Constitution

Question 1

constitution

Answer 1

under what conditions to some small things make up a larger thing

Question 2

How many things does the statue consist of

Answer 2

One: no two things can occupy the exact same region of space and time

At least two: there’s the bronze and then there’s the statue - and these things have different properties

Question 3

if x has some property P and y
lacks P, then x and y cannot be identical

Answer 3

for example, since the bronze has the property of having existed prior to the act of sculpting, and the statue lacks this property, it follows that the
bronze is not identical to the sculpture

Question 4

Leibniz’ Law

Answer 4

if x has some property P and y
lacks P, then x and y cannot be identical
This principle is sometimes called the
indiscernibility of identicals

Question 5

Creation argument for statue

Answer 5

The sculptor creates the statue—it does not exist before the act of sculpting

objection: Just matter theory - The only objects that exist are hunks
of matter - the sculptor did not change what hunks of matter exist, so the sculptor did not create anything

on the matter of the just matter theory - we don’t actually exist, we are just hunks of matter

Question 6

Survival argument for statue

Answer 6

The sculptor does not destroy the quantity of bronze in making the statue

objection: the takeover theory - objects come in kinds of sorts - at any given time a collection of particles can constitute at most one object - when the sculpture was made, the particles went from constituting bronze, to constituting a statue

Question 7

existence argument for statue

Answer 7

There really are objects such as the
quantity of bronze and the statue

objection: compositional nihilism - All that there is are fundamental particles, which have no proper parts
particles never compose things

on this view there are no people

Question 8

absurdity argument for statue

Answer 8

It’s impossible for two objects to share the same matter and spatial location at the same time

objection: This might seem to entail that you can have two different objects with exactly the same parts

Question 9

Problem with these arguments

Answer 9

given Leibniz’s law, they cannot all be true
this is an antinomy - we have a set of claims that all seem to be true, but if they are all true, they lead to a contradiction

Question 10

Occams Razor

Answer 10

Posit no more things than are
needed to explain the phenomena

It is natural for one to protest: surely not all observable facts can be explained by just positing
such entities, for example, can’t we see that there are people

the nihilist would just say that there are just bunches of particles that are shaped like people

Question 11

problem for the nihilist - gunk

Answer 11

We’ll say that some matter is gunky just in case all of its parts have parts, and all of those parts have parts, and all of those have parts and so
on ad infinitum

If the world is gunky then there are no particles that have no parts - all particles have parts

for as far as we know, the world is gunky
and we have found that particles do have smaller parts

it could be objected that either gunk is impossible or it is a contingent matter whether some things compose another thing

Question 12

four dimensionalism

Answer 12

And let’s assume that normal objects like people, statues and hunks of bronze have temporal parts

On this view, the statue and the bronze are two distinct things

because they share certain temporal
parts it may be true that the statue and the bronze can, at a given time, share all the same matter, and occupy the same spatial region

But on this view it isn’t true that two objects can share all the same parts - for example, the statue and the bronze don’t share all the same parts, because they don’t have all the same parts

Let’s assume the space-time view
- objects that exist in space and time are worms that spread out throughout both space and time
We can then picture the statue and bronze as two different space-time parts
- There are two space-time worms that happen to overlap
- The statue and the bronze are two distinct things
- They differ in what parts they have
- They do share certain temporal parts, so it would seem that its true that the statue and the bronze can, at a given time, share all the same matter, and occupy the same spatial region

Question 13

problem with four-dimensionalism

Answer 13

magine that God creates ex nihilio the statue/bronze, and that it exists for some stretch of time and then goes out of existence

in this case, the state and the bronze share all the same parts

but we can still argue using Leibniz’s law that they are still distinct - to do so we need to find a property that one has that the other lacks - like how the bronze has the property of surviving once the sculpture is smashed

Question 14

modality

Answer 14

concerns what could or must happen, in addition to what does happen

There are certain modal properties that can distinguish our new statue and bronze

For the bronze has the property that it would survive were it smashed, but the statue lacks this property

If this is so, then even if the statue and the bronze share all of their parts (including temporal parts)
they are nonetheless distinct

Question 15

Thomson - questions about four-dimensionalism

Answer 15

Suppose we have some Tinkertoys—wooden building blocks that we can use the construct a model house

we finish building the house at 1:00 pm

H = the house at 1:15 pm

We say that an object x is the fusion of a collection of objects S just in case the members of S are all parts of x, and any part of x overlaps some
members of S

We assume that for any collection of
things S there is some unique thing x that is the fusion of S

W = the fusion of the tinkertoy parts at 1:15 pm

at 1:30 we take away one piece of H and replace it with a new piece

it would seem the house survives the replacement

so that means H must be distinct from the fusion of its parts

Question 16

temporal parts to save thomson’s conclusion

Answer 16

According to the temporal parts theorist H—the Tinkertoy house—and W—a certain fusion of Tinkertoy parts—are things extended over time.

These things are distinct, but they overlap in sharing a certain temporal part

Question 17

cross-sectional temporal part

Answer 17

Let us say that x is a cross-sectional temporal part of y, just in case there is some stretch of time T such that (i) x and y exist throughout T, (ii) x doesn’t exist at any point outside of T, (iii) x and y occupy exactly the same places at each moment in T

(M1) If x is a temporal part of y, then x is a part of y

(M2) For any object x that exists through some set of times T (and possibly at other times), there is a
temporal part of x that exists for exactly the moments in T

(M3) If x is a part of y and y is a part of x, then x is identical to y

(M4) Every object x is a part of itself

Each object has exactly the same parts as the fusion of its temporal parts. Thus they must be identical by (M3)

Question 18

Objections to thomson

Answer 18

Objection 1: It follows from the view that things have temporal parts that nothing changes

Response: Change is just having different properties at different times. And the temporal parts theorist can account for this

Objection 2: According to this view more than one thing may occupy the same place at a given time

Response: On the temporal parts view two things can occupy the same location at a time by sharing a temporal part that exists for exactly that time

the existence of temporal parts is implausible

Question 19

chalk - this chalk has temporal parts - some exist only for moments some exist for stretches of time

Answer 19

objection: it is just incredible that there when you hold a piece of chalk there are so many objects that you are holding.

if one is a temporal parts theorist, then one must countenance many entities that look and feel like normal everyday objects, but that are very different in nature

A nice feature of the four dimensional view is that it can explain why the statue and the bronze are
distinct, despite, in a certain sense, occupying the same place and time