Chapter 3 - Material Objects

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Annotated Bibliography

David Wiggins. 1968. On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183184; An argument for the nonidentity of a thing and its matter
Judith Jarvis Thomson. 1998. The Statue and the Clay.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671962; Proposes a solution to the classic paradox
Michael Burke. 1994. Preserving the Principle of One Object to a Place.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2108583; Defends a way of responding to the paradoxes of material constitution
Roderich Chisholm. 1973. Parts as Essential to Their Wholes.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20126296; A defense of mereological essentialism, a way to avoid the paradoxes by arguing that an object's parts are essential to it
Max Black. 1952. The Identity of Indiscernibles.: http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/; Argues against the identity of indiscernibles
Katherine Hawley. 2009. Identity and Indiscernibility.: http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/; Evaluates arguments for and against the identity of indiscernibles
Simon Saunders. 2003. Physics and Leibniz's Principles.: http://users.ox.ac.uk/; An evaluation of the identity of indiscernibles as it is used in physics
Karen Bennett. 2004. Spatio-temporal Coincidence and the Grounding Problem.: http://link.springer.com/; Raises and responds to the question of how two spatiotemporally overlapping objects can have different modal features
Lynne Rudder Baker. 2006. Everyday Concepts as a Guide to Reality.: http://people.umass.edu/lrb/files/; Argues for an approach to the metaphysics of material objects that starts with everyday concepts and pre-theoretically-held views
Peter Unger. 1980. The Problem of the Many.: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/; The classic statement of the problem
David Lewis. 1993. Many, But Almost One: http://www.andrewmbailey.com/dkl/Many_Almost_One.pdf; Proposes a solution to the problem of the many
Ned Markosian. 1998. Brutal Composition.: http://link.springer.com/article/; Argues that there is no true and interesting answer to the special composition question
Theodore Sider. 2013. Against Parthood.: http://tedsider.org/papers/nihilism.pdf; Argues for mereological nihilism
Cian Dorr and Gideon Rosen. 2002. Composition as a Fiction: http://philpapers.org/archive/DORCAA.pdf; Argues for fictionalism about composition
Daniel Korman. 2008. Unrestricted Composition and Restricted Quantification.: http://link.springer.com/article/; Argues that while mereological universalism is motivated, the universalist's strategy for reconciling her view with common sense is not successful
Kris McDaniel. 2007. Extended Simples.: http://link.springer.com/article/; Explores the issue of whether there could be objects without proper parts that are extended in space
Kit Fine. 1975. Vagueness, Truth, and Logic.: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00485047?LI=true; Classic defense of the supervaluationist approach to handling vagueness
Timothy Williamson. 1992. Vagueness and Ignorance.: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4106976; Argues that vagueness should be understood as an epistemic phenomenon
Elizabeth Barnes. 2010. Ontic Vagueness: A Guide for the Perplexed.: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/; A defense of metaphysical indeterminacy against the charge of incoherence
Jonathan Schaffer. 2010. Monism: The Priority of the Whole.: http://philreview.dukejournals.org/content/119/1/31.short; Argues for priority monism, the view that the fundamental object in our universe is the whole cosmos

Annotated Weblinks

http://www.youngphilosophers.org: A discussion of paradoxes of material constitution by Catherine Sutton at Young Philosophers.
http://www.youngphilosophers.org/: “How Metaphysics Can Increase Your Friends a Millionfold,” a video on paradoxes of material constitution at Young Philosophers.
http://philosophyideas.com/: A list of various views about material objects at PhilosophyIdeas.
http://www.wi-phi.com/video/ship-theseus: A discussion of paradoxes of material constitution by Jennifer Wang at Wi-Phi.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on material constitution by Ryan Wasserman.

Discussion Questions

Explain in a few sentences how the introduction of objects like electrons, electromagnetic fields, or even space-time has changed our concept of “material” from that used in previous centuries.
Explain why it is problematic to say that both S2 and S3 are identical to the original Ship of Theseus, S1.
Other than identity, name a relation that is both transitive and symmetrical.
What is a relation that is symmetric but not reflexive? What is a relation that is neither reflexive nor symmetric?
In the chapter, we noted that the case of the Statue and the Clay could easily be extended to apply to other cases, such as your body and the organic matter of which it is made. What is a temporal property that your body has but the actual matter that composes you now lacks? What is a modal property that your body has but the matter that composes you now lacks?
Which solution to the Problem of the Many strikes you as most on the right track?
Explain mereological universalism and one objection to the view.
Explain van Inwagen’s answer to the Special Composition Question in your own words. Why is it committed to metaphysical vagueness?
What does it mean to say that vagueness is semantic indecision? What are some other vague words in our language? List three.
What in your view is the principal problem affecting mereological nihilism? What is one advantage of that view?