Re: URI Declarations [Usage scenario 1b]

Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) scripsit:

> Although I agree with some of the sentiment that you express, I don't
> know any objective way to differentiate "essential (identifying) claims"
> from other claims.  Thus, in some sense the purpose of a URI declaration
> is to declare certain claims to be the "essential (identifying) claims"
> by fiat.  Using the URI thus implies agreement with them.

Fair enough.  The determination of what is or is not an essential claim
is a difficult one, but roughly speaking, a property is essential if,
if it were changed, the object would be a different one altogether.
For example, I have a father property of Thomas Cowan.  If I were not the
son of Thomas Cowan, I wouldn't be *me* any more -- I would be someone
else, or perhaps more accurately, someone else might play the role of me.
Likewise, Queen Elizabeth has the essential property of being human; if
she were a swan (that is, always a swan, not a human magically changed
to a swan), she would no longer be the Queen but some particular swan.
(These examples due to Kripke.)

-- 
Evolutionary psychology is the theory           John Cowan
that men are nothing but horn-dogs,             http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
and that women only want them for their money.  cowan@ccil.org
        --Susan McCarthy (adapted)