Debate between Humean contingentists and anti-Humean necessitarians in the philosophy of science is ongoing. One of the most important contemporary anti-Humeans is Alexander Bird. Bird calls the particular version of Humeanism he is opposed to 'categoricalism'. In his paper (2005) and in Chapter 4 of his book (2007) Bird argues against categoricalism about properties and laws. His arguments against categoricalism about properties are intended to support the necessitarian position he calls dispositional monism. His arguments against categoricalism about laws are intended (...) to refute the contingent regularity view of laws (even in its sophisticated Lewisean version) and the nomic necessitation view of Armstrong (which involves a contingent necessitation relation). The general position Bird defends is that properties are necessarily related to the dispositions they bestow on their bearers and laws are necessary truths. I consider two of Bird's arguments against categoricalism about properties, and one of his arguments against the regularity view of laws. Maybe other arguments against categoricalism are persuasive. These, I submit, are not. (shrink)

The most basic divide amongst analytic metaphysicians separates realists from anti-realists. By examining certain characteristic and problematic features of these two families of views, we uncover their underlying metametaphysicalorientations, which turn out to coincide. This shared philosophical picture that underlies both the realist and the anti-realist project we call the Modern Picture. It rests on a crucial distinction between reality as it is for us and reality as it is in itself. It is argued that this distinction indeed generates the (...) realism/anti-realism dichotomy, and is also responsible for the problematic aspects highlighted earlier. We conclude by sketching an alternative philosophical picture that rejects the distinction between reality as it is for us and reality as it is in itself, which we call the Aristotelian Picture, and consider whether it is able to avoid the issues to which the Modern Picture gives rise. (shrink)

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 (...) of ‘kind-dependent grounding’, the key thought being that once we allow for such cases, we must also accept that Weak Formality is false. (shrink)

Philosophers who accept tropes generally agree that tropes act as the objects of reference of nominalizations of adjectives, such as 'Socrates’ wisdom' or 'the beauty of the landscape'. This paper argues that tropes play a further important role in the semantics of natural language, namely in the semantics of bare demonstratives like 'this' and 'that' in what in linguistics is called identificational sentences.

Anyone who admits the existence of composite objects allows a certain kind of coincidence, coincidence of a thing with its parts. I argue here that a similar sort of coincidence, coincidence of a thing with the stuff that constitutes it, should be equally acceptable. Acknowledgement of this is enough to solve the traditional problem of the coincidence of a statue and the clay or bronze it is made of. In support of this, I offer some principles for the persistence of (...) stuff that are general, not relying on the particular features of a kind of stuff in the way that principles for the persistence for a thing would. This provides a non-arbitrary grounding for stuff that is independent of the conditions on the nature and persistence of things the stuff composes. The principles also provide a general basis for responding to other questions about coincident stuff. (shrink)

This article discusses recent work in metaphysics on temporal parts. After a short introduction introducing the notion of a temporal part, we examine several well‐known arguments for the view that ordinary material objects such as tables, trees, and persons have temporal parts: (1) positing temporal parts makes it possible to solve puzzles of coincidence (e.g., the statue/lump puzzle); (2) positing temporal parts makes it possible to solve the problem of intrinsic change over time; and (3) the existence of temporal parts (...) can be demonstrated based on considerations about vagueness in composition. We conclude by examining briefly a recent argument that the dispute over whether there are temporal parts is merely verbal. (shrink)

