Lexicon of Arguments

 

I 283
Temporal part/Millikan: the temporal part is a momentary or almost momentary three-dimensional object.
>Mereology.
I 284
Analogously, you can split an object into time slices.
>Fourdimensionalism.
Just as with spatial parts, two temporal parts of a whole can never be identical. Otherwise they could not be distinguished.
Identity/Self-Identity/Unity/Uniformity/Millikan: to be identical with oneself, a thing must never exemplify a principle of uniformity. E.g. also a very loosely held sheep herd is always this herd itself.
Temporal identity: also plays no role in the question of self-identity: no one believes that an object state to t1 would be the same as to t2.
>Temporal identity.
Unity/Object/Thing/Millikan: nevertheless, we need principles of uniformity to approach objects as such. Thus, it is about the question as to which relation must have the states S1 and S2 in order to be valid as states of the same thing.
I 285
Identity/unity/Millikan: thus questions of the identity of a thing do not seem to be separated from questions of the principles of uniformity.
>Identity/Millikan, >Unity/Millikan.
Problem: there are often different ways to summarize parts into a whole. Here we must ask which category the whole is to belong to.
Self-Identity/Sameness/Millikan: slef-identity then appears relative to the category to which a thing should belong.
Problem: is the water surface S1 part of the same water mass as water surface S2? Such questions are not fully defined. We need principles to summarize parts. The relations between the parts can also be more or less loose.
I 286
And that has nothing to do with the identity of the whole!
Whole: can also be specified by a mere list. This would identify the whole without mentioning the relations of the parts at all. And the self-identity of the whole would not be dependent on the strength of the cohesion of the parts at all.
Temporal/spatial: so far the analogy between temporal and spatial parts seems to apply.
Cf. >Part-of-relation.