Sameness without Identity: an Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Material Constitution

In this paper, I present an Aristotelian solution to the problem of material constitution. The problem of material constitution arises whenever it appears that an object a and an object b share all of the same parts and yet are essentially related to their parts in different ways. (A familiar example: A lump of bronze constitutes a statue of Athena. The lump and the statue share all of the same parts, but it appears that the lump can, whereas the statue cannot, survive radical rearrangements of those parts.) I argue that if we are prepared to follow Aristotle in making a distinction between numerical sameness and identity, we can solve the problem of material constitution without recourse to co-location or contingent identity and without repudiating any of the familiar objects of common sense (such as lumps and statues) or denying that these objects have the essential properties we ordinarily think that they have.     

Mereology without Weak Supplementation

According to the Weak Supplementation Principle (WSP)—a widely received principle of mereology—an object with a proper part, p, has another distinct proper part that doesn't overlap p. In a recent article in this journal, Nikk Effingham and Jon Robson employ WSP in an objection to endurantism. I defend endurantism in a way that bears on mereology in general. First, I argue that denying WSP can be motivated apart from the truth of endurantism. I then go on to offer an explanation of WSP's initial appeal, argue that denying WSP fails to have untoward consequences for the rest of mereology, and show that the falsity of WSP is consistent with a primary guiding thought behind it.     

Substantial Change and Spatiotemporal Coincidence

Substantial change occurs when a persisting object of some kind either begins or ceases to exist. Typically, this happens when one or more persisting objects of another kind or kinds are subjected to appropriate varieties of qualitative or relational change, as when the particles composing a lump of bronze are rearranged so as to create a statue. However, such transformations also seem to result, very often, in cases of spatiotemporal coincidence, in which two numerically distinct objects of different kinds exist in exactly the same place at the same time, such as a statue and a lump of bronze. Various attempts to resist this way of describing the results of such transformations are examined and found wanting and objections to the possibility of cases of spatiotemporal coincidence are rebutted.     

The SameP-Relation as a Response to Critics of Baker's Theory of Constitution

According to the so-called “standard account” regarding the problem of material constitution, a statue and a lump of clay that makes it up are not identical. The usual objection is that this view yields many objects in the same place at the same time. Lynne Rudder Baker's theory of constitution is a recent and sophisticated version of the standard account. She argues that the aforementioned objection can be answered by defining a relation of being the same P as (sameP). In this paper I shall examine consequences of her response and show that sameP has wrong formal properties, as a result of which this solution cannot be accepted.     

COMPOSITION AND COINCIDENCE

Many philosophers say that the same atoms may compose at once a statue and a lump of matter that could outlive the statue. I reject this because no difference between the statue and the lump could explain why they have different persistence conditions. But if we say that the lump is the statue, it is difficult to see how there could be any human beings. I argue that this and analogous problems about material objects admit only of solutions that at least appear to be radically at odds with our ordinary thinking.     

What is the Grounding Problem?

A philosophical standard in the debates concerning material constitution is the case of a statue and a lump of clay, Lumpl and Goliath respectively. According to the story, Lumpl and Goliath are coincident throughout their respective careers. Monists hold that they are identical; pluralists that they are distinct. This paper is concerned with a particular objection to pluralism, the Grounding Problem. The objection is roughly that the pluralist faces a legitimate explanatory demand to explain various differences she alleges between Lumpl and Goliath, but that the pluralist’s theory lacks the resources to give any such explanation. In this paper, I explore the question of whether there really is any problem of this sort. I argue (i) that explanatory demands that are clearly legitimate are easy for the pluralist to meet; (ii) that even in cases of explanatory demands whose legitimacy is questionable the pluralist has some overlooked resources; and (iii) there is some reason for optimism about the pluralist’s prospects for meeting every legitimate explanatory demand. In short, no clearly adequate statement of a Grounding Problem is extant, and there is some reason to believe that the pluralist can overcome any Grounding Problem that we haven’t thought of yet.     

Basic‐Know And Super‐Know

Sometimes a proposition is ‘opaque’ to an agent: (s)he doesn't know it, but (s)he does know something about how coming to know it should affect his or her credence function. It is tempting to assume that a rational agent's credence function coheres in a certain way with his or her knowledge of these opaque propositions, and I call this the ‘Opaque Proposition Principle’. The principle is compelling but demonstrably false. I explain this incongruity by showing that the principle is ambiguous: the term ‘know’ as it appears in the principle can be interpreted in two different ways, as either basic‐know or super‐know. I use this distinction to construct a plausible version of the principle, and then to similarly construct plausible versions of the Reflection Principle and the Sure‐Thing Principle.     

