## 1. The Positions


### 1.1 Conservatism



We find ourselves naturally inclined to make certain judgments about
which objects are before us in various situations. Looking at a pool
table just before the break, we are naturally inclined to judge there
to be sixteen pool balls on the table, perhaps various parts of the
individual balls (their top and bottom halves), and no other
macroscopic objects. Looking at my nightstand, I am naturally inclined
to judge there to be an alarm clock, a lamp, their various parts
(lampshade, buttons, cords), and nothing else.



Conservative views are those according to which these sorts of
judgments are by and large correct. Giving a precise characterization
of conservatism, or of ordinary objects, is no easy task. Very
roughly, ordinary objects are objects belonging to kinds that we are
naturally inclined to regard as having instances on the basis of our
perceptual experiences: *dog*, *tree*, *table*,
and so forth. Extraordinary objects, by contrast, are macroscopic
objects belonging to kinds that we are not ordinarily inclined to
regard as having instances. (More on these in
 SS1.3.)
 And conservatism is roughly the view that there are just the ordinary
objects and none of the extraordinary
 objects.[1]



Revisionary views about which objects there are are those that depart
in one way or another from conservatism. These include both
eliminative views, on which there are fewer ordinary objects than are
recognized by conservatives, and permissive views, on which there are
extraordinary objects that conservatives do not recognize. There is,
however, some controversy about whether these departures from
conservatism actually deserve to be called 'revisionary'.
As we shall see in
 SS3.1,
 many eliminativists and permissivists take their views to be entirely
compatible with common sense and ordinary belief.



Our target question--namely, which macroscopic objects
exist--may be distinguished from related but independent
questions concerning the *nature* of ordinary objects. Some
views about the natures of objects may seem to be at odds with common
sense, for instance, the view that ordinary objects can't
survive the loss of any of their parts, or that ordinary objects are
all mind-dependent. But these views are entirely compatible with
conservatism, as characterized above, because they do not (or at least
need not) have any revisionary implications regarding *which*
objects there are at a given place and time. That said, questions
about the nature of ordinary objects are intimately connected with
questions about which objects exist, insofar as certain views about
the nature of these objects (including those just mentioned) provide
the resources for addressing some of the puzzles and arguments that
motivate revisionary conceptions.



A few terminological preliminaries. 'Object' is used in
its narrow sense, which applies only to individual material objects
and not to other sorts of entities like numbers or events.
'Part' is used in its ordinary sense, on which it is not
true--or at least not trivially true--that things are parts
of themselves. And when the entry notes that some objects compose
something, or that they have a fusion, what is meant is that there is
something that has each of them as parts and every part of which
overlaps at least one of them. The entry avoids the word
'sum', but newcomers to this literature should bear in
mind that it gets used in different ways: 'sum of x and y'
is sometimes used to mean *object that is composed of x and y*
and is other times used to mean *object that is composed of x and y
and that has all of its parts
 essentially*.[2]


### 1.2. Eliminativism



Eliminative views are those that deny the existence of some wide range
of ordinary objects. (Denying merely that ordinary objects are
fundamental is not by itself enough to qualify as an eliminativist;
see
 SS4
 below.)



Some eliminativists accept nihilism, the thesis that no objects ever
compose anything. In other words, every object is mereologically
simple (i.e., partless). Together with the plausible assumption that
ordinary objects (if they exist) are all composite objects, nihilism
entails that there are no ordinary objects. Nihilists typically accept
that there are countless microscopic objects: although there are
"simples arranged dogwise" and "simples arranged
statuewise", there are no dogs or statues. But nihilism is also
compatible with existence monism--the thesis that there is a
single, all-encompassing simple (the cosmos, a.k.a. "the
blobject")--as well as the extreme nihilist thesis that
there are no objects
 whatsoever.[3]



Since many of the arguments for eliminativism actually fall short of
establishing that composition never occurs, it is also open to
eliminativists to reject nihilism and accept certain classes of
composites. Many eliminativists make an exception for persons and
other organisms. Some, for instance, accept organicism, the thesis
that some objects compose something just in case the activities of
those objects constitute a life. In other words, organisms are the
only composite
 objects.[4]



The motivations for making an exception for organisms vary. Van
Inwagen (1990: Ch. 12) accepts organicism on the grounds that it
yields the best answer to the special composition question
("under what conditions do some objects compose
something?"), one that allows for one's own existence and
physicality, while at the same time escaping various problems that
arise for competing answers. Merricks (2001: Ch. 4) argues that
persons and some other composites must be recognized on account of
their nonredundant causal powers. Making such exceptions naturally
gives rise to concerns about the stability of the resulting positions,
either because the reasoning behind allowing the exceptions threatens
to generalize to all ordinary objects or because the arguments for
eliminating ordinary objects threaten to generalize to the objects one
wishes to
 permit.[5]



It is also open to eliminativists to adopt non-nihilistic views that
are fairly liberal about composition, allowing that composition occurs
at least as often as we ordinarily suppose (if not more so). Peter
Unger is one such non-nihilistic eliminativist:



> 
> There is nothing in these arguments [for eliminativism] to deny the
> idea, common enough, that there are physical objects with a diameter
> greater than four feet and less than five. Indeed, the exhibited
> [arguments] allow us still to maintain that there are physical objects
> of a variety of shapes and sizes, and with various particular spatial
> relations and velocities with respect to each other. It is simply that
> no such objects will be ordinary things; none are stones or planets or
> pieces of furniture. (1979b: 150)
> 



While Unger does use the label 'nihilism' for his view, he
is not a nihilist in our sense because he affirms that there is a
highly visible composite object occupying the exact location where we
take the table to be. He is, however, an eliminativist insofar as he
denies that that object is a
 table.[6]


### 1.3 Permissivism



Permissive views are those according to which there are wide swathes
of extraordinary objects.



Universalism is the permissivist thesis that composition is
unrestricted: for any objects, there is a single object that is
composed of those objects. What universalism does not tell us is which
*kinds* of objects there are. Whenever there are some atoms
arranged turkeywise, universalism entails that there is *some*
object that they compose. But it remains open to universalists (like
the aforementioned non-nihilistic eliminativists) to deny that this
composite is a turkey. However, assuming that there are such objects
as turkeys, trout, and their front and back halves, universalism will
entail that there are trout-turkeys, where a trout-turkey is a single
object composed of the undetached front half of a trout and the
undetached back half of a turkey. These are objects that have both
fins and feathers and whose finned parts may be a good distance from
their feathered
 parts.[7]



Diachronic universalism is the permissivist thesis that, for any times
and any function from those times to sets of objects that exist at
those times, there is an object that exists at just those times and
has exactly those parts at those times. Roughly: there is an object
corresponding to every filled region of spacetime. So, assuming that
your kitchen table and living room table both exist, there also exists
a klable: an object that's entirely made up of your kitchen
table every day from midnight till noon and is entirely made up of
your living room table from noon till midnight. This is an object
that, twice a day, instantly and imperceptibly shifts its
 location.[8]



Some accept even more plenitudinous forms of permissivism.
Formulations vary, but the rough idea is that, so long as the
empirical facts don't rule out there being an object with a
given modal property in a given location, then there is an object in
that location with that modal property. When there is a red car parked
in the garage, the empirical facts (e.g., that there is nothing blue
there) do rule out there being an object in the exact location of the
car that is necessarily blue. But they do not rule out there being an
object colocated with the car that is inside the garage as a matter of
metaphysical necessity (an "incar") and that would cease to exist if
the car were to leave the
 garage.[9]



One further way of being a permissivist is by permitting a multitude
of *parts* of ordinary objects that we do not naturally judge
them to have. For instance, one might hold that, in addition to
ordinary parts like arms and legs, you have extraordinary parts like
leg complements, where your left-leg complement is an object made up
of all of you except for your left leg. Together with some natural
assumptions (e.g., about regions of space), leg complements and a
legion of other extraordinary parts will be delivered by the doctrine
of arbitrary undetached parts--or DAUP--the thesis that for
any material object o, if r is the region of space occupied by o, and
if r' is an occupiable sub-region of r, then there exists a
material object that exactly occupies r' and which is part of o.
(Roughly: for every region of space within the boundaries of a given a
object, that object has a part that exactly fills that
 region.)[10]


## 2. Against Conservative Ontologies


### 2.1 Sorites Arguments



Sorites arguments proceed from a premise to the effect that minute
differences cannot make a difference with respect to whether some
property F (or kind K) is instantiated to the conclusion that nothing
(or everything) is F (or a K). Here is a sorites argument for the
elimination of stones:



(SR1)
Every stone is composed of a finite number of atoms.
(SR2)
It is impossible for something composed of fewer than two atoms to
be a stone.
(SR3)
For any number n, if it is impossible for an object composed of n
atoms to be a stone, then it is impossible for an object composed of
n+1 atoms to be a stone.
(SR4)
So, there are no stones.


