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Full Idea
Many philosophers believe that sortal predicates are spatially maximal - for example, that no cat can be a proper spatial part of a cat.
Gist of Idea
Are sortals spatially maximal - so no cat part is allowed to be a cat?
Source
Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.1)
Book Ref
Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.40
A Reaction
This sounds reasonable until you cut the tail off a cat. Presumably what remains is a cat? So presumably that smaller part was always a cat? Only essentialism can make sense of this! You can't just invent rules for sortals.
| 16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
| 15537 | If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many [Lewis] |
| 14751 | Tib goes out of existence when the tail is lost, because Tib was never the 'cat' [Burke,M, by Sider] |
| 13437 | A CAR and its major PART can become identical, yet seem to have different properties [Gallois] |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| 16200 | Are sortals spatially maximal - so no cat part is allowed to be a cat? [Hawley] |
| 12835 | Does Tibbles remain the same cat when it loses its tail? [Simons] |
| 12857 | Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't [Simons] |