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  1. In defense of essentialism.L. A. Paul - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):333–372.
    If an object has a property essentially, it has that property in every possible world according to which it exists.2 If an object has a property accidentally, it does not have that property in every possible world according to which it exists. Claims about an object’s essential or accidental properties are de re modal claims, and essential and accidental properties are de re modal properties. Take an object’s modal profile to specify its essential properties and the range of its accidental (...)
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  • Constitution and similarity.Kathrin Koslicki - 2004 - Philosophical Studies 117 (3):327-363.
    Whenever an object constitutes, makes up or composes another object, the objects in question share a striking number of properties. This paper is addressed to the question of what might account for the intimate relation and striking similarity between constitutionally related objects. According to my account, the similarities between constitutionally related objects are captured at least in part by means of a principle akin to that of strong supervenience. My paper addresses two main issues. First, I propose independently plausible principles (...)
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  • Locke on individuation and the corpuscular basis of kinds.Dan Kaufman - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3):499–534.
    In a well-known paper, Reginald Jackson expresses a sentiment not uncommon among readers of Locke: “Among the merits of Locke’s Essay…not even the friendliest critic would number consistency.”2 This unflattering opinion of Locke is reiterated by Maurice Mandelbaum: “Under no circumstances can [Locke] be counted among the clearest and most consistent of philosophers.”3 The now familiar story is that there are innumerable inconsistencies and internal problems contained in Locke’s Essay. In fact, it is probably safe to say that there is (...)
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  • Ontological individualism reconsidered.Brian Epstein - 2009 - Synthese 166 (1):187-213.
    The thesis of methodological individualism in social science is commonly divided into two different claims—explanatory individualism and ontological individualism. Ontological individualism is the thesis that facts about individuals exhaustively determine social facts. Initially taken to be a claim about the identity of groups with sets of individuals or their properties, ontological individualism has more recently been understood as a global supervenience claim. While explanatory individualism has remained controversial, ontological individualism thus understood is almost universally accepted. In this paper I argue (...)
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  • Global supervenience and dependence.Karen Bennett - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):501-529.
    Two versions of global supervenience have recently been distinguished from each other. I introduce a third version, which is more likely what people had in mind all along. However, I argue that one of the three versions is equivalent to strong supervenience in every sense that matters, and that neither of the other two versions counts as a genuine determination relation. I conclude that global supervenience has little metaphysically distinctive value.
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  • Why (and how) statues matter.Richard John Stopford - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.
    In this paper, I consider the import of the metaphysics of statues to the decolonizing statues debate. On the one hand, this may seem an odd starting point: after all, the issues surrounding decolonizing statues are political, moral and, perhaps, aesthetic. I agree; however, presuppositions about the nature of statues may well be shaping the political imaginary about decolonizing statues. Indeed, when expressing political and moral claims such as ‘decolonizing statues erases history’, or that ‘decolonizing statues destroys objects that help (...)
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  • Mereological Nihilism and Material Constitution.Simon Thunder - 2024 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 105 (4):448-467.
    Mereological nihilists typically employ a paraphrase strategy in order to mitigate the apparent absurdity of their denial of the existence of composite objects. I argue here that the nihilist's paraphrase strategy is incomplete, because no schema for generating nihilistically acceptable paraphrases of sentences concerning material constitution has ever been given. Nor can an adequate schema be arrived at by generalising things that nihilists have already said. I fill this lacuna in the nihilist's account by developing and defending a novel paraphrase (...)
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  • Two approaches to metaphysical explanation.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Noûs 58 (4):1107-1136.
    Explanatory metaphysics aspires to explain the less fundamental in terms of the more fundamental. But we should recognize two importantly different approaches to this task. According to the generation approach, more basic features of reality generate (or give rise to) less basic features. According to the reduction approach, less perspicuous ways of representing reality reduce to (or collapse into) more perspicuous ways of representing reality. The main goals of this paper are to present the core differences between the two approaches (...)
