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Full Idea
This powerful puzzle (known to the Stoics, introduced by Geach, popularised by Wiggins) has a cat Tibbles and a proper part Tib, which is all of Tibbles except the tail. If Tibbles loses her tail, the two were distinct, but they now coincide.
Clarification
A 'proper' part is a part which is less than the whole
Gist of Idea
If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one
Source
Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1)
Book Ref
Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.142
A Reaction
[compressed] Compare a few people leave a football ground, and what was a large part of the crowd becomes the whole of the crowd. Which suggests that there is no problem if cats are like crowds. But we don't like that view of cats.
| 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] |