Premises SR2 and SR3 together entail that, for any finite number of
atoms, nothing made up of that many atoms is a stone. But this,
together with SR1, entails that there are no
 stones.[11]




Similar arguments may be given for the elimination of individual
ordinary objects. One can construct a sorites series of contiguous
bits of matter, running from a bit of matter, mk, at the
peak of Kilimanjaro to a bit of matter, mp, in the
surrounding plains. From the sorites premise that a bit of matter
that's n inches along the path from mp to
mk is part of Kilimanjaro iff a bit of matter that's
n+1 inches along the path is part of Kilimanjaro (for any number n),
together with the fact that mp is not part of Kilimanjaro,
we reach the absurd conclusion that mk isn't part of
Kilimanjaro. So, by reductio, we may conclude that Kilimanjaro does
not
 exist.[12]




Why accept SR3? Imagine a series of cases, beginning with a case
involving a single atom and terminating with a case involving what
would seem to be a paradigm stone, where each case differs from the
preceding case only by the addition of a single atom. It seems highly
implausible that there should be adjacent cases in any such series
where there is a stone in one case but not in the other. Rejecting SR3
would look to commit one to just such a sharp cut-off.



But one can deny that SR3 is true without accepting that there is a
sharp transition from stones to non-stones in such series, that is,
without accepting that there is some specific object in the series
that definitely is a stone and whose successor definitely is not a
stone. For one may instead hold that there is a range of cases in
which it is vague whether the object in question is a
 stone.[13]




Here is an illustration of how that sort of strategy might go. Let S
be some object in the series that clearly seems to be a stone, let NS
be an object that clearly seems to be a non-stone, and let BS be an
object that seems to be a borderline case of being a stone. One might
suggest that 'stone' is vague as a result of there being a
range of candidate precise meanings (or
"precisifications") for the word 'stone',



(i)
 all of which apply to S,
 (ii)
 none of which apply to NS,
 (iii)
 some but not all of which apply to BS, and
 (iv)
 none of which is definitely the meaning of
'stone'.


'S is a stone' is true because S falls under all of these
precisifications of 'stone'. 'NS is a stone'
is false because NS doesn't fall under any of them. And
'BS is a stone' is neither true nor false because BS falls
under some but not all of the precisifications. And then SR3 itself
turns out to be false: on *every* precisification of
'stone', there is some object in the series such that it
but not its successor falls under that precisification. (This is
sometimes known as a "supervaluationist" account.)



Defenders of sorites arguments often complain that this line of
response still commits one to *some* "sharp status
transition", for instance, a sharp transition from a case in
which 'there is a stone' is true to a case in which it is
neither true nor
 false.[14]


### 2.2 The Argument from Vagueness



It is natural to suppose that objects sometimes do, and other times do
not, compose a further object. When a hammer head is firmly affixed to
a handle, they compose something, namely, a hammer. When they're
on opposite ends of the room, they don't compose anything. The
following argument--known as "the argument from
vagueness"--purports to show that this natural assumption
is mistaken.



(AV1)
If some pluralities of objects compose something and others do
not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for
composition.
(AV2)
Any such sorites series must contain either an exact cut-off or
borderline cases of composition.
(AV3)
There cannot be exact cut-offs in such sorites series.
(AV4)
There cannot be borderline cases of composition.
(AV5)
So, either every plurality of objects composes something or none
do.


If the argument is sound then either universalism or nihilism must be
correct, though which of them is correct would have to be decided on
independent
 grounds.[15]




A sorites series for composition is a series of cases running from a
case in which composition doesn't occur to a case in which
composition does occur, where adjacent cases are extremely similar in
all of the respects that one would ordinarily take to be relevant to
whether composition occurs (e.g., the spatial and causal relations
among the objects in question). Understood in this way, AV1 should be
unobjectionable. If it's true that the handle and head compose
something only once the hammer is assembled, then a moment-by-moment
series of cases running from the beginning to the end of the assembly
of the hammer would be just such a series. Premise AV2 looks trivial:
any such series obviously must contain *some* transition from
composition not occurring to composition occurring, and there either
will or won't be a determinate fact of the matter about where
exactly that transition occurs in any given series.



AV3 is plausible as well. If composition occurs in one case but not in
another, then surely there must be some explanation for why that is.
In other words, the facts about composition are not
"brute". Yet the sorts of differences that one finds among
adjacent cases in a sorites series for composition--for instance,
that the handle and head are a fraction of a centimeter closer
together in the one than in the other--can't plausibly
explain why composition occurs in one case but not in the
 other.[16]



Certain sorts of eliminativists are well positioned to resist AV3
without having to accept that compositional facts are brute. Suppose,
for instance, that one accepts a view on which conscious beings are
the only composite objects. Such eliminativists will deny that there
is a sorites series for composition running from the beginning to the
end of the assembly process, since they will deny that anything is
composed of the handle and head (or that there *are* a handle
and head) even at the end of the series. Every sorites series for
composition, by their lights, will have to run from a case involving a
conscious being to one that doesn't. And assuming that that
there can't be borderline cases of consciousness, every such
series will contain a sharp cut-off with respect to the presence of
the additional subject of consciousness. This, in turn, is poised to
explain why composition occurs in the one case but not the
 other.[17]




Why, though, should anyone accept AV4? On the face of it, it seems
just as clear that there can be borderline cases of composition (e.g.,
when the hammer head is just beginning to be affixed to the handle) as
it is that there can be borderline cases of redness and baldness. This
is not, however, "just another sorites," to be blocked in
whichever way one blocks the sorites arguments in SS2.1.
That's because questions about when composition occurs look to
be intimately bound up with questions about how many objects exist.
This suggests the following line of argument in defense of AV4, no
analogue of which is available for other sorts of sorites
 arguments.[18]



(AV6)
 If there can be borderline cases of composition, then it can be
indeterminate how many objects exist.
(AV7)
It cannot be indeterminate how many objects exist.
(AV4)
So, there cannot be borderline cases of composition.


To see the motivation for AV6, notice that if the handle and head do
compose something then there are three things: the handle, the head,
and a hammer. If they don't, then there are only two things: the
handle and head. And if it is vague whether they do, then it will be
vague whether there are two things or three. As for AV7, notice that
one can specify how many objects there are using what would seem to be
entirely precise vocabulary. For any finite number, one can produce a
"numerical sentence" saying that there are exactly that
many concrete objects. Here, for instance, is the numerical sentence
for two: '[?]x[?]y(x[?]y & Cx & Cy &
[?]z(Cz-(x=z [?] y=z)))'. (The restriction to
concreta ensures that numerical sentences aren't trivially false
simply on account of there being infinitely many numbers, sets, and so
forth.) And since these numerical sentences contain no vague
vocabulary, it would seem to follow that it cannot be indeterminate
how many objects there are.



