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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology and methodology

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Duane Nickull <dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:51:41 -0700
Message-id: <C2241BBD.96E2%dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Once again, doesn't the entire conversation boil down to the definitions of
employee and person?    (01)

Duane    (02)


On 3/19/07 7:24 AM, "matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx" <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:    (03)

> Dear John,
> 
> 
>> MW> This is also what we now do with a 4-dimensionalist
>>> approach.  However, it is this approach that also demonstrates,
>>> as I explained to Duane that employee is not a subtype of
>>> person, taking person as the person-for-the-whole-of-their-life.
>> 
>> Subtype has a very clear and simple definition:  X < Y
>> means that every instance of X is an instance of Y.
> 
> MW: I agree of course.
>> 
>> This is true in a 3-D version and in a 4-D version.  When a
>> person stops being an employee, there is no employee.  But
>> as long as a person is an employee, that employee is one
>> and the same individual as that person.
> 
> MW: Under 4 dimensionalism with extensionalism, identity is based
> on being the same spatio-temporal extent. So Matthew West the
> employee of Shell is only the same thing as Matthew West the person
> if Matthew West is an employee of Shell for the whole of his life.
> 
> MW: Matthew West the employee is a temporal part of Matthew West
> the person, but that does not make them the same thing, it only
> means there is a temporal whole-part relationship between them.
>> 
>> MW> Let us look at a couple of possibilities here:
>> 
>> This definition covers every case.  It is true in a 3-D
>> version and in a 4-D version.  It implies that the entire
>> spatiotemporal extent of Employee is included in the
>> spatiotemporal extent of Person.
> 
> MW: No it does not. Being a temporal part of a person implies
> this, but subtype/supertype requires that instances of the subtype
> are instances of the supertype. The employee instance is not
> a person-for-the-whole-of-their-life, so employee is not a subtype
> of person.
> 
> MW: I accept that under 3 dimensionalism employee is a subtype of
> person, because the person is wholly present at each point in time.
> You then ahve to temporally index what is going on. In my view a
> great strength of 4-dimensioalism is that it requires a stronger
> approach to temporality that makes these differences more explicit.
> 
>  
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>      (04)

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