Janus

Consisting of finite members means being discrete. Consisting of in-finite members means being continuous.

I concur with you on this, however I was never taken with Hume at all. Apart from the fact that he is obviously a genius, to be able to write such ori...

If having experience is defined as having volition, then I would say that is confined, as far as we know, to creatures with brains. Volition is self-d...

I disagree here; it would be a "model" in the sense you are outlining, only if there had been more than one Ship of Theseus. Identity is specific, not...

Well, we do know that, as far as we know, having experience always involves having a brain, don't we? What we don't know is precisely what it is that ...

Yes, actually I was wrong to say that you no longer have a car when you no longer have something that functions as a car, because what you have then i...

You no longer have a car when you no longer have something that can function as a car.

A ship built out of entirely new parts would come closest to replicating the original condition of the ship (i.e. its condition when newly constructed...

How do you deal with facts like, for example, a motor vehicle consists of parts, it is divisible, it can be disassembled and its various parts sent al...

No, a ship reconstructed from discarded parts could never qualify as the original for two reasons; firstly because it would not replicate the physical...

What other reason can you think of for the parts of a ship being replaced over time other than their dysfunctionality or lack of aesthetic appeal? The...

I don't see a paradox, even in that case. In that case the unused ship rebuilt out of unattractive parts would be the fucking ugly Ship of Theseus. Ev...

The Ship of Theseus is the one its crew have been using all along as it gradually became replaced. You could not build a working ship out of the old p...

I think all faiths see themselves as, If not the one true faith, the most true faith. So incorporation of techniques of prayer or mediation from one f...

I read some of All Things are Possible by Shestov. I have read some of Rilke's poetry, and I am not aware of any prose writings. I tried to read Men A...

I think different sects of Christianity teach different things about whether all individual souls are ultimately saved, and in those that proclaim tha...

Yes, I agree that we do impute individual identity to entities in the absence of complete knowledge of the said entities, and that is the point of the...

I think this reading is entirely incompatible with the spirit of Christian teachings. Sure, Christians are exhorted to forego the attachments of their...

The problem is that 'normal' instances of causation are understood in terms of coherent mechanisms consistent with, and plausible within, the framewor...

OK, but I think the issue is relevant to the OP, and if it qualifies as philosophy... I mean this is designated as a philosphy forum not a Western phi...

You mean they disagree it makes no sense to me? :s

I agree the things are not our experiences and thoughts about them. This is tautologously true. But from that it does not follow that the things have ...

Perhaps Plato's idea of anamnesis could be consistent with an eternal life. King James Bible Jesus said them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before A...

We could never possibly take account of every difference, and even if we actually had taken account of every difference we would have no way of knowin...

How is "itself" to be "found" if not in experience and thought?

Each individual may appear only once in time, and yet have an eternal existence. Would you count that as "pre-existence"?

There will be a reckoning and it will likely not be pretty, given humanity's propensity to 'party on' until the fact that something is wrong can no lo...

A thing' s identity is not the same as what it is identified as. In our previous conversation, the example was Pluto, which had at an earlier time bee...

I have disagreed with you on this point previously, and clearly showed you that identity is not the same as identification, and yet you continue to re...

I think you've squarely hit the nail, unenlightened. I find nothing to disagree with here, and I really have nothing to add. (Y)

Thanks for linking that article, apo. It looks very interesting.

OK, thanks for the clarification, Willow. :)

I think Spinoza did not conceive of substance as "basic materiality", but rather as infinite activity, but in any case he certainly did not use the la...

That's a nice way of putting it, and I agree, although I would want to go even further and say that I do experience your pain, not the identical pain ...

Do you think there are any truths about human subjective nature? You know, things like people don't (generally) like to be used, objectified, raped, t...

Well, I think it hinges on whether divinity is conceived as being personal or not, (it might be either life or mind, but this would not answer that qu...

According to the usual understanding all truth claims are based on the idea that what is truly claimed reflects reality, right? It comes down to what ...

I think this is an interesting and important topic, Mongrel, and I think the answers would very much depends on what you mean by 'metaphysics'. From t...

This is a nonsensical objection. The two concepts are contradictory because Spinoza conceives substance as one and infinite and Aristotle conceives su...

Yes, Spinoza's concept of substance is contradictory to Aristotle's concept. Spinoza denies that there can be many finite substances and contends that...

This then leads me to think of the tension in the relation between two ideas: the idea of essence, and Wittgenstein's idea of "family resemblances". A...

Willow often says that things are "defined in themselves". I am not exactly sure what is meant by that, but I assume that it is an attempt to express ...

I am not getting the point of this, I think. For example, you and I are examples of human beings (presumably) but we do not define the class 'human be...

The purported logical definition of something "in terms of itself" is an empty formulation. This is due to a conflation of identity with definition. O...

But I seem to recall I've already explicitly, or if not implicitly, asked for an explanation as to what a "thing" could be over and above modal proces...

Yeah...the problem is its always about what YOU are talking about and never about what the other is talking about, and hence is not really a conversat...

And yet you said this: I'm tired of your contradictions, misreadings, and evasions, Willow: time for you to find someone else to annoy. You and Agusti...

You can say that, and I would agree that there is an intuitive "grasping"; but you can't give an explanatory account of what that grasping consists in...

The constant formation ( if constant is taken to mean 'unceasing over some period of time) of new modes is known in our experience of the modes. If co...

And yet Agustino had said it is activity and that it is differentiated. Now I know you are not Agsutino, but you both claim to be representing Spinoza...