AV6 can be resisted by denying that composition affects the number of
objects in the way suggested. For instance, one might contend that
even before the handle and head definitely come to compose something,
there exists an object--a
"proto-hammer"--located in the region that the two of
them jointly occupy. The proto-hammer definitely exists, but it is a
borderline case of composition: it is indeterminate whether the handle
and head compose the proto-hammer or whether they instead compose
nothing at all (in which case the proto-hammer has no
 parts).[19]



Alternatively, one might resist AV7 by pinning the vagueness on the
quantifiers in the numerical sentence. After all, what seems to be
vague is whether the handle and head are *everything* that
there is and whether *there is* *something* other than
the handle and head. But it is difficult to see how the quantifiers
can be vague and, in particular, how their vagueness could be
accounted for on the sort of standard, precisificational account of
vagueness discussed in
 SS2.1.[20]



### 2.3 Material Constitution



Ordinary objects are constituted by, or made up out of, aggregates of
matter. A gold ring is constituted by a certain piece of gold. Clay
statues are constituted by pieces of clay. We are naturally inclined
to regard the statue and the piece of clay as being one and the same
object, an object that simply belongs to multiple kinds
(*statue* and *piece of clay*).



The puzzles of material constitution put pressure on this natural
inclination. Here is one such puzzle. Let 'Athena' name a
certain clay statue and let 'Piece' name the piece of clay
that constitutes it. What is puzzling is that all of the following
seem true:



(MC1)
Athena exists and Piece exists.
(MC2)
If Athena exists and Piece exists, then Athena = Piece.
(MC3)
Athena has different properties from Piece.
(MC4)
If Athena has different properties from Piece, then Athena [?]
Piece.


The motivation behind MC2 is that Athena seemingly has exactly the
same location and exactly the same parts as Piece. So
'Athena' and 'Piece' are plausibly just
different names for the same thing. The motivation behind MC3 is that
Piece and Athena seem to have different modal properties: Piece is
able to survive being flattened and Athena isn't. MC4 follows
from the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals (a.k.a.
Leibniz's Law): [?]x[?]y(x=y - [?]P(Px iff
Py)). In other words, if x and y are identical, then they had better
have all the same properties. After all, if they are identical, then
there is only *one thing there* to have or lack any given
 property.[21]




The puzzles are sometimes taken to motivate eliminativism, since
eliminativists can simply deny MC1: there are no statues (and perhaps
no pieces of clay
 either).[22]




More often, however, the puzzles are taken to motivate constitutional
pluralism, the thesis that ordinary objects are typically, if not
always, distinct from the aggregates of matter that constitute them.
('Typically' because, in rare cases in which the ordinary
object and the aggregate come into existence at the same time and
cease to exist at the same time, some pluralists will take the
ordinary object to be identical to the aggregate.) Pluralists reject
MC2: clay statues are not identical to the pieces of clay that
constitute them. Pluralists may deny that having the same parts at a
given time suffices for identity, or they may instead deny that the
statue and the piece of clay have all of the same
 parts.[23]




One of the main problems facing the pluralist solution is the
grounding problem: the modal differences between Athena and Piece
(e.g., that the one but not the other can survive being flattened)
seem to stand in need of explanation and yet there seems to be no
further difference between them that is poised to explain, or ground,
these
 differences.[24]



Defenders of the pluralist response to these puzzles may, by similar
reasoning, be led to accept that, in special cases, two objects of the
same kind can coincide. Suppose, for instance, that we have a
fantastically big net (Thin) with very thin netting. We then roll it
up into a long rope, and we weave that rope into a smaller net (Thick)
with a thicker weave. Since the nets intuitively have different modal
properties--Thin, but not Thick, can survive the unraveling of
the thicker net--the same sort of reasoning that leads one to
reject MC2 underwrites an argument that the nets are not identical. In
other words, there are two exactly colocated objects, both of which
are
 nets.[25]



Constitutional monists, according to whom Athena is identical to
Piece, will deny MC3. There are various ways of developing the monist
response. First, one might insist that both Athena and Piece (which,
on this view, are identical) can survive flattening: upon flattening,
Athena ceases to be a statue, but does not cease to exist. We can call
those who opt for this approach 'phasalists', since they
take *being a statue* to be a temporary phase that Piece (i.e.,
Athena) is passing
 through.[26]



Alternatively, monists might deny that Piece (i.e., Athena) can
survive being flattened. When Piece is flattened, Piece ceases to
exist, at which point an entirely new piece of clay (composed of the
same atoms) comes into existence. This strategy is sometimes called
"the doctrine of dominant kinds", since the idea is that
when an object belongs to multiple kinds, the object has the
persistence conditions associated with whichever of the kinds
"dominates" the others. Because *statue* dominates
*piece*, Piece is a statue essentially, and therefore cannot
survive ceasing to be
 statue-shaped.[27]



Finally, monists might agree that Piece is able to survive being
flattened and that Athena is not able to survive being flattened, and
yet deny that Athena and Piece have different properties. How can that
be? On one version of this approach (often associated with counterpart
theory), the idea is that 'is able to survive being
flattened' is context-sensitive, expressing one property when
affixed to 'Athena' and another when affixed to
'Piece'. On another, the idea is that 'is able to
survive being flattened' does not express a property at all.
Either way, we do not end up with any one property that Piece has but
Athena
 lacks.[28]



### 2.4 Indeterminate Identity



A wooden ship is constructed and christened 'Theseus II'.
As planks come loose over the years, they are discarded and replaced.
After three hundred years, the last of the original planks is
replaced. Call the resulting ship 'the mended ship'. The
descendants of the original owners have been collecting the discarded
original planks, and--three hundred years after the
christening--they obtain the last of them and construct a ship
that is indistinguishable from the original. Call the resulting ship
'the reconstructed ship'. Which, if either, of these two
ships is identical to Theseus II? It is natural to suppose that there
is no fact of the matter: it is indeterminate which of the two ships
is Theseus II.



However, there arguably can never be indeterminate cases of
identity:



(ST1)
Suppose that it is indeterminate whether Theseus II = the mended
ship.
(ST2)
If so, then Theseus II has the property of being indeterminately
identical to the mended ship.
(ST3)
The mended ship does not have the property of being
indeterminately identical to the mended ship.
(ST4)
If Theseus II has this property and the mended ship lacks this
property, then Theseus II [?] the mended ship.
(ST5)
If Theseus II [?] the mended ship, then it isn't
indeterminate whether Theseus II = the mended ship.
(ST6)
So (by reductio), it isn't indeterminate whether Theseus II
= the mended ship.


ST2 relies on two seemingly innocuous inferences: (a) from its being
indeterminate whether Theseus II is identical to the mended ship to
Theseus II's being indeterminately identical to the mended ship
and (b) from there to Theseus II's having the property of being
indeterminately identical to the mended ship. ST3 seems trivial as
well: the mended ship is definitely self-identical, so it does not
itself have this property. ST4 looks to be an immediate consequence of
Leibniz's Law: if Theseus II and the mended ship differ with
respect to even one property, then they are distinct. ST5 is trivial:
if they're not identical, then it isn't indeterminate
whether they are
 identical.[29]




Eliminativists may go on to argue from ST6 to the conclusion that
there are no ships, as follows. If indeed it isn't indeterminate
whether Theseus II is the mended ship, then there would seem to be
five options:



(i)
Theseus II is identical only to the mended ship.
 (ii)
Theseus II is identical only to the reconstructed ship.
 (iii)
 Theseus II is identical both to the mended ship and to the
reconstructed ship.
 (iv)
Theseus II is neither ship; it has ceased to exist.
(v)
Theseus II never existed in the first place; there are no
ships.


