Material Objects and Their Parts
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Bill Brewer
Abstract
Commonsense appears committed to enduring macroscopic material objects that exclude each other from their precise location at all times. I elaborate a specific version of the commonsense commitment and consider its merits in connection with an important line of objection concerning the relation between material objects and their parts. The central thesis is that amongst persisting macroscopic material objects there are Natural Continuants, NCs, whose unity at a time and over time is entirely independent of our concepts, which occupy their precise spatial location Exclusively at all times, and which ground Artificial Continuants, ACs, by partition, collection, and approximation. I call the position the Natural Continuants View (NCV). Section “The Natural Continuants View” offers a provisional characterization. Section “Spatial Partition” considers a familiar puzzle concerning the idea that material objects may survive the loss of a part in order to provide intuitive motivation for (NCV) and to elaborate its commitments concerning (spatial) parts. The result is an account of the way in which NCs ground ACs by spatial partition. Section “Collection and Approximation” turns to a consideration of collections and assemblages of NCs. Section “Conclusion” concludes.
Acknowledgment
I am grateful to the following for helpful comments on previous versions of this material: Emma Borg, Josh Dever, Johan Gersel, Bob Hale, John Hawthorne, Chris Hughes, Nick Jones, Rory Madden, David Owens, David Papineau, Sebastian Rodl, Mark Sainsbury, Matt Soteriou, Nick Shea, James Stazicker, Mark Textor, and Michael Tye.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Acquaintance with Universals
- Material Objects and Their Parts
- Thoughts on Twin Earth
- Time, Space, Dummett and McTaggart
- Counting the Particles: Entity and Identity in the Philosophy of Physics
- Fictional Objects
- Meso-level Objects, Powers, and Simultaneous Causation
- Battling for Metaphysics: The Case for Indispensability
- Book Review
- Robert C. Koons and Timothy H. Pickavance: Metaphysics: The Fundamentals
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Acquaintance with Universals
- Material Objects and Their Parts
- Thoughts on Twin Earth
- Time, Space, Dummett and McTaggart
- Counting the Particles: Entity and Identity in the Philosophy of Physics
- Fictional Objects
- Meso-level Objects, Powers, and Simultaneous Causation
- Battling for Metaphysics: The Case for Indispensability
- Book Review
- Robert C. Koons and Timothy H. Pickavance: Metaphysics: The Fundamentals
