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:
“What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations ... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one’s own efforts.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“We are such docile creatures, normally, that it takes a virus to jolt us out of life’s routine. A couple of days in a fever bed are, in a sense, health-giving; the change in body temperature, the change in pulse rate, and the change of scene have a restorative effect on the system equal to the hell they raise.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced: yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)