Category mistakes are sentences such as ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ or ‘The theory of relativity is eating breakfast’. Such sentences are highly anomalous, and this has led a large number of linguists and philosophers to conclude that they are meaningless (call this ‘the meaninglessness view’). In this paper I argue that the meaninglessness view is incorrect and category mistakes are meaningful. I provide four arguments against the meaninglessness view: in Sect. 2, an argument concerning compositionality with respect to category (...) mistakes; in Sect. 3 an argument concerning synonymy facts of category mistakes; in Sect. 4 concerning embeddings of category mistakes in propositional attitude ascriptions; and in Sect. 5 concerning the uses of category mistakes in metaphors. Having presented these arguments, in Sect. 6 I briefly discuss some of the positive motivations for accepting the meaninglessness view and argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude that the meaninglessness view ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Category mistakes are sentences such as ”The number two is blue’ or ”Green ideas sleep furiously’. Such sentences are highly infelicitous and thus a prominent view claims that they are meaningless. Category mistakes are also highly prevalent in figurative language. That is to say, it is very common for sentences which are used figuratively to be such that, if taken literally, they would constitute category mistakes. In this paper I argue that the view that category mistakes are meaningless is inconsistent (...) with many central and otherwise plausible theories of figurative language. Thus if the meaninglessness view is correct, the theories in question must each be rejected, and conversely, if any of the theories in question is correct, the meaninglessness view must be wrong. The debates concerning the semantics of figurative language and concerning the semantic status of category mistakes are closely connected. (shrink)

Leibniz’s Law (or as it sometimes called, ‘the Indiscerniblity of Identicals’) is a widely accepted principle governing the notion of numerical identity. The principle states that if a is identical to b, then any property had by a is also had by b. Leibniz’s Law may seem like a trivial principle, but its apparent consequences are far from trivial. The law has been utilised in a wide range of arguments in metaphysics, many leading to substantive and controversial conclusions. This article (...) discusses the applications of Leibniz’s Law to arguments in metaphysics. It begins by presenting a variety of central arguments in metaphysics which appeal to the law. The article then proceeds to discuss a range of strategies that can be drawn upon in resisting an argument by Leibniz’s Law. These strategies divide into three categories: (i) denying Leibniz’s Law; (ii) denying that the argument in question involves a genuine application of the law; and (iii) denying that the argument’s premises are true. Strategies falling under each of these three categories are discussed in turn. (shrink)

It seems plausible to say that what changes an entity can or cannot survive depends on its persistence conditions, and that these depend, in turn, on its sortal kind. It might seem to follow that an entity cannot belong to two sortal kinds with potentially conflicting persistence conditions. Notoriously, though, this conclusion is denied by ‘contingent identity’ theorists, who hold, for example, that a permanently coincident statue and piece of clay are identical, although the persistence conditions associated with the kinds (...) statue and piece of clay are potentially conflicting. A clash with Leibniz’s Law is avoided by treating modal predicates as what Harold Noonan has called ‘Abelardian predicates’, as in the version of ‘inconstant’ counterpart theory developed by David Lewis. In addition to other difficulties, however, there is a question whether this ‘Abelardian’ theory does justice to the intuitions expressed in such statements as that the piece of clay could, while the statue could not, have survived a radical reshaping of its matter. I present an argument, which I call ‘the vacuous satisfaction argument’, for the conclusion that the theory does indeed fail to capture the significance of such de re modal statements. (shrink)

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 (...) explanation of the Grounding Problem. In this paper, we argue that strong pluralism can be motivated independently of the successful answer to the Grounding Problem. In order to achieve that aim, we provide a haecceitistic interpretation of strong pluralism according to which strong pluralism should be read as a position committed to the existence of primitive individuals, i.e., the individuals that have their criteria of individuation independently of their qualitative profiles. That said, we do not aim at defending haecceitism. Instead, our aim is rather modest: we want to provide a new way for the strong pluralist to supplement his view to make it more watertight. (shrink)

A number of prominent metaphysicians have recently defended a set of ideas which I will call ‘essentialist plenitude.’ Very roughly, and to a first approximation, essentialist plenitude says that wherever there is an object with properties P1, …, Pn there is in fact a plenitude of coincident objects that differ only in the distribution of essentiality and accidentality across P1, …, Pn (§1). The main purpose of this paper is to arouse the suspicion that essentialist plenitude may have far-reaching consequences (...) for the semantics of proper names. More specifically, I will argue that neither descriptivist nor causal theories of proper names work in a plenitude setting (§2). I will close by suggesting that our use of proper names may be thoroughly infected by semantic indecision about which among many coincident objects is referred to (§3). (shrink)

