Coincidence under a Sortal

Oderberg, David S.

doi:10.2307/2185716

Cited by 94 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…32 See Wiggins (1968, p. 92) and passim. See also Oderberg (1996). F. Berto have a nice conversation on this with her friends, the semanticists of the department nearby.…”

Section: A Converse Russellian Fallacymentioning

confidence: 96%

Coincident Entities and Question-Begging Predicates: an Issue in Meta-Ontology

Berto

2012

Int Ontology Metaphysics

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Meta-ontology (in van Inwagen's sense) concerns the methodology of ontology, and a controversial meta-ontological issue is to what extent ontology can rely on linguistic analysis while establishing the furniture of the world. This paper discusses an argument advanced by some ontologists (I call them unifiers) against supporters of or coincident entities (I call them multipliers) and its meta-ontological import. Multipliers resort to Leibniz's Law to establish that spatiotemporally coincident entities a and b are distinct, by pointing at a predicate F() made true by a and false by b. Unifiers try to put multipliers in front of a dilemma: in attempting to introduce metaphysical differences on the basis of semantic distinctions, multipliers either (a) rest on a fallacy of verbalism, entailed by a trade-off between a de dicto and a de re reading of modal claims, or (b) beg the question against unifiers by having to assume the distinction between a and b beforehand. I shall rise a tu quoque, showing that unifiers couldn't even distinguish material objects (or events) from the spatiotemporal regions they occupy unless they also resorted to linguistic distinctions. Their methodological aim to emancipate themselves from linguistic analysis in ontological businesses is therefore problematic. Some philosophers think that the variety of the world we talk about depends on the variety of the linguistic expressions we use; some believe that the world itself is variegated. This paper deals with (bits of) this issue: where should we draw the line between features of the world and features of the language we use to talk about the world? I shall approach it by considering a philosophical dispute concerning the composition of material objects. I will begin with a single argument, but broader ontological and, more importantly, meta-ontological issues will quickly enter the stage.

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“…32 See Wiggins (1968, p. 92) and passim. See also Oderberg (1996). F. Berto have a nice conversation on this with her friends, the semanticists of the department nearby.…”

Section: A Converse Russellian Fallacymentioning

confidence: 96%

Coincident Entities and Question-Begging Predicates: an Issue in Meta-Ontology

Berto

2012

Int Ontology Metaphysics

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“…Lowe doesn't believe there could be spatially coincident objects of the same kind. He endorses Oderberg's 1996 account of the insurmountable problems of individuation that would ensue (Lowe 1998, 202; 2002, 71). Oderberg mentions two distinct puddles, let's call them ‘A’ and ‘B’, of equal size that eventually merge.…”

Section: Spatially Coincident Entities Of the Same Kindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lowe's Defence of Constitution and the Principle of Weak Extensionality

Hershenov¹

2008

Ratio

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E.J. Lowe is one of the few philosophers who defend both the existence of spatially coincident entities and the Principle of Weak Extensionality that no two objects which have proper parts have exactly the same proper parts at the same time. Lowe maintains that when spatially coincident things like the statue and the lump of bronze are in a constitution relation, the constituted entity (the statue) has parts that the constituting entity (the lump) doesn't, hence the compatibility with Weak Extensionality. My contention is that his argument for why the statue has parts the lump of bronze lacks can also be used to show that the lump of bronze has parts the statue doesn't. This will mean that there is no basis for saying the statue and the lump are in a constitution relation. I argue for accepting a modified account of constitution and abandoning the Principle of Weak Extensionality.

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“…This thesis has been defended, among others, by Wiggins (, ), Doepke (), and Oderberg (). It is usually ascribed to Locke on the strength of a passage in the Essay (II, 27, §1).…”

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confidence: 94%

Not Just a Coincidence. Conditional Counter-examples to Locke's Thesis

Spolaore

2012

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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So-called Locke’s thesis is the view that no two things of the same kind may coincide, that is, may be completely in the same place at the same time. A number of counter-examples to this view have been proposed. In this paper, some new and arguably more convincing counter-examples to Locke’s thesis are presented. In these counter-examples, a particular entity (a string, a rope, a net, or similar) is interwoven to obtain what appears to be a distinct, thicker entity of the same kind. It is argued that anyone who subscribes to certain standard metaphysical arguments, which are generally taken for granted in the debate about Locke’s thesis, is virtually compelled to accept the counter-examples

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Coincidence under a Sortal

Cited by 94 publications

References 0 publications

Coincident Entities and Question-Begging Predicates: an Issue in Meta-Ontology

Coincident Entities and Question-Begging Predicates: an Issue in Meta-Ontology

Lowe's Defence of Constitution and the Principle of Weak Extensionality

Not Just a Coincidence. Conditional Counter-examples to Locke's Thesis

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