The Same Objects, Self-Identities, Existential Bases
Bo Mou, “The Same Objects, Self-Identities, Existential Bases,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 80, no. 4 (2024): 1145–86, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2024_80_4_1145.
Bo Mou, “The Same Objects, Self-Identities, Existential Bases,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 80, no. 4 (2024): 1145–86, https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2024_80_4_1145.
Item Type | Journal Article |
---|---|
Author | Bo Mou |
Abstract | When doing philosophy, there is one norm-like common basis of which we have our pre-theoretic understanding (the “same-object-recognizing” understanding for short) to the effect that, given an object (to be under examination), there is a way that the object objectively is such that we can all talk about that same object even though we may say different things about it, neither resulting in “anything goes” nor bringing about radically different objects thus without genuine engagement. A theoretic examination of the metaphysical issue of the self-identity (as sameness) of given objects (or, in plain words and in a semantic ascent way, “how is it possible to talk about the same object differently?”) can enhance and refine the “same-object-recognizing” understanding as one significant common normative basis of doing philosophy in a constructive-engaging way. In this essay, with relevant theoretic resources of the enhanced account of relative identity and the refined characterization of the law of identity as explained in the recent literature, I examine the metaphysical issue of the self-identity (as sameness) of given objects in two closely related layers, i.e., the “way” layer and the “being” layer of “the way things are” regarding self-identities of given objects. In a holistic way, I first examine several distinct but representative types of (relative) sameness involved in the “way” part of self-identities of given objects; I then focus on five representative types of existential sameness in the “being” part at the “base” level of given objects. Their relation can be highlighted in this way: metaphysically, in the sense to be explained, distinct types of sameness at the “way” layer without existential sameness at the “being”-base layer is “empty” of base, while existential sameness at the “being”-base layer without distinct types of sameness at the “way” layer is “blind” to differentiation. |
Date | 2024 |
Language | English |
Rights | © 2024 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |
Volume | 80 |
Pages | 1145-1186 |
Publication | Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
DOI | 10.17990/RPF/2024_80_4_1145 |
Issue | 4 |
Date Added | 12/6/2024, 8:33:08 PM |
Modified | 12/6/2024, 10:24:17 PM |
Adam, Robert M. What Is, and What Is in Itself: A Systematic Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Armstrong, D. M. A World of States of Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Bach, Kent. “Conversational implicature.” Mind & Language 9 (1994): 124-162.
Crane, Tim. The Objects of Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Frege, Gottlob (1879). “Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens, Halle a. S.: Louis Nebert.” In Frege: Conceptual Notation and Related Articles, edited and trans. by T. W. Bynum. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
Geach, P. T. “Identity.” Review of Metaphysics 21 (1967): 2–12. Reprinted in P. T. Geach. Logic Matters, 238-247. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Geach, P. T. ‘Identity: a reply.” Review of Metaphysics 23 (1969). Reprint in P. T. Geach. Logic Matters, 247-249. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Griffin, Nicholas. Relative Identity. Oxford: Clarence Press, 1977.
Heidegger, Martin (1927). Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie’s and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Lewis, David. “New Work for a Theory of Universals.” The Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (1983): 343-377.
Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
McDaniel, Kris. “Ways of Being.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, 290-319. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Martin, C. B. “Substance Substantiated.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (1980): 3-10.
Meinong, Alexius (1904). “The Theory of Objects.” In Realism and the Background of Phenomenology, edited by Roderick Chisholm, 76-117. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960.
Mou, Bo. “On Daoist Approach to the Issue of Being in Engaging Quinean and Heideggerian Approaches.” In Constructive Engagement of Analytic and Continental Approaches in Philosophy: From the Vantage Point of Comparative Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou and Richard Tieszen, 289-319. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Mou, Bo. Cross-Tradition Engagement in Philosophy: A Constructive-Engagement Account. New York and London: Routledge, 2020
Mou, Bo. “An Enhanced Account of Relative Identity: Double-Reference Starting Point and Dual-Track Feature.” History and Philosophy of Logic [first published online: 26 July 2023 at <https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2023.2229611>].
Mou, Bo. Cross-Tradition Engagement on the Laws of Logic: Approaching Identity and Reference from Classical Chinese Philosophy to Modern Logic. New York and London: Routledge, 2024
Parsons, Terence. Nonexistence Objects. Yale University Press, 1980.
Priest, Graham. Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Prior, A. N. Objects of Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Quine, W. V. “On What There Is.” Review of Metaphysics 2 (1948): 21–38.
Quine, W. V. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” Philosophical Review 60 (1951): 20–43.
Sider, Theodore. Logic for Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Sider, Theodore. “Ontological Realism.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, 384-423. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Van Inwagen, Peter. Being: A Study in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Wiggins, David. Identity, and Spatio-Temporal Continuity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1967.
Wiggins, David. Sameness and Substance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Wiggins, David. Sameness and Substance Renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.