Identity Postgrad seminar 2nd
semester 2008
Revised October 6, 2008
meets 10:30-12:10, MTB 315
John Collier, MTB 280, x3248, collierj@ukzn.ac.za
We will be focusing on identity,
individuation and unity. We will begin with personal identity, after
which we will look at some classic problems concerning identity, and
some proposed solutions. We will then look at how complexity theory
treats identity, and how we might be able to solve the classic problems
with a dynamical account of identity (based on my current work).
Requirements:
1) two short papers (around 1250-1500 words) on specific assigned
topics. The first will be due after I get back from Poland (by
September 19th, worth 10%) and the second after the semester break (by
October 3rd, worth 20% ). Each
person will do a class presentation before the break on one of the
readings. 2) a term paper on a subject chosen in consultation
with me will be due in time for me to grade it and return the marks to
Yolanda (worth 70%). However, you
must choose your topic soon after the mid-term break, and prepare a
presentation to the seminar
on your topic. This will give you feedback from fellow students, as
well as forcing you to define
your topic well ahead of the due date. The class presentations will not
lower your grade, but may raise it.
I will give more details of
assignments here as they come up. The first assignment is to be found here.
The second assignment is to be found here. It due on October 17,
2008.
August 1
Introduction. Read Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles on
identity and personal Identity for background.
Logic of identity: a = a, a = b, difference between the logic of signs
and
their objects, can identity be discovered? Is it empirical? Necessary?
Intuitions about identity: Leibniz' Law (P)(a = b → Pa ≡ Pb)
Notice that Leibniz' Law is in second order logic (quantification over
properties), so the logic of identity and all its consequences may well
be incomplete. This means that it may well have a non-reducible aspect.
We will discuss this more when we get to complex systems.
August
8
John Locke, chapter 27 of Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, "Of identity and diversity".
Note the new intuition about identity: No more than
one thing of the same kind can occupy the same space and time.
August 15
Thomas Reid, Of Identity
---- , Of Mr. Locke's Account of Our Personal
Identity
John Perry, Personal Identity,
Memory, and the Problem of Circularity
August 22
David Hume (three short readings)
August
29
Derek Parfit, Personal Identity
September
5 No class -- I will be in Poland September 4-12.
September
12 To be rescheduled -- we will meet Monday, September 1, 10:30-12:10
Max Black, 1952. "The Identity of Indiscernibles", Mind,
61: 153-64.
September
19
September
26 mid-semester break
October
3 Rescheduled to 10:30 October 6 due conflict with department
meeting. Topic
will be wholes and parts.
Baker, L. R., 1997, ‘Why Constitution Is Not Identity’,
Journal of Philosophy 94: 599-621. (get from Yolanda)
Suggested: Stanford Enctclopedia of Philosophy, Mereology
October
10 Continue with Baker 'Constitution is not Identity" from
section iii.
October
17 Second assignment due.
Reduction issues, Collier Reduction,
Supervenience, and Physical Emergence ( Behavioral and Brain
Sciences commentary, 2004).
Collier, A Dynamical Account of Emergence (draft for Cybernetics and Human Knowing).
October
24 Identity issues in complex systems
Collier, A
dynamical approach to identity and diversity in complex systems.
October 31 Autonomy and individuation.
Kant, Passage from Critique of
Practical Reason
Collier, What is autonomy?
Collier, Simulating
autonomous anticipation: The importance of Dubois' conjecture.