To Be F Is To Be G

Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of the general logic of "identifications", claims such as 'To be a vixen is to be a female fox', 'To be human is to be a rational animal', and 'To be just is to help one's friends and harm one's enemies', many of which are of great importance to philosophers. I advocate understanding such claims as expressing higher-order identity, and discuss a variety of different general laws which they might be thought to obey. [New version: Nov. 4th, 2016]

Similar books and articles

Non-cognitivism and rational inference.Mark Bryant Budolfson - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 153 (2):243 - 259.
Propositions and counterpart theory.Cian Dorr - 2005 - Analysis 65 (3):210–218.
Are expressivists guilty of wishful thinking?Robert Mabrito - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):1069-1081.
Noncognitivism and wishfulness.James Lenman - 2003 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (3):265-274.
Dorr on the language of ontology.Chris Daly & David Liggins - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (12):3301-3315.
There are brute necessities.Bruno Whittle - 2010 - Philosophical Quarterly 60 (238):149-159.
Knowing against the odds.Cian Dorr, Jeremy Goodman & John Hawthorne - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (2):277-287.
Naturalness.Cian Dorr & John Hawthorne - 2013 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 8. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 1.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-10-12

Downloads
5,124 (#1,028)

6 months
436 (#3,671)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Cian Dorr
New York University

Citations of this work

The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science.Theodore Sider - 2020 - Oxford, England and New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
Grounding, Essence, And Identity.Fabrice Correia & Alexander Skiles - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (3):642-670.
Perception.Adam Pautz - 2021 - New York, NY: Routledge.
Degrees of Consciousness.Andrew Y. Lee - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):553-575.
Unified Foundations for Essence and Ground.Kit Fine - 2015 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (2):296-311.

View all 160 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Writing the Book of the World.Theodore Sider - 2011 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1965 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Modal Logic as Metaphysics.Timothy Williamson - 2013 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Frege’s Puzzle (2nd edition).Nathan U. Salmon - 1986 - Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company.

View all 86 references / Add more references