This paper provides a detailed examination of Kit Fine’s sizeable contribution to the development of a neo‐Aristotelian alternative to standard mereology; I focus especially on the theory of ‘rigid’ and ‘variable embodiments’, as defended in Fine 1999. Section 2 briefly describes the system I call ‘standard mereology’. Section 3 lays out some of the main principles and consequences of Aristotle’s own mereology, in order to be able to compare Fine’s system with its historical precursor. Section 4 gives an exposition of (...) Fine’s theory of embodiments and goes on to isolate a number of potential concerns to which this account gives rise. In particular, I argue that Fine’s theory threatens to proliferate primitive sui generis relations of parthood and composition, whose characteristics must be stipulatively imposed on them, relative to particular domains; given its ‘superabundance’ of objects, Fine’s system far outstrips the already inflated ontological commitments of standard mereology; and there is a legitimate question as to why we should consider Fine’s primitive and sui generis relations of parthood and composition to be genuinely mereological at all, given their formal profile. These three objections lead me to conclude that we ought to explore other avenues that preserve the highly desirable, hylomorphic, features of Fine’s mereology, while avoiding its methodological and ontological excesses. (shrink)

Assume that the only thing before you is a statue made of some alloy. Call those who think that there is one thing before you in such a case monists. Call those who think there are at least two things before you in such a case pluralists. The most common arguments for pluralism run as follows. The statue is claimed to have some property P that the piece of alloy lacks (or vice versa), and hence it is concluded that they (...) are distinct. Most often, the predicates employed in such arguments to express the crucial property are predicates expressing ‘temporal properties’, such as existing at a certain time; or ‘modal properties’, such as possibly being spherical; or ‘constitution properties’, such as being made of a certain sort of material. In a recent paper, Kit Fine has noted that such predicates suffer from various defects that make it possible for the monist to plausibly resist the relevant versions of the pluralist's arguments. For this reason, Fine considers a number of predicates that do not suffer from these defects, and constructs new versions of the above argument using them. Fine argues that any attempt on the monist's part to resist his versions of the argument force the monist to adopt implausible positions in the philosophy of language. As against this, I argue that the monist has perfectly plausible responses to Fine's arguments that require the monist to adopt only quite reasonable positions in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Phenomenologists have no taste for desert landscapes. The early phenomenologists—Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Roman Ingarden—adopt stratified views of reality on which spiritual objects like artifacts and persons are distinct from their underlying matter. Call this view “pluralism.” After describing Scheler, Ingarden, and Husserl's pluralism about goods, literary artworks, and images, respectively, I reconstruct a phenomenological case for pluralism from Husserl's work and defend it against an objection. The phenomenological method reveals a special subset of objects' essential properties: modes of (...) givenness. On Husserl's view, there are necessary correlations between types of objects and the types of intentional acts through which they are given. Spiritual objects, unlike their matter, can only be given in acts belonging to the “personalistic attitude,” which has a motivational and expressive structure. My broader claim is that Husserl's phenomenology is a sophisticated metametaphysical view about the methodology of first‐order metaphysical inquiry. (shrink)

I know that I could have been where you are right now and that you could have been where I am right now, but that neither of us could have been turnips or natural numbers. This knowledge of metaphysical modality stands in need of explanation. I will offer an account based on our knowledge of the natures, or essencess, of things. I will argue that essences need not be viewed as metaphysically bizarre entities; that we can conceptualise and refer to (...) essences; and that we can gain knowledge of them. We can know about which properties are, and which properties are not, essential to a given entity. This knowledge of essence offers a route to knowledge of the ways those entities must be or could be. (shrink)