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  • Event plenitude.Uriah Kriegel - 2024 - Synthese 204 (2):1-16.
    One of the salient developments in recent metaphysics is the increasing popularity of _material plenitude_: roughly, the thesis that wherever there is one material object there is in fact a great multitude of co-located but numerically distinct objects that differ principally in which of their properties they have essentially and which accidentally. Here I argue that we have at least as much reason to look favorably on _event plenitude_: wherever one event occurs there occur a great multitude of co-located but (...)
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  • Grim Reaper Paradoxes and Patchwork Principles: Severing the Case for Finitism.Troy Dana & Joseph C. Schmid - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    Benardete paradoxes involve infinite collections of Grim Reapers, assassins, demons, deafening peals, or even sentences. These paradoxes have recently been used in arguments for finitist metaphysical theses such as temporal finitism, causal finitism, and discrete views of time. Here we develop a new finite Benardete-like paradox. We then use this paradox to defend a companions in guilt argument that challenges recent applications of patchwork principles on behalf of the aforementioned finitist arguments. Finally, we develop another problem for those applications by (...)
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  • Explanation and Plenitude in Non-Well-Founded Set Theories.Ross P. Cameron - 2024 - Philosophia Mathematica 32 (3):275-306.
    Non-well-founded set theories allow set-theoretic exotica that standard ZFC will not allow, such as a set that has itself as its sole member. We can distinguish plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories, such as Boffa set theory, that allow infinitely many such sets, from restrictive theories, such as Finsler-Aczel or AFA, that allow exactly one. Plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories face a puzzle: nothing seems to explain the identity or distinctness of various of the sets they countenance. In this paper I aim to (...)
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  • New Arguments for Composition as Identity.Michael J. Duncan - 2015 - Dissertation, University of Sydney
    Almost all philosophers interested in parthood and composition think that a composite object is a further thing, numerically distinct from the objects that compose it. Call this the orthodox view. I argue that the orthodox view is false, and that a composite object is identical to the objects that compose it (collectively). This view is known as composition as identity. -/- I argue that, despite its unpopularity, there are many reasons to favour com- position as identity over the orthodox view. (...)
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  • (1 other version)How to Explain the Importance of Persons.Christopher Register - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 74 (3):920-940.
    We commonly explain the distinctive prudential and moral status of persons in terms of our mental capacities. I draw from recent work to argue that the common explanation is incomplete. I then develop a new explanation: We are ethically important because we are the object of a pattern of self-concern. I argue that the view solves moral problems posed by permissive ontologies, such as the recent personite problem.
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  • (1 other version)How to Explain the Importance of Persons.Christopher Register - 2023 - The Philosophical Quarterly.
    We commonly explain the distinctive prudential and moral status of persons in terms of our mental capacities. I draw from recent work to argue that the common explanation is incomplete. I then develop a new explanation: We are ethically important because we are the object of a pattern of self-concern. I argue that the view solves moral problems posed by permissive ontologies, such as the recent personite problem.
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  • The Grounding Mystique.Alan Sidelle - 2023 - The Monist 106 (3):225-238.
    Grounding has become all the rage in recent philosophical work and metaphilosophical discussions. While I agree that the concept of ground marks something useful, I am skeptical about the metaphysical weight many imbue it with, and the picture of ‘worldly layering’ that grounding talk inspires. My skepticism centers around the fact that grounding involves necessitation, combined with reasons for thinking matters of necessity are matters of logical or conceptual (semantic, psychological) relations. I sketch an argument for deflationism about ground based (...)
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  • The Taming of the Grounds.Noël Blas Saenz - 2022 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (8):789-809.
    As it is presently employed, grounding permits grounding many things from one ground. In this paper, I show why this is a mistake by pushing for a uniqueness principle on grounding. After arguing in favor of this principle, I say something about it and kinds of grounding, discuss a similar principle, and consider its import on a formal feature of grounding, ontology, and ontological simplicity.
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  • Coincident Objects and The Grounding Problem.Ataollah Hashemi - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz 16 (41):164-173.
