Single Idea 14750

[catalogued under 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects]

Full Idea

Michael Burke has given an account that avoids distinguishing coinciding entities. ...The statue/lump satisfies both 'lump' and 'statue', but only the latter determines that object's persistence conditions, and so is that object's 'dominant sortal'.

Gist of Idea

Two entities can coincide as one, but only one of them (the dominant sortal) fixes persistence conditions

Source

report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4

Book Reference

Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.161


A Reaction

Presumably a lump on its own can have its own persistance conditions (as a 'lump'), but those would presumably be lost if you shaped it into a statue. Burke concedes that. Can of worms. Using a book as a doorstop...