- This pseudo-Paper is intended as the mechanism to record time spent on the Note 'Convention1' during my Thesis research, as from 2011.
- For the actual time recorded, click on "Paper Statistics" above.
Write-up2 (as at 17/09/2020 09:24:29): Convention
Plug Note3- This Note will cover whether it is ever right to say that whether a thing persists4 or not – or even exists5 or not – is merely a matter of convention.
- Because of the existence of a First Person Perspective6, it seems difficult to imagine in the case of persons, but it may be true of artefacts7.
- Issues arise with Thought Experiments8 that stretch the boundaries of our Concepts9, so that it might be argued that it is arbitrary whether an individual survives the vicissitude (maybe inadequately) described in the TE.
- But, it might be argued, individuals falling under a Natural Kind10 concept persist or fail to do so irrespective of us, our language and our concepts.
- If personhood is an honorific, rather than a natural kind concept, then whether an individual persists as a person might indeed be conventional – depending on our concept person11.
- But whether an individual persists as an animal12 is not a matter of convention, though it might be subject to epistemological vagueness13.
- For a Page of Links14 to this Note, Click here. Far too many to process.
- Works on this topic that I’ve actually read15 include the following (often rather tangential references):-
- "Baillie (James) - What Am I?", Baillie
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Conditions of Personhood", Dennett
- "Hirsch (Eli) - A Sense of Unity", Hirsch
- "MacKay (Donald) - Computer Software and Life After Death", MacKay
- "Olson (Eric) - What Are We?", Olson
- "Williams (Bernard) - The Self and the Future", Williams
- "Wittgenstein (Ludwig) - Bodily Sensations", Wittgenstein
- A reading list might start with:-
- "Bird (Alexander) & Tobin (Emma) - Natural Kinds", Bird
- "Braddon-Mitchell (David) & Miller (Kristie) - How To Be A Conventional Person", Braddon-Mitchell & Miller
- "Hawthorne (John) - Plenitude, Convention, and Ontology", Hawthorne
- "Heller (Mark) - Conventional Objects", Hudson
- "Lewis (David) - Convention", Lewis
- "Miller (Kristie) - 'Personal identity' minus the persons", Miller
- "Sidelle (Alan) - Realism and Conventionalism", Sidelle
- "Sidelle (Alan) - How to be a Modern-Day Conventionalist", Sidelle
- "Sidelle (Alan) - Is it Possible to be a Modern-Day Conventionalist? Or, Responding to Some Technical Worries", Sidelle
- "Sidelle (Alan) - The Case for Conventionalism and the Problem with Real Necessity", Sidelle
- "Taliaferro (Charles) - Pollock's Body-Switching", Taliaferro
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- This is mostly a place-holder16.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2: - This is the write-up as it was when this Abstract was last output, with text as at the timestamp indicated (17/09/2020 09:24:29).
- Link to Latest Write-Up Note.
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2020