    Pluralists believe in the occurrence of numerically distinct spatiotemporal coincident objects. They argue that there are coincident objects that share all physical and spatiotemporal properties and relations; nevertheless, they differ in terms of modal and some other profiles. Appealing to the grounding problem according to which nothing can ground the modal differences between coincident objects, monists reject the occurrence of coincident objects. In the first part of this paper, I attempt to show that the dispute between monists and pluralists cannot (...)
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  • Plenitude, Coincidence, and Humility.Maegan Fairchild - 2023 - Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1):59-77.
    Fairchild (2019) advertised the humility of material plenitude, arguing that despite the profligate ontology of coincident objects it entails, the best version of plenitude is one that takes no stand on a range of nearby questions about modality and coincidence. Roughly, the thought is that plenitude says only that there are coincident objects corresponding to every consistent pattern of essential and accidental properties. Plenitude says (or should say) nothing about which patterns those might be, and so should be compatible with (...)
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  • In defense of disjointism.Martin A. Lipman - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (9):3007-3030.
    Disjointism is the view that co-located objects do not share any parts. A human-shaped statue is composed from a torso, head and limbs; the co-located lumpof clay is only composed from chunks of clay. This essay discusses the tenability of this relatively neglected view, focusing on two objections. The first objection is that disjointism implies co-located copies of microphysical particles. I argue that it doesn’t imply this and that there are more plausible disjointist views of tiny parts available. The second (...)
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  • Towards a Hylomorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem.Kathrin Koslicki - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements to Philosophy 82:333-364.
    Concrete particular objects (e.g., living organisms) figure saliently in our everyday experience as well as our in our scientific theorizing about the world. A hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects holds that these entities are, in some sense, compounds of matter (hūlē) and form (morphē or eidos). The Grounding Problem asks why an object and its matter (e.g., a statue and the clay that constitutes it) can apparently differ with respect to certain of their properties (e.g., the clay’s ability to (...)
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  • Symmetry and Hybrid Contingentism.Maegan Fairchild - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious whether and (...)
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  • Egalitarian vs. Elitist Plenitude.Uriah Kriegel - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (10):3055-3070.
    A number of prominent metaphysicians have recently defended the idea of material plenitude: wherever there is one material object, there is in fact a great multitude of them, all coincident and sharing many properties, but differing in which of these properties they have essentially and which accidentally. The main goal of this paper is to put on the agenda an important theoretical decision that plenitudinists face, regarding whether their plenitude is egalitarian or elitist, depending on whether or not they take (...)
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  • The Role of Logic in Metaphysical Theorizing.Dana Goswick - 2022 - Metaphysica 23 (1):73-80.
    Most of the most prominent discussions within metaphysics assume without argument that our metaphysical theorizing should be constrained by classical logic. I examine why this is the case and then argue that it should not be. That is, I argue that we should not take our metaphysical theorizing to be constrained by classical logic.
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  • Everything but the kitchen sink: how (not) to give a plenitudinarian solution to the paradox of flexible origin essentialism.Teresa Robertson Ishii - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 179 (1):133-161.
    I explore options for a plenitudinarian solution to the Paradox of Flexible Origin Essentialism, taking as my unlikely starting point the views of Sarah-Jane Leslie, who holds that if plenitudinarianism is true, then there is in fact no paradox to be solved, only the illusion of one. The first three sections are expository: Sect. 1 on plenitudinarianism, Sect. 2 on the paradox, and Sect. 3 on Leslie’s views about how plenitudinarianism bears on the paradox. In Sect. 4, I reject the (...)
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  • Franz Brentano: An Invitation to Philosophy.Uriah Kriegel - manuscript
    If you’re a professional philosopher, you’ve probably heard of Brentano as the thinker who reintroduced the notion of intentionality into modern philosophy. If you’re not a professional philosopher, you’ve probably never heard of him. But Brentano’s philosophical work expands far beyond the theme of intentionality and constitutes in fact a complete philosophical system, with well worked out and strikingly original theories in every major area of philosophy. The purpose of this article is to provide a panoramic yet digestible overview of (...)
