NOTES 385N2X at t is numerically identical to Y at t1 does not entail X at t is fully
qualitatively identical to Y at T1. (It is logically impossible that anything
at one time can be fully qualitatively identical to anything at another
time; the definition of full qualitative identity, including as it does spatial
and temporal properties, rules that out.)
N3X at t is numerically identical to Y at t1 does not entail X at t is nearly
fully qualitatively identical to Y at T1. (A thing can remain the same
thing and yet undergo non-essential change.)
N4X at t is fully qualitatively identical to Y at T1 entails X at t is numerically
identical to Y at t1 and entails X at t is not numerically identical to Y at t1.
(The claim that things that exist at different times are fully qualitatively
identical is self-contradictory; see comment after N2.)
N5X at t is nearly fully qualitatively identical to Y at T1 does not entail X at
t is numerically identical to Y at t1. (Something at one time can be very,
very similar to something at another time without being identical to it.)
N6For all X, X at T is fully qualitatively identical (and hence nearly fully
qualitatively identical) to X at T. (Anything at a time T is qualitatively
identical to itself at T.)
N7For all X, if X at T is numerically identical to Y at T then X at T is fully
qualitatively identical to (and hence nearly fully qualitatively identical
to Y at T). (See comment after N6.)8 Where X is the closest thing to Y does not entail X is Y.
9 That is, each substance in the series exists for two moments, etc.
10 Other possibilities are sometimes proposed – e.g., Bertrand Russell’s neutral monism
on which mental and physical properties are somehow reducible to other properties
that are neither mental nor physical. I doubt that this particular view is defensible.
Nonetheless, the discussion deals with the views most relevant to Jainism and
Theravada Buddhism, and does not pretend to be a comprehensive discussion of all
logically possible accounts of minds and bodies.
11 Indeed, one can intelligently argue about which of these alternatives is the Theravada
view. Our arguments will be concerned with the structure of the view, and not depend
on which of these alternative accounts of what makes up that structure is the right
reading of the Theravada account.
12 That is, a person(1) can be composed of a set A of states and a set B of states such that
were A to exist without B, A would be a person, and were B to exist without A, B
would be a person.
13 “Critique,” of course, need not mean “refutation, or attempt to refute;” it does mean
that here.
14 Whatever relation R allegedly must hold between composite nonendurers in order
for them to belong to a single succession such that their being so related gives rise
to commonsense descriptions such as “stages of the life of a single person” –
resemblance, causality, resemblance-and-causality, or whatever – is such that for
any composite nonendurer C at T, both composite nonendurer C* at time T1 and
composite nonendurer C at T1 may bear R to C. Hence both are identical to C if
either is. Being distinct themselves, C* and C* cannot both be identical to C. But
then neither is identical to C. Thus there being C and C at T1 prevents the
succession of bundles to which C belongs from continuing, whereas (on a Buddhist-
type account) that succession would have continued had only C*, or only C**, borne
R to C.