Are The Statue and The Clay Mutual Parts?

Are a material object, such as a statue, and its constituting matter, the clay, parts of one another? One wouldn't have thought so, and yet a number of philosophers have argued that they are. I review the arguments for this surprising claim showing how they all fail. I then consider two arguments against the view concluding that there are both pre‐theoretical and theoretical considerations for denying that the statue and the clay are mutual parts.     

CAUSATION AND THE CANBERRA PLAN

David Lewis has a general recipe for analysis: the Canberra Plan. His analyses of mind, color, and value all proceed according to the plan. What is curious is that his analysis of causation – one of his seminal analyses – doesn't. It doesn't and according to Lewis it can't. Lewis has two objections against using the Canberra Plan to analyze causation. After presenting Lewis' objections I argue that they both fail. I then draw some lessons from their failure.     

Atoms vs. Extended Simples: Towards a Dispositionalist Reconciliation

There are four main theories concerning the ultimate constitution of matter: atomism version 1 (matter has as fundamental constituents unextended point-particles), atomism version 2 (matter has as fundamental constituents extended but indivisible particles), the theory of gunk (on which every material object is composed of actual proper parts that are themselves material objects composed of actual proper parts that are themselves material objects…etc. ad infinitum), and the theory of extended simples (matter bottoms out in objects that are spatially extended and divisible but lacking in actual proper parts). These four theories are usually seen as diametrically opposed. Here I take a stab at ecumenism, and argue that atomism version 1 and the theory of extended simples can be reconciled and rendered compatible by reference to the reality of dispositions.     

On the logical structure of de Finetti's notion of event

This paper sheds new light on the subtle relation between probability and logic by (i) providing a logical development of Bruno de Finetti's conception of events and (ii) suggesting that the subjective nature of de Finetti's interpretation of probability emerges in a clearer form against such a logical background. By making explicit the epistemic structure which underlies what we call Choice-based probability we show that whilst all rational degrees of belief must be probabilities, the converse doesn't hold: some probability values don't represent decision-relevant quantifications of uncertainty.     

Précis of Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View*

Persons and Bodies develops and defends an account of persons and of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Human persons are constituted by bodies, without being identical to the bodies that constitute them—just as, I argue, statues are constituted by pieces of bronze, say, without being identical to the pieces of bronze that constitute them. The relation of constitution, therefore, is not peculiar to persons and their bodies, but is pervasive in the natural world.     

Divine Hiddenness and Divine Humility

If God exists, and if our ultimate well-being depends on having a positive relationship with Him (which requires as a first step that we believe He exists), why doesn't He make sure that we all believe in Him? Why doesn't He make His existence obvious? This traditional theological question is today much-used as an argument for atheism. In this paper I argue that the answer may have something to do with God's character, specifically God's humility.     

What is “Intervention”?

I begin by noting that several theologians and others object to special divine action (divine intervention and action beyond conservation and creation) on the grounds that it is incompatible with science. These theologians are thinking of classical Newtonian science; I argue that in fact classical science is in no way incompatible with special divine action, including miracle. What is incompatible with special divine action is the Laplacean picture, which involves the causal closure of the universe. I then note that contemporary, quantum mechanical science doesn't even initially appear to be incompatible with special divine action. Nevertheless, many who are well aware of the quantum mechanical revolution (including some members of the Special Divine Action Project) still find a problem with special divine action, hoping to find an understanding of it that doesn't involve divine intervention. I argue that their objections to intervention are not sound. Furthermore, it isn't even possible to say what intervention is, given the quantum mechanical framework. I conclude by offering an account of special divine action that isn't open to their objections to intervention.     

