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:
“... often in the heat of noonday, leaning on a hoe, looking across valleys at the mountains, so blue, so close, my only conscious thought was, “How can I ever get away from here? How can I get to where they have books, where I can be educated?” I worked hard, always waiting for something to happen to change things. There came a time when I knew I must make them happen; that no one would do anything about it for me. And I did.”
—Belinda Jelliffe (1892–1979)
“I respect the ways of old folks, but the blood of a rooster or a goat cannot turn the seasons, change the course of the clouds and fill them up with water like bladders. The other night, at the ceremony for Legba, I danced and sang my fill: I am a black man, no? and I enjoyed it like a true Negro should. When the drums beat, I feel it in the pit of my stomach, I feel the itch in my hips and up and down my legs, I have got to join the party. But that is all.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)