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

This article discusses two puzzles regarding identity questions: (i) certain definites cannot occur in the post-copular position of identity questions; and (ii) the same definites are the only possible answers to identity questions with post-copular names. We demonstrate that the range of these definites crucially depends on interlocutors' shared assumptions about how entities in the physical surroundings are perceived and categorized. We propose that these definites are directly referential in the sense of Kaplan (1989a,b), and only contribute the referent itself (...) to the semantic composition. To explain the asymmetry between perceptually grounded descriptions and proper names, we draw on Gupta's (1980) framework of relative identity. This analysis suggests that direct reference is not always determined lexically, but is—at least in part—a pragmatic phenomenon. More generally, this phenomenon shows that natural language is sensitive to the source of information in the common ground. (shrink)

What kind of entity is a committee, a book group or a band? I argue that committees and other such social groups are concrete, composite particulars, having ordinary human beings amongst their parts. So the committee members are literally parts of the committee. This mereological view of social groups was popular several decades ago, but fell out of favour following influential objections from David-Hillel Ruben. But recent years have seen a tidal wave of work in metaphysics, including the metaphysics of (...) parts and wholes. We now have the resources to rehabilitate the mereological view of social groups. I show how this can be done, and why we should bother. (shrink)

Can institutional objects be identified with physical objects that have been ascribed status functions, as advocated by John Searle in The Construction of Social Reality (1995)? The paper argues that the prospects of this identification hinge on how objects persist – i.e., whether they endure, perdure or exdure through time. This important connection between reductive identification and mode of persistence has been largely ignored in the literature on social ontology thus far.

In Elder-Vass’s response to my it is maintained: that a social object is not identical with but is merely composed of its suitably interrelated parts; that a social object is necessarily indistinguishable in terms of its causal capacities from its interrelated parts; and that ontological individualism lacks an adequate ontological justification. In this reply, I argue that in view of the so-called redescription principle defended by Elder-Vass ought to be reformulated and renamed; that the conjunction of and renders social objects (...) causally redundant; and that ontological individualism can be coherently formulated and theoretically justified within Elder-Vass’s own metaphysics of objects with causal powers. (shrink)

The view that ordinary objects are composites of form and matter ("hylomorphism") can be contrasted with the more common view that ordinary objects are composed of only material parts ("matter only"). On a matter-only view the hard question is modal: which modal profile does that (statue-shaped) object have? Does it have the modal profile of a statue, a lump, a mere aggregate? On a hylomorphic view the hard question is ontological: which objects exist? Does a statue (matter-m + statue-form), a (...) lump (matter-m + lump-form), and/or a mere aggregate (matter-m + mere aggregate-form) exist? I defend a novel answer to the hard question for hylomorphism. In particular, I argue that which ordinary objects exist depends, in part, on how subjects respond to the matter they encounter. I argue that, with regard to grounding the existence and modal properties of ordinary objects, response-dependent hylomorphism is superior to both matter only views and to non-response-dependent versions of hylomorphism. (shrink)

This paper aims to make headway on two related issues—one methodological, the other substantive. The former concerns cost–benefit analyses when applied to metaphysical theory choice. The latter concerns material coincidence, i.e., multiple objects occupying the same space at the same time, such as the statue and the clay from which it’s made. The issues are entwined as many reject coincidence on the grounds that it’s costly. I argue this judgment is unjustified. More generally, I set out and defend a framework (...) for the use of cost–benefit analyses in metaphysics. The framework employs a fourfold division of pretheoretical costs and benefits, and theoretical costs and benefits. Yet these do not hold equal weight. Instead I argue that the appeal to theoretical benefits is illegitimate if the theory in question cannot first account for the relevant evidence or data, including, crucially, certain bits of pretheoretical or common knowledge. This is crucial because I not only argue that material coincidence is consistent with common sense, against what is widely believed, but that coincidence may even be a feature or implication of the common sense view. Put together, the result is that accepting an anti-coincidence theory for its putative theoretical virtues at the expense of common sense is an improper usage of the cost–benefit methodology. I instead conclude that material coincidence should be accepted with equanimity—which, after all, is free. (shrink)