Options (i) and (ii) seem intolerably arbitrary, since the mended ship
and reconstructed ship seem to have equal claim to being Theseus II.
Option (iii) is out as well. If Theseus II is identical to both ships,
then (by the transitivity of identity) they must be identical to one
another; but they cannot be identical because they have different
properties (e.g., the one but not the other is composed of the
original planks). Option (iv) is problematic as well. The history of
maintenance by itself would have sufficed for the persistence of
Theseus II; the preservation and reassembly of the original parts by
itself would likewise have sufficed for the persistence of Theseus II;
and here we have managed to secure both. As Parfit (1971: 5) would
say, "How could a double success be a failure?" Thus, we
get (v) from argument by elimination.
 Fitting.[30]



Some respond to the argument by maintaining that it is indeterminate
which of various objects 'Theseus II' picks out. If
that's right, then ST2 is arguably false. One cannot infer the
existence of an individual who is indeterminately identical to Sue
from the fact that it is indeterminate whether Sue (or rather Morgan)
is Harry's best friend. Analogously, one cannot infer the
existence of an individual that is indeterminately identical to the
mended ship from the fact that it is indeterminate whether Theseus II
is the mended
 ship.[31]




The prima facie problem with this response is that there do not seem
to be multiple objects such that it's indeterminate which one
'Theseus II' picks out. After all, when 'Theseus
II' was first introduced, there was only one ship around to
receive the name! One can address this problem by maintaining that,
despite appearances, two ships were present at the christening: one
that would later be composed of entirely different planks and another
that would later be reassembled from a pile of discarded planks. What
is indeterminate is which of these two temporarily colocated ships was
christened 'Theseus
 II'.[32]



Other responses are available. One might deny ST2 on the grounds that
there is no such property as the property of being indeterminately
identical to Theseus II. One might deny ST3, affirming that the mended
ship is indeterminately identical to the mended ship. One might deny
ST4 by denying that the distinctness of Theseus II and the mended ship
can be inferred from the fact that they do not share the indicated
property. Or one might embrace option (iv), on the (stage-theoretic)
grounds that the ship that existed at the time of the christening is
not identical to any ship that exists at any earlier or later time.
 [33]


### 2.5 Arbitrariness Arguments



Arguments from arbitrariness turn on the observation that there would
seem to be no ontologically significant difference between certain
ordinary and extraordinary objects, that is, no difference between
them that can account for why there would be things of the one kind
but not the other. Here is an example (drawn from Hawthorne 2006:
vii):



(AR1)
There are islands.
(AR2)
There is no ontologically significant difference between islands
and incars.
(AR3)
If there is no ontologically significant difference between
islands and incars, then: if there are islands then there are
incars.
(AR4)
So, there are incars.


The idea behind AR2 is that islands and incars (see
 SS1.3)
 would seem to be objects of broadly the same sort, namely, objects
that go out of existence simply by virtue of changing their
orientation with respect to some other thing (the water level in the
one case, the garage in the other), without their constitutive matter
undergoing any intrinsic change. The idea behind AR3 is that, if there
truly are islands but no incars, then this is something that would
seem to stand in need of explanation: there would have to be something
in virtue of which it's the case. To think otherwise would be to
take the facts about what exists to be arbitrary in a way that they
plausibly are not.



Similar arguments may be used to establish the existence of leg
complements (on the grounds that there's no ontologically
significant difference between them and legs) and trout-turkeys (on
the grounds that there's no ontologically significant difference
between them and scattered objects like solar
 systems).[34]




Eliminativists may of course resist the argument by denying
 AR1.[35]




The argument may also be resisted by denying AR2 and identifying some
ontologically significant difference between islands and incars. For
instance, a certain sort of anti-realist will say that which objects
there are is largely determined by which objects we take there to be.
Accordingly, the very fact that we take there to be islands but not
incars marks an ontologically significant difference between them.
Alternatively, one may attempt to identify an ontologically
significant difference between the ordinary and extraordinary objects
without endorsing anti-realism. In the case at hand, one might resist
AR2 by insisting that islands have importantly different persistence
conditions from incars. Incars are meant to cease to exist when their
matter ceases to be inside a garage. But islands, contra hypothesis,
do not cease to exist when they are completely submerged; they merely
cease to be
 islands.[36]



How about AR3? Part of why it seems arbitrary to countenance islands
but not incars is that one would seem to be privileging islands over
incars by virtue of taking them to exist. For this reason, proponents
of certain deflationary ontological views are well positioned to deny
AR3. Relativists, for instance, may maintain that islands exist and
incars do not exist--relative to our conceptual scheme, that is.
Relative to other, equally good schemes, incars exist and islands do
not. Quantifier variantists, who maintain that there are counterparts
of our quantifiers that are on a par with ours and that range over
things that do not exist--but rather exist\*--may maintain
that islands exist but do not exist\* while incars exist\* but do not
exist. On such views, islands and incars receive a uniform treatment
at bottom; islands are not getting any sort of "special
treatment" that cries out for
 explanation.[37]



### 2.6 Debunking Arguments



We encounter some atoms arranged treewise and some atoms arranged
dogwise, and we naturally take there to be a dog and a tree. But there
are different ways we might have carved up such a situation into
objects. Instead of taking there to be a tree there, we might instead
have taken there to be a trog: a partly furry, partly wooden object
composed of the dog and the tree-trunk.



Why, though, do we naturally take there to trees rather than trogs?
Plausibly, this is largely the result of various biological and
cultural contingencies. If so, then there arguably is little reason to
expect that our beliefs about which objects there are would be even
approximately correct. This realization, in turn, is meant to debunk
our beliefs about which objects there are:



(DK1)
There is no explanatory connection between how we believe the
world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is
divided up into objects.
(DK2)
If so, then it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned
out to be correct.
(DK3)
If it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned out to
be correct, then we shouldn't believe that there are trees.
(DK4)
So, we shouldn't believe that there are trees.


The idea behind DK1 is that we are inclined to believe in trees rather
than trogs largely because prevailing conventions in the communities
we were born into generally prohibit treating some things as the parts
of a single object unless they are connected or in some other way
unified. These conventions themselves likely trace back to an innate
tendency to perceive only certain arrays of qualities as being borne
by a single object and its being adaptive for creatures like us to so
perceive the world. But the facts about which distributions of atoms
do compose something, or about which arrays of qualities truly are
borne by a single object, have no role to play in explaining why this
is adaptive. Thus, it would seem that we divide up the world into
objects the way that we do for reasons having nothing at all to do
with how the world actually is divided up.



The idea behind DK2 is that if there truly is this sort of disconnect
between the object facts and the factors that lead us to our object
beliefs, then it could only be a lucky coincidence if those factors
led us to beliefs that lined up with the object facts. And the idea
behind DK3 is that since we have no rational grounds for believing
that we got lucky, we shouldn't believe that we did, in which
case we should suspend our beliefs about which objects there are and,
in particular, our belief that there are
 trees.[38]




Such debunking arguments fall short of establishing that eliminativism
is true or that conservatism is false. But, if successful, they do
lend powerful support to eliminativism, by effectively neutralizing
any reasons we might take ourselves to have for accepting conservatism
or for wanting to resist the arguments for
 eliminativism.[39]



The arguments also lend indirect support to permissivism, insofar as
permissivists are well positioned to deny DK2. By permissivist lights,
having accurate beliefs about which kinds of objects there are is a
trivial accomplishment (not a coincidence), since there are objects
answering to virtually every way that we might have perceptually and
conceptually divided up a situation into objects. The ordinary and
extraordinary objects are all already out there waiting to be noticed;
all that our conventions do is determine which ones are selected for
 attention.[40]



Deflationists also seem well positioned to deny DK2. Relativists will
say that, while we could easily have divided up the world differently,
we could not easily had divided up the world incorrectly. For had we
divided the world into trogs rather than trees, we would then have had
a different conceptual scheme, and we would have correctly believed
that trogs exist-relative-to-that-scheme. Quantifier variantists will
say that, had we divided the world into trogs but not trees, we would
then have correctly believed that trogs
 exist\*.[41]