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  • Fregean Monism: A Solution to the Puzzle of Material Constitution.Soo Lam Wong - 2020 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 27 (4):504-521.
    The puzzle of material constitution can be expressed in at least two ways. First, how can the constituting object and the constituted object, which are materially and spatially coincident, be regarded as different objects? Second, how can the constituting object and the constituted object, which are qualitatively distinct, be regarded as identical objects? Monists argue that the constituting and constituted objects are identical since they are materially and spatially coincident and the property differences between then are simply differences in description, (...)
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  • Essence and Necessity.Andreas Ditter - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (3):653-690.
    What is the relation between metaphysical necessity and essence? This paper defends the view that the relation is one of identity: metaphysical necessity is a special case of essence. My argument consists in showing that the best joint theory of essence and metaphysical necessity is one in which metaphysical necessity is just a special case of essence. The argument is made against the backdrop of a novel, higher-order logic of essence, whose core features are introduced in the first part of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Mental fictionalism: a foothold amid deflationary collapse.Meg Wallace - 2022 - In Tamás Demeter, T. Parent & Adam Toon (eds.), Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations. New York & London: Routledge. pp. 275-300.
    This paper examines three meta-ontological deflationary approaches – frameworks, verbal disputes, and metalinguistic negotiation – and applies them to ontological debates in philosophy of mind. An intriguing consequence of this application is that it reveals a deep, systematic problem for mental deflationism – specifically, a problem of cognitive collapse. This is surprising; cognitive collapse problems are usually reserved for serious ontological views such as eliminative materialism and mental fictionalism, not deflationism. This paper investigates why deflationism about the mental is particularly (...)
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  • How to Be a Spacetime Substantivalist.Trevor Teitel - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (5):233-278.
    The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz's classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms (...)
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  • Plenitude and necessarily unmanifested dispositions.Jonas Werner - 2021 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (3):169-177.
    The principle of plenitude says that every material object coincides with abundantly many further objects that differ in their modal profiles. A necessarily unmanifested disposition is a disposition that necessarily does not manifest. This paper argues that if the principle of plenitude holds, then there are some necessarily unmanifested dispositions. These necessarily unmanifested dispositions will be argued to evade some objections against the cases of necessarily unmanifested dispositions put forward by Carrie Jenkins and Daniel Nolan.
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  • (1 other version)Making sense of the ‘is’ of constitution.Ezequiel Zerburdis - 2021 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 361 (1).
    I consider a problem that arises in connection with cases of coincident objects and that affects the two main accounts that have been given of such cases, namely, Pluralism and Monism. The problem is that both views seem committed to accepting strained interpretations of some of the statements used to describe the situation. I consider Pickel’s arguments against the Pluralist’s strategy of interpreting ‘is’ as expressing constitution in sentences such as ‘The statue is the lump of clay’, and provide reasons (...)
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  • A defence of the conceptualist solution to the “grounding problem” for coincident objects.Ezequiel Zerbudis - 2020 - Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso 16:41-60.
    I consider some of the objections that have been raised against a conceptualist solution to the “grounding problem”, I address in particular two objections that I call Conceptual Validity and Instantiation, and I attempt to answer them on behalf of the conceptualist. My response, in a nutshell, is that the first of these objections fails because it ascribes to the conceptualist some commitments that do not really follow from the view’s basic insight, while the second objection also fails because it (...)
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  • The concreteness of objects: an argument against mereological bundle theory.Uriah Kriegel - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):5107-5124.
    In a series of publications, L. A. Paul has defended a version of the bundle theory according to which material objects are nothing but mereological sums of ‘their’ properties. This ‘mereological’ bundle theory improves in important ways on earlier bundle theories, but here I present a new argument against it. The argument is roughly this: Material objects occupy space; even if properties have spatial characteristics, they do not quite occupy space; on no plausible construal of mereological composition does a mereological (...)