On the grounds that there are no mereological composites, mereological nihilists deny that ordinary objects exist. Even if nihilism is true, however, I argue that tables and chairs exist anyway: for I deny that ordinary objects are the mereological sums the nihilist rejects. Instead, I argue, ordinary objects have a different nature; they are arrangements, not composites. My argument runs as follows. First, I defend realism about ordinary objects by showing that there is something that plays the role of ordinary (...) objects in perception and discourse, and that ordinary objects are whatever plays this role. Next, I argue that it is arrangements that play this role. It follows that ordinary objects exist- even if mereological nihilism is true. (shrink)

Kim's exclusion argument threatens to show that irreducible constituted objects are epiphenomenal. Kim's arguments are examined and found to be unconvincing; that a constituted cause requires its constituent to be a cause is not an adequate reason to reject the causation of the constituted object (event or property-instance). However, I introduce and argue for, the Causal Power Uniqueness Condition (CPUC). I argue that CPUC and the causal closure of the physical, implies that constituted objects or property-instances are not novel causal (...) powers. (shrink)

For years philosophers argued for the existence of distinct yet materially coincident things by appealing to modal and temporal properties. For instance, the statue was made on Monday and could not survive being flattened; the lump of clay was made months before and can survive flattening. Such arguments have been thoroughly examined. Kit Fine has proposed a new set of arguments using the same template. I offer a critical evaluation of what I take to be his central lines of reasoning.

Content externalism is the dominant view in the philosophy of mind. Content essentialism, the thesis that thought tokens have their contents essentially, is also popular. And many externalists are supporters of such essentialism. However, endorsing the conjunction of those views either (i) commits one to a counterintuitive view of the underlying physical nature of thought tokens or (ii) commits one to a slightly different but still counterintuitive view of the relation of thought tokens to physical tokens as well as a (...) rejection of realist physicalism. In this essay I reveal the problem and articulate and adjudicate among the possible solutions. I will end up rejecting content essentialism. (shrink)

I apply the theory of embodiment to various questions concerning the identity of social groups.

How can a statue and a piece of alloy be coincident at any time at which they exist and yet differ in their modal properties? I argue that this question demands an answer and that the only plausible answer is one that posits a difference in the form of the two objects.

I defend my paper ‘The Non-identity of a Material Thing and Its Matter’ against objections from Bryan Frances and Jeffrey King.

This paper presents a systematic approach for analyzing and explaining the nature of social groups. I argue against prominent views that attempt to unify all social groups or to divide them into simple typologies. Instead I argue that social groups are enormously diverse, but show how we can investigate their natures nonetheless. I analyze social groups from a bottom-up perspective, constructing profiles of the metaphysical features of groups of specific kinds. We can characterize any given kind of social group with (...) four complementary profiles: its “construction” profile, its “extra essentials” profile, its “anchor” profile, and its “accident” profile. Together these provide a framework for understanding the nature of groups, help classify and categorize groups, and shed light on group agency. (shrink)

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 (...) that ontological individualism is false. Only if the thesis is weakened to the point that it is equivalent to physicalism can it be true, but then it fails to be a thesis about the determination of social facts by facts about individual persons. Even when individualistic facts are expanded to include people’s local environments and practices, I shall argue, those still underdetermine the social facts that obtain. If true, this has implications for explanation as well as ontology. I first consider arguments against the local supervenience of social facts on facts about individuals, correcting some flaws in existing arguments and affirming that local supervenience fails for a broad set of social properties. I subsequently apply a similar approach to defeat a particularly weak form of global supervenience, and consider potential responses. Finally, I explore why it is that people have taken ontological individualism to be true. (shrink)

This paper defends a conceptualist answer to the question how objects come by their modal properties. It isolates the controversial metaphysical assumptions that are needed to get ontological conceptualism off the ground, outlines the conceptualist answer to the question and shows that conceptualism is not in as bad a shape as some critics have maintained.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

The notion of multiple location plays an important role in the characterization of endurantism. Several authors have recently offered cases intended to demonstrate the incoherence of multiple location. I argue that these cases do not succeed in making multiple location problematic. Along the way, several crucial issues about multiple location and its use by endurantists are clarified.

