Change
When an object changes, it always changes in some particular way. A baby grows up, and so changes in respect of size and maturity; a snake sheds its skin, and so changes in respect of its skin. "Change" may therefore be defined as follows:
- An object, O, changes with respect to property, P, if and only if O has P at one time, and at a later time, O does not have P.
That seems to be, in one way, what it means for a thing to change: it has a property at one time, and later it does not have that property. If a banana becomes brown, it can then be said: at one time, the banana is yellow; several days later, the banana is not yellow, but is instead brown. This appears fairly straightforward at this point, and there are no apparent problems as yet.
Another way for an object to change is to change its parts.
- An object, O, changes with respect to its part, P, if and only if O has the part P at one time, and at a later time, O does not have P.
Some philosophers believe that an object can't persist through a change of parts. They defend mereological essentialism.
Read more about this topic: Identity And Change
Famous quotes containing the word change:
“We shall have to begin all over again. [Taft hoped that] the Senators might change their minds, or that the people might change the Senate; instead of which they changed me.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears;
see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark in thine ear: change places, and handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“For as change is horror,
Virtue is really stubbornness
And only in the light of lost words
Can we imagine our rewards.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)