Re: BHA: Identity and change

[Colin.Wight@xxxxxxxxxx (Colin Wight)]

Hi Louis.

Without wanting to get dragged into this again.

>
>Then you complain I have defined an internal relation and that external
>relations do not have that form.  I do not follow you on this at all.  Let a
>and b be the Cambridge and Arizona rocks respectively, and let R be the
>relation expressed by "x is East of y."  Then a has the relational property
>expressed by "x is East of b", and b has the relational property expressed
>by "a is East of y".  So my definition is satisfied, yet the relation
>involved is an external one.  Therefore my definition cannot be restricted
>to internal relations, as you claim.

OK, I might be prepared to concede most of this. BUT, my point would be that
this is not property at all but expresses a relationship between the two
entities. It is not a property of x that it is East of y, it is a
relationship between them. It is certainly conceivable that there are no
rocks East of y but this won't change y.

So I suppose I am objecting to your use of the phrase a 'property of'
instead of a 'relationship between', as I am objecting to your creative
overstretching of the use of change.


>
>Then you ask (rhetorically) "Convince me that a move of the rock in
>Cambridge changes the environment in Arizona," as if I had said that a move
>of the Cambridge rock might cause a change in the weather in Arizona.

Well I was, and still am, challenging your assertion that since something
changes everything changes. The relationship between things might change
(but given the spatial distance between Cambridge and Arizona, even this is
stretching things a little - I'm even tempted to resort to Wittgenstein, god
forbid). Let me put it this way. I did lots of things since your last post,
things that changed things here, but in what sense would we want, or gain
anything, from saying that my changes here changed things where you are? But
moreover, not only changed things where you are but changed you and everyone
else in the world presumbaly. Things changed here, but didn't change there,
and we want to hold onto this because we do want to note those times when
something does change something else (that is to say causation). So I
suppose I am now challenging to tell me the difference between a change and
a change.

 Clearly you are vehemently opposed to such a
>usage of "change", but you can't somehow prove that usage to be incoherent
>by examples that make essential use of your preferred usage.

But surely I can Louis, because even by your own criteria, if I pick up the
rock in Cambridge and move it 1 cm, the relationship, 'x is East of y has
not changed' 'x still is East of y'.


I suppose your reply here might be along the lines of 'yes, but the distance
between x and why has now changed', and I would have to agree, but what
about the other relationships that y stands in, how have these changed?

Anyway, it is still clear to me that what has changed in either instance is
not a property of the rock, but perhaps (and even this is not clear) the
relationships that the rock stands in.

Yours bemused, but unchanging, (I suppose the persistence of my argument is
the best refutation (thanks Karl) of your position, as is the unchanging
nature of yours.) ;-)

Thanks,



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Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Tel: (01970) 621769

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