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  • Nominalism and Material Plenitude.Uriah Kriegel - 2021 - Res Philosophica 98 (1):89-112.
    The idea of “material plenitude” has been gaining traction in recent discussions of the metaphysics of material objects. My main goal here is to show that this idea may have important dialectical implications for the metaphysics of properties – more specifically, that it provides nominalists with new resources in their attempt to reject an ontology of universals. I will recapitulate one of the main arguments against nominalism – due to David Armstrong – and show how plenitude helps the nominalist overcome (...)
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  • Continuants, identity and essentialism.Nicholas Unwin - 2020 - Synthese 197 (8):3375-3394.
    The question of whether it is permissible to quantify into a modal context is re-examined from an empiricist perspective. Following Wiggins, it is argued that an ontology of continuants implies essentialism, but it is also argued, against Wiggins, that the only conception of necessity that we need to start out with is that of analyticity. Essentialism, of a limited kind, can then be actually generated from this. An exceptionally fine-grained identity criterion for continuants is defended in this context. The debate (...)
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  • Hylomorphism and Complex Properties.Graham Renz - 2020 - Metaphysica 21 (2):179-197.
    Hylomorphism is the Aristotelian theory according to which objects are composites of form and matter. Form is what unifies the various parts of an object – the matter – into a cohesive whole. Some contemporary hylomorphists argue their theory applies beyond the realm of concreta, and that it explains the unity of various abstract entities. Not everyone agrees. Recent criticism alleges that hylomorphism fails to explain the unity of certain abstract entities, namely, complex properties – properties with other properties as (...)
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  • Concepts, intentions and material objects. Some comments on Evnine’s proposal in making objects and events.Ezequiel Zerbudis - 2020 - Manuscrito 43 (1):73-114.
    In this paper I present and critically discuss Simon Evnine’s account of hylomorphically complex objects (as presented in his 2016 book Making Objects and Events). On the one hand, I object to the account he gives of how artifacts (which are for him the paradigmatic cases of hylomorphically complex objects) allegedly acquire their existence and identity conditions. I elaborate on two problems I see for this account: first, that it seems unable to explain our knowledge of the kinds to which (...)
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  • Grounding and the Myth of Ontological Innocence.Jonathan Barker - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):303-318.
    According to the Ontological Innocence Thesis (OIT), grounded entities are ontologically innocent relative to their full grounds. I argue that OIT entails a contradiction, and therefore must be discarded. My argument turns on the notion of “groundmates,” two or more numerically distinct entities that share at least one of their full grounds. I argue that, if OIT is true, then it is both the case that there are groundmates and that there are no groundmates. Therefore, so I conclude, OIT is (...)
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  • The limits of neo‐aristotelian plenitude.Joshua Spencer - 2019 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 101 (1):74-92.
    Neo‐Aristotelian Plenitude is the thesis that, necessarily, any property that could be had essentially by something or other is had essentially by something or other if and only if and because it is instantiated; any essentializable property is essentialized iff and because it is instantiated. In this paper, I develop a partial nonmodal characterization of ‘essentializable' and show it cannot be transformed into a full characterization. There are several seemingly insurmountable obstacles that any full characterization of essentializability must overcome. Moreover, (...)
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  • Why Ockham’s Razor should be preferred to the Laser.Dean Da Vee - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (12):3679-3694.
    Ockham’s Razor advises us to not multiply entities without necessity. Recently, Jonathan Schaffer and Karen Bennett have argued that we ought to replace Ockham’s Razor with the Laser, the principle that only advises us to not multiply fundamental entities without necessity. In this paper, I argue that Ockham’s Razor is preferable to the Laser. I begin by contending that the arguments offered for the Laser by Schaffer and Bennett are unpersuasive. Then I offer two cases of theory assessment that I (...)
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  • Strong Pluralism, Coincident Objects and Haecceitism.Karol Lenart & Artur Szachniewicz - 2020 - Axiomathes 30 (4):347-370.