Alternatively, one might try to resist DK1 by identifying an
explanatory connection between the way the world is divided up and our
beliefs about how it is divided up. For instance, one might say that
we have the object beliefs that we do as a result of intelligent
design: God, wanting us to have largely accurate beliefs, arranged for
us to have experiences that represent trees and not trogs. Or one
might take a rationalist line, according to which, through some
capacity for rational insight, we intellectually apprehend relevant
facts about which objects together compose something. Or one might opt
for an anti-realist line and insist that there is a mind-to-world
explanatory connection: object beliefs determine the object facts and
are therefore an excellent guide to which kinds
 exist.[42]


### 2.7 Overdetermination Arguments



Overdetermination arguments aim to establish that ordinary objects of
various kinds do not exist, by way of showing that there is no
distinctive causal work for them to do. Here is one such argument:



(OD1)
Every event caused by a baseball is caused by atoms arranged
baseballwise.
(OD2)
No event caused by atoms arranged baseballwise is caused by a
baseball.
(OD3)
So, no events are caused by baseballs.
(OD4)
If no events are caused by baseballs, then baseballs do not
exist.
(OD5)
So, baseballs do not
 exist.[43]


For the purposes of this argument, 'atoms' may be
understood as a placeholder for whichever microscopic objects or stuff
feature in the best microphysical explanations of observable reality.
These may turn out to be the composite atoms of chemistry, they may be
mereological simples, or they may even be a nonparticulate
"quantum froth".



One could resist OD1 by maintaining that some things that are caused
by baseballs are not also caused by their atoms. On one way of
developing this line of response, baseballs "trump" their
atoms: atoms arranged baseballwise can't collectively cause
anything to happen so long as they're parts of the baseball. On
another, there is a division of causal labor: baseballs cause events
involving macroscopic items like the shattering of windows, while
their atoms cause events involving microscopic items like the
scatterings of atoms arranged windowwise. Both strategies, however,
look to be in tension with the plausible claim that there is a
complete causal explanation for every physical event wholly in terms
of microphysical items. Moreover, this line of response would seem to
require that baseballs have emergent properties--causally
efficacious properties that cannot be accounted for in terms of the
properties of their atomic parts--which seems
 implausible.[44]



OD2 can be motivated as follows:



(OD6)
If an event is caused by a baseball and by atoms arranged
baseballwise, then the event is overdetermined by the baseball and
atoms arranged baseballwise.
(OD7)
No event is overdetermined by a baseball and atoms arranged
baseballwise.
(OD2)
So, no event caused by atoms arranged baseballwise is caused by a
baseball.


Let us say that an event e is overdetermined by o1 and
o2 just in case:



(i)
 *o*1 causes *e*,
 (ii)
 *o*2 causes *e*,
 (iii)
 *o*1 is not causally relevant to
*o*2's causing *e*, 
 (iv)
 *o*2 is not causally relevant to
*o*1's causing *e*, and
 (v)
 *o*1[?] *o*2.


This can be taken as a stipulation about how
'overdetermined' is to be understood in the argument, thus
preempting nebulous debates about whether satisfying these five
conditions suffices for "real" or "genuine"
overdetermination. To say that o1 is causally relevant to
o2's causing e is to say that o1 enters
into the explanation of how o2 causes e to occur in one of
the following ways: by causing o2 to cause e, by being
caused by o2 to cause e, by jointly causing e together with
o2, or--where o2 is a plurality of
objects--by being one of
 them.[45]




Can OD6 be resisted? The idea would have to be that, although some
events are caused both by atoms and by baseballs composed of those
atoms, those events are not overdetermined (in the indicated sense).
But if they are not overdetermined, then which of the five conditions
for overdetermination do the baseball and the atoms fail to meet? This
line of response takes for granted that (i) and (ii) are satisfied.
And it is extremely plausible that (iii) and (iv) would be satisfied
as well. However it is that baseballs "get in on the
action", it isn't by entering into the causal explanation
of *how the atoms* manage to cause things. Baseballs
don't cause their atoms to shatter windows, nor do their atoms
cause them to shatter windows. So those who would deny OD6 will need
to deny that condition (v) is satisfied, by taking the baseball to be
identical to the atoms. See
 SS3.3
 below for discussion of the thesis that objects are identical to
their various parts.



Why accept OD7? In certain cases, overdetermination strikes us as an
overt violation of Ockham's Razor: do not multiply entities
beyond necessity. But given the intimate connection between baseballs
and their atoms, it is natural to feel that even if these do count as
cases of overdetermination (in the indicated sense), this isn't
an especially objectionable sort of overdetermination. One may then
attempt to resist OD7 by articulating a further condition which
distinguishes problematic from unproblematic cases of
overdetermination. For instance, one might hold that overdetermination
by o1 and o2 is unproblematic so long as
o1 and o2 aren't entirely
 independent.[46]



Even supposing, however, that the line between objectionable and
unobjectionable sorts of overdetermination can be drawn in some
satisfactory way, there would still be pressure to accept OD7. We
should accept that something other than the atoms shatters the window
only if we have good reason to believe in this something. But there is
no *explanatory* need to posit baseballs, since there is a
complete causal explanation for all of the relevant events wholly in
terms of the activities of the atoms. And the debunking arguments in
 SS2.6
 purport to show that our ordinary perceptual reasons for believing in
baseballs are no good. So we would seem to have no good reason at all
to accept that there are baseballs, in which case we ought to accept
 OD7.[47]




Premise OD4 can be motivated in much the same way as OD7. If baseballs
don't cause anything to happen, then we have no good reason to
believe in them, in which case we should accept OD4. One might also
give a more direct defense of OD4 by appealing to the controversial
Eleatic Principle (a.k.a. Alexander's Dictum), according to
which everything that exists has causal powers. Together with the
plausible assumption that if baseballs don't cause anything
it's because they *can't* cause anything, the
Eleatic Principle entails
 OD4.[48]


### 2.8 The Problem of the Many



The office appears to contain a single wooden desk. The desk is
constituted by a single hunk of wood whose surface forms a sharp
boundary with the environment, without even a single cellulose
molecule coming loose from the others. Call this hunk of wood
'Woodrow'. Now consider the object consisting of all of
Woodrow's parts except for a single cellulose molecule,
'Molly', making up part of Woodrow's surface. Call
this ever-so-slightly smaller hunk of wood
'Woodrow-minus'. Because Woodrow-minus is extraordinarily
similar to Woodrow, there is considerable pressure to accept that
Woodrow-minus is a desk as well. This, in short, is the problem of the
many.



(PM1)
Woodrow is a desk iff Woodrow-minus is a desk.
(PM2)
If so, then it is not the case that there is exactly one desk in
the office.
(PM3)
There is exactly one desk in the office.


PM1 and PM2 straightforwardly entail that PM3 is false; one of these
claims has to
 go.[49]



PM1 is plausible. Woodrow-minus seems to have everything that it takes
to be a desk: it looks like a desk, it's shaped like a desk,
it's got a flat writing surface, and so forth. Accordingly, it
seems arbitrary to suppose that Woodrow but not Woodrow-minus is a
desk. Moreover, if Molly were removed, Woodrow-minus would certainly
then be a desk. But since Woodrow-minus doesn't itself undergo
any interesting change when Molly is removed (after all, Molly
isn't even *part* of Woodrow-minus), it stands to reason
that Woodrow-minus must likewise be a desk even while Molly is
attached to it.



One might deny PM1 on the grounds that being a desk is a
"maximal" property, that is, a property of an object that
cannot be shared by large parts of that object. Since Woodrow is a
desk, and since Woodrow-minus is a large part of Woodrow,
Woodrow-minus is not a
 desk.[50]




But this style of response can be rendered unavailable by introducing
an element of vagueness into our story. Suppose now that Molly has
begun to come loose from the other molecules, in such a way that it is
naturally described as being a borderline part of the desk in the
office. Let Woodrow-plus be the aggregate of cellulose molecules that
definitely has Molly as a part. PM1 can then be replaced with
PM1':



(PM1')
Woodrow-plus is a desk iff Woodrow-minus is a desk.


