Coincidence and Principles of Composition

Levey, Samuel

doi:10.1093/analys/57.1.1

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…19 Rea (1997b) presents and then attacks a supervenience argument. See also Levey (1997). 20 By 'current properties' I mean non-modal properties intrinsic to the current moment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Moyer

2006

Synthese

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Puzzles about persistence and change through time, i.e., about identity across time, have foundered on confusion about what it is for 'two things' to be have 'the same thing' at a time. This is most directly seen in the dispute over whether material objects can occupy exactly the same place at the same time. This paper defends the possibility of such coincidence against several arguments to the contrary. Distinguishing a temporally relative from an absolute sense of 'the same', we see that the intuition, 'this is only one thing', and the dictum, 'two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time', are individuating things at a time rather than absolutely and are therefore compatible with coincidence. Several other objections philosophers have raised ride on this same ambiguity.Burke, originating what has become the most popular objection to coincidence, argues that if coincidence is possible there would be no explanation of how objects that are qualitatively the same at a time could belong to different sorts. But we can explain an object's sort by appealing to its properties at other times. Burke's argument to the contrary equivocates on different notions of 'cross-time identity' and 'the statue'. From a largely negative series of arguments emerges a positive picture of what it means to say multiple things coincide and of why an object's historical properties explain its sort rather than vice versa -in short, of how coincidence is possible. Synthese (2006) 148: 401-423

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“…19 Rea (1997b) presents and then attacks a supervenience argument. See also Levey (1997). 20 By 'current properties' I mean non-modal properties intrinsic to the current moment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Moyer

2006

Synthese

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“…In order to explain how two things, like a statue and a lump of clay, can coincide without being identical, some three-dimensionalists have argued that objects can be distinguished merely by their principle of composition (e.g. Levey (1997)), or by their persistence conditions or modal properties (e.g. Lowe (1995), Wiggins (1980)).…”

Section: The Argument From Vaguenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theodore Sider. Four‐Dimensionalism. Oxford University Press 2001. ISBN 0 19 924443 X, hardback; ISBN 0 19 926352 3, Paperback.

Hawley

2006

Nous

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“…What that account helps render vivid is that groups Sheehy / Synchronic Identity of Social Groups 135 10. Levey (1997) appeals to the notion of a principle of composition to explain how different kinds of objects can share all of the same parts. It is important to note that Levey defends the possibility of coincident objects while rejecting the standard account.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sheehy

2006

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

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Taking ontological realism about social groups as the thesis that groups are composite material objects constituted by their members, this paper considers a challenge to the very possibility that groups be regarded as material entities. Ordinarily we believe that two groups can have synchronic co-extensive memberships—for example, the choir and the rugby team—while preserving their distinctive identity conditions. We also doubt that two objects of the same kind can be in the same place at the same time, which would appear to be the case when groups have identical memberships. I explain that the principle denying the synchronic co-location of objects of the same kind need not apply universally to material objects and that it is a mistake to take resistance to penetrability as a necessary feature of materiality. Therefore, initial appearances notwithstanding, groups can be in the same place at the same time.

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Coincidence and Principles of Composition

Cited by 14 publications

References 7 publications

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Statues and Lumps: A Strange Coincidence?

Theodore Sider. Four‐Dimensionalism. Oxford University Press 2001. ISBN 0 19 924443 X, hardback; ISBN 0 19 926352 3, Paperback.

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