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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 Ref
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...
| 16796 | Locke may accept coinciding material substances, such as body, man and person [Locke, by Pasnau] |
| 12970 | We can imagine two bodies interpenetrating, as two rays of light seem to [Leibniz] |
| 14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
| 14750 | Two entities can coincide as one, but only one of them (the dominant sortal) fixes persistence conditions [Burke,M, by Sider] |
| 13401 | The idea of coincident objects is a last resort, as it is opposed to commonsense naturalism [Jubien] |
| 12024 | If we combined two clocks, it seems that two clocks may have become one clock. [Forbes,G] |
| 16080 | Is it possible for two things that are identical to become two separate things? [Rudder Baker] |
| 13918 | Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe] |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| 12820 | Without extensional mereology two objects can occupy the same position [Simons] |