ICD-10-Diagnosen in der psychotherapeutischen Praxis

An evaluation of the ICD-10 manual (Chapter V) reveals severe shortcomings of this diagnostic instrument concerning outdoor psychotherapy. It is well known that ICD diagnoses are restricted to symptoms and deficits of psychic functions; this restriction contradicts the definitions of psychic diseases as stated by the German “Psychotherapie – Richtlinien”. In Germany, third-party-payment is bound to therapies taking etological aspects into account. It doesn't make sense that the diagnostic system abandons any etiological foundation, making no difference between neurobiological, psychological and psycho-reactive factors fostering psychic diseases. The diagnostic principle of the co-morbidity impairs the therapist's diagnostic and therapeutic capacity to synthetize different phenomena to a common gestalt. Moreover, the new diagnostic category “personality disorder” is ill-defined and doesn't allow any conclusion of therapeutic relevance. The ICD-10 manual is maybe a suitable instrument in a research context, but its usefulness to promote quality assurance in outdoor psychotherapy is considerably restricted.     

PIGEONS ARE SENSITIVE TO THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF COMPLEX VISUAL STIMULI

Abstract— Two experiments investigated the role of spatial organisation in the discrimination and generalization of complex visual stimuli by pigeons. In Experiment 1, after pigeons had been trained to discriminate line drawings of four objects, they were tested with novel pictures in which the same component parts of the objects were spatially rearranged. The spatially scrambled pictures led to a dramatic drop in recognition accuracy, hut responding remained above chance. In Experiment 2, pigeons reached a high level of discriminative performance when required to choose among four different spatial arrangements of the same object parts. These results confirm Cerella's (1980) conclusion that pigeons discriminate the component parts of complex visual stimuli, but. unless it is assumed that the scrambling deleted or created emergent features, the results disconfirm his conclusion that spatial organization plays no role in pigeons' picture perception.     

Are human bodies represented differently from other objects? Experience shapes object representations

This study investigated the cognitive organization of the human body representation and its relationship to other object representations. It addressed whether (1) all objects and their parts were organized similarly, (2) animate objects and their parts were organized differently from inanimate objects and their parts, and (3) the human body was organized differently from all other objects. The relations among the parts of three exemplar objects (human body, bear, and bicycle) were examined. Participants performed a series of sorting tasks using stimulus cards illustrating various part and part combinations of these objects; the cards were constructed so that the same strategies could be used to categorize all three objects. Dissimilarity data were analysed using multidimensional scaling techniques. Results indicated that the human body was organized differently from the other objects, and that categorization did not follow the animate–inanimate distinction. Although animate objects were represented more on their visual characteristics and inanimate objects were represented more on functional characteristics, the human body was represented on its ability to perform actions. Representations of the other objects suggested that their organization was embodied in that they appear to be shaped by how the human body interacts, or doesn't interact, with the object.     

Why philosophy needs a concept of progress

This paper defends the usefulness of the concept of philosophical progress and the common assumption that philosophy and science aim to make the same, or a comparable, kind of progress. It does so by responding to Yafeng Shan's (2022) arguments that the wealth of research on scientific progress is not applicable or useful to philosophy, and that philosophy doesn't need a concept of progress at all. It is ultimately argued that while Shan's arguments are not successful, they reveal the way forward in developing accounts of philosophical progress.     

The Anarchist's Myth: Autonomy,Children, and State Legitimacy

Philosophical anarchists have made their living criticizing theories of state legitimacy and the duty to obey the law. The most prominent theories of state legitimacy have been called into doubt by the anarchists' insistence that citizens' lack of consent to the state renders the whole justificatory enterprise futile. Autonomy requires consent, they argue, and justification must respect autonomy. In this essay, I want to call into question the weight of consent in protecting our capacity for autonomy. I argue that if we care about all of the preconditions for autonomy, then we have good reasons to leave the state of nature. This leaves the philosophical anarchist with a dilemma. If she truly cares about autonomy, then she must welcome the state. But if she wants to deny the legitimacy of the state because of the value of consent, then she needs to downplay the moral significance of autonomy in people's lives. If autonomy matters, the state does too. If it doesn't, then consent doesn't. The philosophical anarchist can't have it both ways.     

Does Four-dimensionalism explain coincidence?∗

For those who think the statue and the piece of copper that compose it are distinct objects that coincide, there is a burden of explanation. After all, common sense says that different ordinary objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. A common argument in favour of four-dimensionalism (or ‘perdurantism’ or ‘temporal parts theory’) is that it provides the resources for a superior explanation of this coincidence. This, however, is mistaken. Any explanatory work done by the four-dimensionalist notion of absolute parthood rests ultimately on notions equally available to the three-dimensionalist. Thus, a neutral explanation of coincidence is at least as good while avoiding commitment to temporal parts.