    According to strong pluralism, objects distinct by virtue of their modal properties can coincide. The most common objection towards such view invokes the so-called Grounding Problem according to which the strong pluralist needs to explain what the grounds are for supposed modal differences between the coincidents. As recognized in the literature, the failure to provide an answer to the Grounding Problem critically undermines the plausibility of strong pluralism. Moreover, there are strong reasons to believe that strong pluralists cannot provide an (...)
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  • The Barest Flutter of the Smallest Leaf: Understanding Material Plenitude.Maegan Fairchild - 2019 - Philosophical Review 128 (2):143-178.
    According to material plenitude, every material object coincides with an abundance of other material objects that differ in the properties they have essentially and accidentally. Although this kind of plenitude is becoming increasingly popular, it isn't clear how to make sense of the view beyond its slogan form. As I argue, it turns out to be extraordinarily difficult to do so: straightforward attempts are either inconsistent or fail to capture the target idea. Making progress requires us to engage in more (...)
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  • Material Constitution.Daniel Z. Korman - 2019 - Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy.
    An annotated bibliography of important works on material constitution.
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  • Kind‐Dependent Grounding.Alex Moran - 2018 - Analytic Philosophy 59 (3):359-390.
    Are grounding claims fully general in character? If an object a is F in virtue of being G, does it follow that anything that’s G is F for that reason? According to the thesis of Weak Formality, the answer here is ‘yes’. In this paper, however, I argue that there is philosophical utility in rejecting this thesis. More exactly, I argue that two currently unresolved problems in contemporary metaphysics can be dealt with if we hold that there can be cases (...)
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  • Essence and modal knowledge.Boris Kment - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):1957-1979.
    During the last quarter of a century, a number of philosophers have become attracted to the idea that necessity can be analyzed in terms of a hyperintensional notion of essence. One challenge for proponents of this view is to give a plausible explanation of our modal knowledge. The goal of this paper is to develop a strategy for meeting this challenge. My approach rests on an account of modality that I developed in previous work, and which analyzes modal properties in (...)
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  • Unable to Do the Impossible.Anthony Nguyen - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):585-602.
    Jack Spencer has recently argued for the striking thesis that, possibly, an agent is able to do the impossible—that is, perform an action that is metaphysically impossible for that person to perform. Spencer bases his argument on (Simple G), a case in which it is impossible for an agent G to perform some action but, according to Spencer, G is still intuitively able to perform that action. I reply that we would have to give up at least four action-theoretical principles (...)
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  • Mereological Nominalism.Nikk Effingham - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (1):160-185.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
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  • How can we come to know metaphysical modal truths?Amie L. Thomasson - 2018 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):2077-2106.
    Those who aim to give an account of modal knowledge face two challenges: the integration challenge of reconciling an account of what is involved in knowing modal truths with a plausible story about how we can come to know them, and the reliability challenge of giving a plausible account of how we could have evolved a reliable capacity to acquire modal knowledge. I argue that recent counterfactual and dispositional accounts of modal knowledge cannot solve these problems regarding specifically metaphysical modal (...)
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  • Social Ontology.Brian Epstein - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Social ontology is the study of the nature and properties of the social world. It is concerned with analyzing the various entities in the world that arise from social interaction. -/- A prominent topic in social ontology is the analysis of social groups. Do social groups exist at all? If so, what sorts of entities are they, and how are they created? Is a social group distinct from the collection of people who are its members, and if so, how is (...)
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  • How to Solve the Puzzle of Dion and Theon Without Losing Your Head.Chad Carmichael - 2020 - Mind 129 (513):205-224.
    The ancient puzzle of Dion and Theon has given rise to a surprising array of apparently implausible views. For example, in order to solve the puzzle, several philosophers have been led to deny the existence of their own feet, others have denied that objects can gain and lose parts, and large numbers of philosophers have embraced the thesis that distinct objects can occupy the same space, having all their material parts in common. In this paper, I argue for an alternative (...)
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