Woodrow-plus and Woodrow-minus each seem to have everything that it
takes to be a desk, and neither seems to be a better candidate than
the other for being a desk. PM2 would then be replaced with
PM2':



(PM2')
If Woodrow-plus is a desk iff Woodrow-minus is a desk, then: it is
not the case that there is exactly one desk in the
 office.[51]


PM1' can be resisted by proponents of the supervaluationist
strategy sketched in
 SS2.1
 above. The vague term 'desk' has multiple
precisifications, some of which apply to Woodrow-plus, some of which
apply to Woodrow-minus, but *none* of which applies to both.
Accordingly, PM1' is false on some precisifications, and
therefore is not true
 simpliciter.[52]




Constitutional pluralists can deny both PM2 and PM2'. Regarding
the original story, they may insist that neither Woodrow nor
Woodrow-minus is a desk. Each is a mere hunk of wood, and no mere hunk
of wood is a desk. Rather, there is exactly one desk, it is
constituted by Woodrow, and while Woodrow-minus would constitute that
desk if Molly were removed, as things stand it constitutes nothing at
all. Regarding the revised story, pluralists may again say that there
is exactly one desk, neither Woodrow-plus nor Woodrow-minus is a desk,
and it is simply indeterminate whether it is Woodrow-plus or
Woodrow-minus that constitutes that desk. In that case, PM2' is
false. It's true that each is a desk iff the other
is--since neither is a desk--but it doesn't follow
that there's more than one or fewer than one
 desk.[53]




Finally, one might deny PM3, either by accepting an eliminative view
on which there is no desk in the office or by accepting a permissive
view on which there is more than one desk in the office. Proponents of
the latter response will end up committed to far more than two desks,
however. By parity of reason, there will also be a desk composed of
all of the cellulose molecules except Nelly ([?] Molly). Likewise for
Ollie. And so on. So there will be at least as many desks as there are
cellulose molecules on the surface of the
 desk.[54]



## 3. Against Revisionary Ontologies


### 3.1 Arguments from Counterexamples



Universalism seems to conflict with our intuitive judgment that the
front halves of trout and the back halves of turkeys do not compose
anything. Put another way, universalism seems to be open to fairly
obvious counterexamples. Here is an argument from counterexamples
against universalism:



(CX1)
If universalism is true, then there are trout-turkeys.
(CX2)
 There are no trout-turkeys.
(CX3)
 So universalism is false.


Similar arguments may be lodged against other revisionary theses. The
various forms of eliminativism wrongly imply that there are no
statues; plenitudinism wrongly implies that there are incars; the
doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts wrongly implies that there are
leg complements; and so
 forth.[55]



Compatibilist accounts of the apparent counterexamples take the
targeted revisionary views to be entirely compatible with the
intuitions or beliefs that are meant to motivate CX2. Such accounts
often take the form of assimilating recalcitrant ordinary utterances
to some familiar linguistic phenomenon that is known to be potentially
misleading. For instance, when an ordinary speaker looks in the fridge
and says 'there's no beer', she obviously
doesn't mean to be saying that there is no beer anywhere in the
universe. Rather, she is tacitly restricting her quantifier to things
that are in the fridge. Universalists often suggest that something
similar is going on when ordinary speakers say 'there are no
trout-turkeys' (or 'there's nothing that has both
fins and feathers'). Speakers are tacitly restricting their
quantifiers to ordinary objects, and what they are saying is entirely
compatible with there being *non*-ordinary finned-and-feathered
things like trout-turkeys. Universalists may then hold that the
argument from counterexamples rests on an equivocation. If the
quantifiers are meant to be restricted to ordinary objects, then CX2
is true, but CX1 is false: universalism does not entail that any
*ordinary* things are trout-turkeys. If on the other hand the
quantifiers are meant to be entirely unrestricted then CX2 is false;
but in denying CX2 (so understood), one is not running afoul of
anything we are inclined to say or believe or
 intuit.[56]




This is just one of many compatibilist strategies that have been
deployed in defense of revisionary views. Universalists have also
invoked an ambiguity in 'object' to explain the appeal of
'there is no object that has both fins and feathers'.
Eliminativists have claimed that ordinary utterances of 'there
are statues' are instances of "loose talk", or that
they are context-sensitive, or that quantifiers are being used in a
special technical sense in the "ontology
 room".[57]



One common complaint about compatibilist accounts is that these
proposals about what we are saying and what we believe are
linguistically or psychologically implausible. For instance, when
ordinary speakers are speaking loosely or restricting their
quantifiers, they will typically balk when their remarks are taken at
face value. ("There's no beer anywhere in the
world?") But this sort of evidence seems just to be missing in
the cases at hand. ("You think there literally are
statues?" "There's nothing *at all* with both
fins and feathers?") Others have criticized compatibilist
strategies by pointing to limitations of their recipes for
paraphrasing ordinary utterances. For instance, Uzquiano (2004:
434-435) argues that the standard eliminativist strategy of
paraphrasing constructions of the form 'there are Fs' in
terms of there being atoms arranged Fwise cannot be adapted to handle
constructions like 'some Fs are touching each
 other'.[58]




Revisionaries may instead wish to give incompatibilist accounts of the
putative counterexamples, conceding that the revisionary views they
defend are incompatible with ordinary belief (ordinary discourse,
common sense, intuition, etc.), but maintaining that the mistakes can
be explained or excused. For instance, revisionaries may contend that
the mistaken beliefs are nevertheless justified, so long as one is not
aware of the defeaters that undercut our usual justification (e.g.,
those mentioned in
 SS2.6).
 Or they may contend that ordinary speakers are not especially
committed to these beliefs, which may in turn suggest that they do not
deserve to be treated as data for purposes of philosophical inquiry.
Or they may call attention to some respect in which the ordinary
utterances and beliefs are "nearly as good as
 true".[59]



### 3.2 Arguments from Charity



One way of approaching the question of whether there are statues is by
asking whether the correct interpretation of the English language is
one according to which ordinary utterances of 'there are
statues' come out true. The interpretation of populations of
speakers is plausibly governed by a principle of charity that
prohibits the gratuitous ascription of false beliefs and utterances to
populations of speakers. Such a principle--which is independently
motivated by reflection on how it is that utterances come to have the
meanings that they do--can be put to work in arguments for the
existence of ordinary objects and for the nonexistence of
extraordinary objects. Here is one such argument from charity:



(CH1)
The most charitable interpretation of English is one on which
ordinary utterances of 'there are statues' comes out
true.
(CH2)
If so, then ordinary utterances of 'there are statues'
are true.
(CH3)
If ordinary utterances of 'there are statues' are
true, then there are statues.
(CH4)
So, there are statues.