Composition as Identity is the view that an object is identical to its parts taken collectively. I elaborate and defend a theory based on this idea: composition is a kind of identity. Since this claim is best presented within a plural logic, I develop a formal system of plural logic. The principles of this system differ from the standard views on plural logic because one of my central claims is that identity is a relation which comes in a variety of (...) forms and only one of them obeys substitution unrestrictedly. I justify this departure from orthodoxy by showing some problems which result from attempts to avoid inconsistencies within plural logic by means of postulating other non-singular terms besides plural terms. Thereby, some of the main criticisms raised against Composition as Identity can be addressed. Further, I argue that the way objects are arranged is relevant with respect to the question which object they compose, i.e. to which object they are identical to. This helps to meet a second group of arguments against Composition as Identity. These arguments aim to show that identifying composite objects on the basis of the identity of their parts entails, contrary to our common sense view, that rearranging the parts of a composite object does not leave us with a different object. Moreover, it allows us to carve out the intensional aspects of Composition as Identity and to defend mereological universalism, the claim that any objects compose some object. Much of the pressure put on the latter view can be avoided by distinguishing the question whether some objects compose an object from the question what object they compose. Eventually, I conclude that Composition as Identity is a coherent and plausible position, as long as we take identity to be a more complex relation than commonly assumed. (shrink)

This thesis argues that the aesthetic character of some conceptual works of art can be determined by the possession of essential aesthetic properties. By discussing Peter Lamarque’s account of individual aesthetic essentialism one can suggest that conceptual works can be aesthetically investigated. Chapter I introduces the concept of the aesthetic and discusses Frank Sibley’s account of aesthetic concepts. Chapter II analyses in detail Sibley’s two fold relational character of aesthetic properties. Chapter III introduces Lamarque’s concept of aesthetic properties and it (...) also insists on a distinction between artistic and aesthetic properties. Chapter IV introduces a general account of essentialism and then discusses Lamarque’s new object theory. Chapter V investigates Lamarque’s weaker version of individual aesthetic essentialism and analyses the distinction between essential and inessential aesthetic properties. Finally, Chapter VI considers the aesthetics of conceptual art and argues that some conceptual pieces have essential aesthetic properties. The philosophical discussions are supported by appeal to many different works of art, from traditional works to contemporary works. I conclude that all conceptual works have aesthetic properties but mostly there are inessential properties. My suggestion at the end of this thesis is more radical. A close analysis identified essential aesthetic properties in some conceptual works of art and this contribute to the aesthetic character and value of these works. (shrink)

‘Fusion’ is a philosophical term of art, with a variety of uses. First, it is often a synonym for ‘sum’. In this sense, a is a fusion of b, c and d iff b, c and d are parts of a, and every part of a shares a part with b, c or d. So a cat is a fusion of the cells which compose it, and the same cat is a fusion of the molecules which compose it. Relatedly, ‘fusion’ (...) can refer to the occurrence of such composition: philosophers disagree about whether fusion is widespread, about whether it can be a vague matter, and so on. (shrink)

I examine the debate between reductive and non-reductive physicalists, and conclude that if we are to be physicalists, then we should be reductive physicalists. I assess how both reductionists and non-reductionists try to solve the mind-body problem and the problem of mental causation. I focus on the problem of mental causation as it is supposed to be faced by non-reductionism: the so-called overdetermination problem. I argue that the traditional articulation of that problem is significantly flawed, and I show how to (...) articulate it properly: what I call the ‘super-overdetermination problem’. In doing so, I demonstrate that the problem of mental causation faced by non-reductionism is in fact a special case of the mind-body problem, as faced by non-reductionism, and that the former can’t be solved independently of the latter. I then assess the prospects for a particular family of non-reductive views that I call immanentism, and show that they fail to solve the super-overdetermination problem. Finally, I put forward two arguments to support the conclusion that physicalism entails reductionism. Both arguments establish, via distinct reasoning, the proposition that mental property instances are identical to physical property instances; and then each argument employs the inference, which I also defend, that if mental instances are physical instances, then mental properties are physical properties; hence, reductionism follows. (shrink)