Cambridge Changes Revisited: Why Certain Relational Changes Are Indispensable

Abstract

Peter Geach and others suppose that change in an object's relational properties absent any change in its intrinsic properties (relational change) is not a genuine change in that object but only a “mere Cambridge change.” I explain and reject two strategies challenging Geach's position. I then present my own argument against Geach which depends on the recognition of entities identified in terms of their emergent properties, i.e. properties not reducible to physical properties. I provide some examples of such entities (social phenomena, historical events, artworks) and address the problem of finding a criterion for distinguishing genuine from nonge-nuine change.1