To see the idea behind CH1, notice that both eliminativists and
conservatives can agree that there are atoms arranged statuewise. The
question is whether the English sentence 'there are
statues' should be interpreted in such a way that the existence
of such atoms suffices for it to come out true. Let us call
interpretations of 'there are statues' on which the
existence of atoms arranged statuewise suffices for its truth
*liberal*, and interpretations on which that does not suffice
for its truth *demanding*. The idea then is that, given the
availability of both liberal and demanding interpretations, the former
would clearly be more charitable. CH2 is motivated by the thought that
there are no other content-determining factors that favor a demanding
interpretation over a liberal interpretation, in which case charity
wins out and 'there are statues' is true. CH3 looks to be
a straightforward application of a plausible disquotation principle:
if sentence S says that p, and S is true, then
 p.[60]



One might challenge CH1 on the grounds that charitable interpretation
is a holistic matter, and, while the liberal interpretations are
charitable in some respects, they are uncharitable in others. After
all, the puzzles and arguments discussed in
 SS2
 seem to show that no interpretation can secure the truth of
*everything* that we are inclined to say about ordinary
objects. For instance, the liberal interpretations on which MC1 comes
out true ('Athena and Piece exist') must, on pain of
contradiction, make at least one of MC2 through MC4 come out false.
But then some other intuitively true claim--perhaps,
'Athena and Piece (if they exist) are
identical'--will come out false. The demanding
interpretations on which MC1 comes out false do better than the
liberal interpretations on this score, since they can make
*all* of MC2 through MC4 come out true. This gain in charity
might then be held to counterbalance the loss in charity from
rendering MC1
 false.[61]




One might also challenge CH1 on the grounds that the principle of
charity, properly understood, demands only that the utterances and
beliefs of ordinary speakers be reasonable, not that they be true.
Since it *looks* to ordinary speakers as if there are statues,
and since they have no reason to believe that appearances are
misleading (having never encountered the arguments for eliminativism),
their utterances and beliefs would be reasonable even if false. The
principle of charity, so understood, would not favor liberal
interpretations over demanding
 interpretations.[62]




Another strategy involves resisting the argument at CH2, by
maintaining that there are constraints beyond charity that favor the
demanding interpretations. Charity, after all, is not the only factor
involved in determining the meanings of our utterances. Certain
puzzles about content determination have been thought to show that the
content of an expression or utterance cannot be determined solely by
which sentences we are inclined to regard as true; it is also partly a
matter of the relative "naturalness" or
"eligibility" of candidate contents. One who accepts this
sort of account may maintain that the demanding interpretations,
although less charitable, nevertheless assign more natural contents to
English sentences than the liberal interpretations, for instance by
assigning a more natural meaning to the
 quantifiers.[63]




Finally, CH3 may be resisted by compatibilists, according to whom what
ordinary speakers are saying is compatible with the
eliminativist's claim that statues do not exist. Since
ontological discussions (like this one) are not carried out in
ordinary English or ordinary contexts, one cannot infer that there are
statues from the fact that ordinary speakers can truly say
'there are statues', any more than I can infer that I am
on the moon from the fact that an astronaut truly utters 'I am
on the
 moon'.[64]


### 3.3 Arguments from Entailment



Arguments from entailment purport to establish that eliminativism is
self-defeating, insofar as certain things that eliminativists affirm
entail the existence of the very ordinary objects that they wish to
eliminate. Here is a representative argument from entailment: 



(ET1)
 There are atoms arranged statuewise.
(ET2)
 If there are atoms arranged statuewise, then there are
statues.
(ET3)
 So, there are statues.


Now consider two arguments for ET2: the argument from identity and the
argument from application conditions.



The argument from identity proceeds from the assumption that ordinary
objects are identical to the smaller objects of which they are
composed. The statue, for instance, is identical to its atomic parts.
Accordingly, by affirming that there are atoms arranged statuewise,
eliminativists let into their ontology the very things that they had
intended to
 exclude.[65]




However, the view that composites are identical to their parts is
highly controversial. One common objection is that the identity
relation simply isn't the sort of relation that can hold between
a single thing and many things. Another common objection is that
ordinary objects have different persistence conditions from their
parts. For instance, the atoms arranged statuewise, unlike the statue,
will still exist if the statue disintegrates and the atoms disperse.
It would then seem to follow by Leibniz's Law that the atoms are
not identical to the
 statue.[66]




The argument from application conditions arises out of some general
considerations about how it is that kind terms refer to what they do.
Suppose an archaeologist uncovers an unfamiliar artifact, gestures
towards it, and introduces the name 'woodpick' for things
of that kind. Yet there are numerous things before her: the woodpick,
the woodpick's handle, the facing surface of the woodpick, etc.
Furthermore, the woodpick itself belongs to numerous kinds:
*woodpick*, *tool*, *artifact*, etc. So how is it
that 'woodpick' came to denote woodpicks rather than
something else? (This is an instance of what is known as *the*
*qua problem*.) It must be because the speaker associates
certain application conditions and perhaps other descriptive
information with the term 'woodpick', which single out
woodpicks--rather than all tools or just the facing surfaces of
woodpicks--as the denotation of the term. And the same is
plausibly so for already-entrenched kind terms like
'statue': their reference is largely determined by the
application conditions that speakers associate with
 them.[67]




Armed with this account of reference determination, one might then
argue for ET2 as follows. The application conditions that competent
speakers associate with 'statue'--together with facts
about the distribution of atoms--determine whether it applies to
something. But these applications conditions are fairly undemanding:
nothing further is required for their satisfaction than that there be
atoms arranged statuewise. Accordingly, so long as there are atoms
arranged statuewise, 'statue' does apply to something,
from which it trivially follows that there are
 statues.[68]



This argument may be resisted on the grounds that the application
conditions that ordinary speakers associate with 'statue'
aren't quite so undemanding. It's not enough simply that
there be atoms arranged statuewise. Rather, there must be an object
that is composed of the atoms--and (eliminativists might go on to
insist) there are no such objects. However, those who are moved by the
qua problem might respond that 'object' itself must be
associated with application conditions, which are likewise
sufficiently undemanding as to be satisfied so long as there are atoms
arranged
 statuewise.[69]


### 3.4 Arguments from Coincidence



The material constitution puzzles from
 SS2.3
 can be repurposed as arguments against two forms of permissivism:
universalism and the doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts (DAUP).
The basic idea behind both arguments is that permissivists end up
committed to objects that are distinct and yet share all of their
parts, which is
 impossible.[70]



Here is a coincidence argument against universalism. Let the ks be the
atoms that presently compose my kitchen table, K, and let us suppose
that there is some time, t, long before the table itself was made, at
which the ks all existed.



(CU1)
If universalism is true, then there is some object, F, that the ks
composed at t.
(CU2)
If the ks composed F at t, then F exists now.
(CU3)
If F exists now, then F = K.
(CU4)
If F = K, then K existed at t.
(CU5)
K did not exist at t.
(CU6)
So, universalism is false.


CU1 looks to be a consequence of universalism, given our assumption
that the ks all existed at t. The idea behind CU2 is that there would
seem to be only two nonarbitrary accounts of the persistence
conditions of the widely scattered fusion F: (i) that F exists for as
long as the ks are in precisely the arrangement that they enjoy at t
or (ii) that F exists for as long as the ks exist. Option (i) imposes
an implausibly severe constraint on the sorts of changes an object can
survive, which leaves us with option (ii)--from which it follows
that, since the ks exist now, so does F. The idea behind CU3 is that
there cannot be distinct objects which (like F and K) have exactly the
same parts and exactly the same location. CU4 is a straightforward
consequence of Leibniz's Law: F by hypothesis existed at t, so
if F = K then K must also have existed at t. As for CU5, tables
plausibly are essentially tables, in which case K could not have
existed before the table was made.



Here are some options for resisting the argument (some mirroring
responses to the puzzles of material constitution). One can deny CU2
on the grounds that *table* is the "dominant kind",
and once K comes into existence, it takes F's place and F is
annihilated. Constitutional pluralists can deny CU3 and affirm that F
[?] K, perhaps granting that distinct objects can have exactly the
same parts and location, or insisting that F and K have different
(e.g., temporal) parts. Or one can deny CU5, insisting that K is only
contingently a table and (like F) was once a scattered
 fusion.[71]



Now for the coincidence argument against DAUP. Take the example of
Woodrow and Woodrow-minus from
 SS2.8.
 At t1, Molly the cellulose molecule is a part of Woodrow
and at t2 Molly is removed and destroyed. Let
Woodrow1 be that (if anything) which 'Woodrow'
picks out at t1; Woodrow2, that (if anything)
which 'Woodrow' picks out at t2; and mutatis
mutandis for Woodrow-minus1 and Woodrow-minus2.
Here is the argument:



(CD1)
If DAUP is true, then Woodrow-minus1 exists.
(CD2)
If Woodrow-minus1 exists, then
Woodrow-minus2 exists.
(CD3)
If Woodrow-minus2 exists, then
Woodrow-minus2 = Woodrow2.
(CD4)
If Woodrow-minus2 = Woodrow2, then
Woodrow-minus1 = Woodrow1.
(CD5)
Woodrow-minus1 [?] Woodrow1.
(CD6)
So, DAUP is false.


