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9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail

[objects contained within other objects]

8 ideas
Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria]
     Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48
     A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him.
If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many [Lewis]
     Full Idea: To deny that there are many cats on the mat (because removal of a few hairs seems to produce a new one), we must either deny that the many are cats, or else deny that the cats are many. ...I think both alternatives lead to successful solutions.
     From: David Lewis (Many, but almost one [1993], 'The paradox')
     A reaction: He credits the problem to Geach (and Tibbles), and says it is the same as Unger's 'problem of the many' (Idea 15536).
Tib goes out of existence when the tail is lost, because Tib was never the 'cat' [Burke,M, by Sider]
     Full Idea: Burke argues that Tib (the whole cat apart from its tail) goes out of existence when the tail is lost. His essentialist principle is that if something is ever of a particular sort (such as 'cat') then it is always of that sort. Tib is not initially a cat.
     From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
     A reaction: This I take to be a souped up version of Wiggins, and I just don't buy that identity conditions are decided by sortals, when it seems obvious that sortals are parasitic on identities.
A CAR and its major PART can become identical, yet seem to have different properties [Gallois]
     Full Idea: At t1 there is a whole CAR, and a PART of it, which is everything except the right front wheel. At t2 the wheel is removed, leaving just PART, so that CAR is now PART. But PART was a proper part of CAR, and CAR had the front wheel. Different properties!
     From: André Gallois (Occasions of Identity [1998], 1.II)
     A reaction: [compressed summary] The problem is generated by appealing to Leibniz's Law. My immediate reaction is that this is the sort of trouble you get into if you include such temporal truths about things as 'properties'.
If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider]
     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.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1)
     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.
Are sortals spatially maximal - so no cat part is allowed to be a cat? [Hawley]
     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.
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.1)
     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.
Does Tibbles remain the same cat when it loses its tail? [Simons]
     Full Idea: The cat is 'Tibbles' with a tail; 'Tib' is Tibbles after the loss of the tail. 1) Tibbles isn't Tib at t; 2) Tibbles is Tib at t'; 3) Tibbles at t is Tibbles at t'; 4) Tib at t is Tib at t'; so 5) Tibbles at t is Tib at t (contradicting 1). What's wrong?
     From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.3)
     A reaction: [The example is in Wiggins 1979, from Geach, from William of Sherwood] Simons catalogues nine assumptions which are being made to produce the contradiction. 1) rests on Leibniz's law. Simons says two objects are occupying Tibbles.
Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't [Simons]
     Full Idea: There mere fact that Tibbles can survive the mutilation of losing a tail, whereas the sum of Tib and the tail cannot, is enough to distinguish them, even if no such mutilation ever occurs.
     From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.1)
     A reaction: See Idea 12835 for details of the Tibbles example. Either we go for essentialism here, or the whole notion of identity collapses. But the essential features of a person are not just those whose loss would kill them.