains in a vat. My second example is: A few years ago, Alan Alda was up for an Oscar, had won another Emmy, had a happy marriage, kids and grandkids.

Then one night, out of the blue, he heard a little voice asking: Are you living a life of meaning? And to answer it, Alda began sifting through the countless commencement speeches, keynote addresses and eulogies he has given through the years. Alda has recorded that exploration in his new book, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. Early in his book, Alda asks himself this basic question: "If it should happen that you don't wake up tomorrow, will this have been a life that meant something?" After reflecting on the matter, he says, "It's really a crazy question to worry yourself over. Meaning has come to mean to me a lasting sense of satisfaction, a feeling when you get to the end of it that you haven't wasted your time. And, for me, it's noticing it while it's happening."

Therefore, Alda suggests to us, again like mylife.org suggests to us, that life’s meaning is to live life with usefulness to others, with purposeful acts of happiness for both your fellow humans and yourself, not to skip everything in between and settle for the Happy Chair in so much as a “happy” dopehead, just sitting around happy without meaning, more is expected of us, according to both mylife.org and Alda. William Blake says, “The Talmud teaches:

Just before a baby is born, an angel shows it everything there is to know and learn on Earth.

Then at the moment of birth, the angel touches the infant’s upper lip, and the child forgets everything. We spend the rest of our lives remembering what the angel showed us. This is a generic guide to the meaning of life. It does not describe one view of the meaning of life and recommend you adopt it. It helps you remember what the angel showed you. The angel showed you the meaning of life.” I gather from Blake his view is we spend our lives trying to find the answers to the meaning of life, and during that process we find the following according to him: Peace… P: You will participate in the birth process and the child rearing process. You may give birth to a child. You may take a central role in guiding a child through life’s stages. You may experience parenting as bringing whatever you create into existence. E: You will experience the need to let go of some things. You will discharge waste from your body, from your physical surroundings, from your emotional apparatus, from your mind and from your spirit. You will seek ways to discharge your wastes in a manner that is safe for yourself and your environment. A: You will exert control through your physical being, your wealth, your office, your abilities, your personal energy or your facility for managing other people. With this power you will make some things happen the way you want them to happen. If your power is great enough, others will do what you would like them to do, even if it is not in their own best interest. C: You will find diverse modes through which to exchange information with other beings. You will learn spoken and written languages. You will find ways to communicate with your body. You will communicate many things through your actions. You will discover a variety of visual, auditory and tactile arts through which to express your thoughts and feelings. You may also discern very subtle, almost unnamable communications which can be the most powerful. E: Your emotional, mental or spiritual modes will enter some sort of afterlife. You may be aware of your continuity between this lifetime and the next realm or you may not. You may experience reincarnation into the body of another being and begin another lifetime. The nature of your next realm may be determined by your activities and experiences in this lifetime. The nature of the next realm may be extremely subtle and indescribable.

In conclusion, I believe Blake is saying what the other two believe, you must live life with purpose and meaning, which in turn, gives us all back in return, purposeful happiness, not just sitting around high and happy, that is not the meaning of life. “Are all of life's hardships worth enduring? The answer depends on what our goal is in living. In fact, understanding the purpose of life is a slow and absorbing process.” By unknown.

Finally, if you have no other goal than to be happy, the Happy Chair is for you, go sit in it.

If your goal or goals in life are to extract happiness from purpose and meaning, then in fact you are living the very definition of life. a+ b + c = d.

Works Sited : The Meaning Of Life Online Edition http://www.mylife.org William Blake Soon You Will Understand…The Meaning Of Life Online Edition http://www.themeaningoflife.org/ Alan Alda National Public Radio Online Edition http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14186372

NLDestiny
Philo Final
12 May 08
D.Cuppett

Bonus/Extra Credit:

I. 8 fold path of Buddhism, per http://Buddhism.about.com: 1. right view: Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. 2. right intention: While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. 3. right speech: Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. 4. right action: The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. 5. right livelihood: Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. 6. right effort: Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. 7. right mindfulness: Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. 8. right concentration: The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration.

II. Putting people in jail if they don’t have free will, acceptable or not: If they don’t have free will, they should not be held accountable for that in which they have no control over. I don’t believe it needs more detail than that.

III. Peace Pilgrim argued that we should: overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, hatred with love.

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