CD1 looks trivial: DAUP guarantees that there is an arbitrary
undetached part of Woodrow composed of all of its parts other than
Molly. The idea behind CD2 is that Woodrow-minus doesn't undergo
any change between t1 and t2 that could threaten
its existence; all that happens is that it is separated from something
(Molly) that was not even a part of it. CD3, like CU3, is motivated by
the intuition that objects with the same parts and same location must
be identical. CD4 is an application of the transitivity of identity:
Woodrow-minus1 = Woodrow-minus2, so if
Woodrow-minus2 = Woodrow2, then (by
transitivity) Woodrow-minus1 = Woodrow2; and
since Woodrow2 = Woodrow1, it follows (by
transitivity) that Woodrow-minus1 = Woodrow1.
Finally, CD5 is a straightforward consequence of Leibniz's Law:
Woodrow-minus1 and Woodrow1 have different parts
and thus cannot be identical.



As with the argument against universalism, one can resist this
argument by denying CD2 and insisting that once Molly is removed,
Woodrow-minus is "dominated" by Woodrow and ceases to
exist. Or one can deny CD3 and insist that Woodrow and Woodrow-minus
are distinct at t2 despite having all the same material
parts at t2. Or one can deny CD4 by insisting that Woodrow
has all of its parts essentially, in which case Woodrow1
[?]
 Woodrow2.[72]


### 3.5 Arguments from Gunk and Junk



A "gunky" object is a composite object all of whose parts
themselves have parts. The mere possibility of gunky objects
underwrites an argument against the nihilist thesis that (actually)
there are no composite objects.



(GK1)
It is possible for there to be gunky objects.
(GK2)
If gunky objects are possible, then nihilism isn't
necessarily true.
(GK3)
If nihilism isn't necessarily true, then nihilism
isn't actually true.
(GK4)
So, nihilism is false.


GK1 is plausible. It seems easy enough to imagine gunky objects, for
instance by imagining an object with a right and left half, each of
which itself has a right and left half, which themselves have right
and left halves ... "all the way down", and never
terminating in simple parts. Moreover, it may even be that
*actually* all objects are gunky. GK2 is trivial: if there are
gunky objects in world w, then there is something with parts in w, in
which case there are composites in w and nihilism is false in w. GK3
is plausible as well: the actual world contains what would seem to be
paradigm cases of composites (trees, etc.), so if composition occurs
anywhere, it surely occurs here. Moreover, nihilism is meant to be an
answer to the special composition question, and one would expect such
an answer to be giving necessary and sufficient conditions for
composition--in which case one would expect proponents of
nihilism to regard it as a necessary
 truth.[73]



Some will deny GK1. What does seem obviously possible (and easily
imaginable) for there to be certain kinds of infinite descent. But
infinite descent need not be mereological. For instance, it does seem
possible for there to be objects that can be divided into two halves,
and whose halves can in turn be divided into two halves, and so on.
But it is controversial whether the fact that o *can* be
divided into two halves, h1 and h2, entails that
o is not simple. One might deny that h1 and h2
exist at all before the division: they are brought into existence when
o is divided and, a fortiori, are not parts of o prior to division. Or
one might concede that, prior to division, h1 and
h2 exist and are partially colocated with o, but deny that
they are thereby parts of
 o.[74]



One might instead reject GK3 on the grounds that it runs afoul of
"Hume's Dictum", according to which there can be no
necessary connections among distinct existences. There is some
controversy about how best to understand Hume's Dictum and, in
particular, whether it prohibits necessary connections even between
overlapping items (which typically are thought not to be
"distinct" in the relevant sense). But assuming that it
does, then it will rule out any principle of composition according to
which simples in certain arrangements cannot fail to compose
something--for this would be to impose a necessary connection
between simples being in that arrangement and the existence of a
(numerically distinct) whole that they compose. And if we cannot in
general expect theories of composition to be necessary if true, we
should not expect nihilism to be necessary if
 true.[75]



Just as the possibility of infinite descent can be wielded against
nihilism, the possibility of infinite ascent can be wielded against
universalism. Let us say that a world is "junky" iff every
object in that world is a part of some further object.



(JK1)
Junky worlds are possible.
(JK2)
If junky worlds are possible, then universalism isn't
necessarily true.
(JK3)
If universalism isn't necessarily true, then universalism
isn't actually true.
(JK4)
So, universalism is false.


The idea behind JK1 is supposed to be that, just as there is no
logical or conceptual barrier to an infinite descent of parts, there
is no logical or conceptual barrier to an infinite ascent of wholes.
(Though not everyone finds themselves able to conceive of junky
worlds.) The idea behind JK2 runs as follows. According to
universalism, every plurality of objects has a fusion, and, in
particular, the plurality consisting of all things has a fusion. But
there can be no fusion of all things in a junky world. For that fusion
would have to be a part of something (since the world is junky); but
if it already has everything as a part, there is nothing left for it
to be a part of. JK3 can be motivated in much the same way as GK3:
universalism is meant to be an answer to the special composition
question, and thus will presumably be necessary if true. The
strategies considered above for resisting the gunk argument seem to
apply equally to the junk argument--one can, for instance, deny
that we are imagining what we think we are, or one can invoke
Hume's Dictum and deny that universalism is necessary if
 true.[76]


## 4. Fundamental Existents



As we have seen, there are some who deny that ordinary composite
objects exist, and we have examined some of their reasons for
embracing one or another form of eliminativism. But there are also
some who grant that ordinary objects exist but deny that they exist
*fundamentally*. This is an importantly different claim, which
can be spelled out in either of two importantly different
 ways.[77]



First, one might deny that any ordinary composite objects are
fundamental, that is, one can insist that there is something in which
they are grounded. Even those who think that ordinary objects exist
will likely find it natural to suppose that no ordinary composites are
fundamental: all ordinary composites are ultimately going to be
grounded in their simple microscopic
 parts.[78]



On the second understanding of the claim that ordinary objects do not
exist fundamentally, the idea is that they are not in the domain of a
fundamental quantifier, where the fundamental quantifiers are the
quantifiers that appear in the best correct and complete theory of the
world. To help see how the two understandings of "exists
fundamentally" can come apart, notice that the identity relation
is plausibly fundamental (appearing in the best theory of the world),
despite the fact that it relates every object--including
nonfundamental objects--to itself. A relation can be fundamental
without dragging everything in its extension into the fundamental
level with it. Similarly, even if the ordinary existential quantifier
is a fundamental quantifier, that does not obviously entail that
everything in its domain (namely: everything) is fundamental as
 well.[79]



Even so, one might deny that the ordinary existential quantifier is a
fundamental quantifier on grounds of parsimony. Explanations involving
quantifiers whose domains include nonfundamental objects (the idea
goes) will be less parsimonious than explanations involving
quantifiers whose domains include only fundamental objects. And since
the ordinary existential quantifier includes nonfundamental objects
(e.g., ordinary composites), it will be less fundamental than
restricted quantifiers ranging only over fundamental
 objects.[80]



How do these stances on fundamentality--that ordinary objects are
not fundamental or are not in the domain of fundamental
quantifiers--compare to the eliminativist theses discussed above?
Although there is a superficial resemblance, the differences are
manifest when we consider how the views interact with the arguments
against conservatism in
 SS2.
 Eliminativists, who say that ordinary objects do not exist, can
accept AV5, DK4, OD5, SR4, and ST8 and can reject AR1, MC1, and PM3 in
the arguments above, since the latter affirm, and the former deny, the
existence of ordinary objects. But those who are willing to deny only
that ordinary objects exist *fundamentally* (in one or the
other sense) must find some other way of addressing the arguments.