A Situationalist Solution to the Ship of Theseus Puzzle

Visiting a museum and seeing an original artwork can be a special experience. We use a survey and a set of hypothetical questions to explore how such experience would be affected by changes in how the artwork is seen. In a first study, participants imagined that they had traveled to see a painting that they particularly like. They discover that it is impossible to directly see the original painting. Three alternatives are offered: seeing an optical reflection (using a mirror), seeing a video screening (a closed-circuit camera), or seeing a reproduction. In all cases, it is made clear that the size, brightness, and resolution will match that of the original. In addition, these options could be within the same room as the original, in the room next door, or in a different building. Results show that physical distance did not affect significantly the responses. However, there was an overall preference for seeing a reproduction as opposed to an optical or digital image. Contrary to the idea that the original is always superior to a copy, many people felt that a direct view of a copy is a preferable experience than an indirect view. The second study was focused directly on the comparison between a mirror and a monitor. Here we highlighted the fact that for the mirror light coming from the mirror originated from the painting. Data were collected in Britain and in China. In both cases, there was a clear preference for the mirror over the monitor.

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“…When all parts of the ship are removed and replaced by new parts, is the new object still the ship of Theseus? (Nozick, 1981; Pickup, 2016).…”

Section: Identity and Authenticitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing a Work of Art Indirectly: When a Reproduction Is Better Than an Indirect View, and a Mirror Better Than a Live Monitor

Bertamini

Blakemore

2019

Front. Psychol.

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“…See fn 18. 22 Pickup (2016) adds to a cumulative case for taking such a view seriously. 23 We cannot consider all alternatives, but there are a few possible views we want to explicitly note we won't be discussing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The statement 'a exists' will therefore be false in such situations. See the Appendix to Pickup (2016) for a sketch of an example semantics.…”

Section: Situations and Indeterminacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As we have said, we do not intent to furnish such a complete account: this would be a different and much longer paper. But see the Appendix to Pickup (2016) for some groundwork. 17 This is clearly just a toy example, and much more would need to be said about it.…”

Section: A Restriction On Persistencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…On one interpretation of Fine's view, different times will give different truth-values for propositions, leading to truth-value gaps in the 'über-reality' which contains multiple times. Other applications of this overdetermination approach include puzzles about the persistence of material objects (seePickup 2016 for an application to the Ship of Theseus case).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Modelling deep indeterminacy

Darby

Pickup²

2019

Synthese

Self Cite

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This paper constructs a model of metaphysical indeterminacy that can accommodate a kind of 'deep' worldly indeterminacy that arguably arises in quantum mechanics via the Kochen-Specker theorem, and that is incompatible with prominent theories of metaphysical indeterminacy such as that in Barnes and Williams (Oxf Stud Metaphys 6:103-148, 2011). We construct a variant of Barnes and Williams's theory that avoids this problem. Our version builds on situation semantics and uses incomplete, local situations rather than possible worlds to build a model. We evaluate the resulting theory and contrast it with similar alternatives, concluding that our model successfully captures deep indeterminacy.

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Belief Puzzles as Paradoxes of Identity

Moya

2019

Modeling and Using Context

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A Situationalist Solution to the Ship of Theseus Puzzle

Abstract: This paper outlines a novel solution to the Ship of Theseus puzzle. The solution relies on situations, a philosophical tool used in natural language semantics among other places. The core idea is that what is true is always relative to the situation under consideration.

Cited by 7 publications

References 10 publications

Seeing a Work of Art Indirectly: When a Reproduction Is Better Than an Indirect View, and a Mirror Better Than a Live Monitor

Seeing a Work of Art Indirectly: When a Reproduction Is Better Than an Indirect View, and a Mirror Better Than a Live Monitor

Modelling deep indeterminacy

Belief Puzzles as Paradoxes of Identity

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