Abstract
I defend the view that ordinary objects like statues are identical to the pieces of matter from which they are made. I argue that ordinary speakers assert sentences such as ‘this statue is a molded piece of clay’. This suggests that speakers believe propositions which entail that ordinary objects such as statues are the pieces matter from which they are made, and therefore pluralism contradicts ordinary beliefs. The dominant response to this argument purports to find an ambiguity in the word ‘is’, such that ‘is’ in these sentences means the same as ‘constitutes or is constituted by’. I will use standard tests for ambiguity to argue that this strategy fails. I then explore and reject other responses to the argument.
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Notes
Following (Fine 2003).
This argument bears some similarity to the arguments in (Geach 1997) for relative identity.
(Fine 2003), p. 213.
(Fine 2003), pp. 213–214.
See (King 2006).
I will ignore the difference between corner quotes and inverted commas.
(Wiggins 2004) concedes that if ‘is’ in these examples is interpreted as the ‘is’ of predication, then the speakers are committed to the view that ordinary objects are identical to pieces of matter. As a result, his strategy is to deny that the ‘is’ expresses predication.
(King 2006).
(Wiggins 2004), p. 36.
Someone might want to hold that there is an ‘is’ of constitution which is syntactically different from the ‘is’ of identity, but that constitution nevertheless winds up being identity. This may be Harold Noonan’s view in his (1993).
(Wiggins 2004), p. 40.
(Grice 1991).
(Sadock and Zwicky 1975), p. 10.
This example is derived from (Sadock and Zwicky 1975).
(Sadock and Zwicky 1975), p. 12.
I should note here that I think, following (Fara 2001), that descriptions, be the definite and indefinite coming after an ‘is’ are predicates. I think that both ‘an author’ and ‘the author of Huck Finn’ in ‘Mark Twain was an author’ and ‘Mark Twain was the author of Huck Finn’ occur as predicates, and that this ‘was’ expresses predication.
The following strategies on behalf of the pluralist are developments of a proposal suggested by an anonymous reviewer for Philosophical Studies.
Josh Dever suggested this example to me in a personal communication.
A version of this view is, fairly or unfairly, often associated with (Reçanati 2004). The process of free enrichment might allow for the possibility of context sensitive expressions which cannot be detected by standard semantic tests.
Jason Stanley in particular has been a forceful critic of this view. See (Stanley 2005).
A glance at a standard book on semantics such as (Heim and Kratzer 1998) will confirm this.
I am assuming that the piece of clay which is the statue is identical with is the one from which the statue is made.
I believe that (King 2006) has gone a long way towards showing that this can be done.
Thanks to Derek Ball, Josh Dever, Rob Koons, Mark Sainsbury and Briggs Wright for commenting on drafts of the paper. Also, thanks to the participants in a University of Texas graduate student colloquium for helpful comments.
References
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Pickel, B. There is no ‘Is’ of constitution. Philos Stud 147, 193–211 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9275-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9275-4