Abstract
A philosophical standard in the debates concerning material constitution is the case of a statue and a lump of clay, Lumpl and Goliath respectively. According to the story, Lumpl and Goliath are coincident throughout their respective careers. Monists hold that they are identical; pluralists that they are distinct. This paper is concerned with a particular objection to pluralism, the Grounding Problem. The objection is roughly that the pluralist faces a legitimate explanatory demand to explain various differences she alleges between Lumpl and Goliath, but that the pluralist’s theory lacks the resources to give any such explanation. In this paper, I explore the question of whether there really is any problem of this sort. I argue (i) that explanatory demands that are clearly legitimate are easy for the pluralist to meet; (ii) that even in cases of explanatory demands whose legitimacy is questionable the pluralist has some overlooked resources; and (iii) there is some reason for optimism about the pluralist’s prospects for meeting every legitimate explanatory demand. In short, no clearly adequate statement of a Grounding Problem is extant, and there is some reason to believe that the pluralist can overcome any Grounding Problem that we haven’t thought of yet.
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Notes
This case, originally described in Gibbard (1975), is a standard in the literature on material constitution.
Denying that there are modal differences to explain lands the monist with an explanatory task of his own: explain away the apparent modal differences between Lumpl and Goliath. Assessing monist explanations (e.g., those propounded in Wasserman (2002), Gibbard (1975) and Lewis (1986)) is beyond the scope of this discussion.
There are problems explaining, e.g., why the doubling of mass-instantiations in the region jointly occupied by Lumpl and Goliath does not result in a doubling of the mass to be found in that region; see Zimmerman (1995, pp. 87–88) for an explanation of a problem of this sort. But these problems are distinct from the Grounding Problem, and so will not be discussed here.
The pluralist can also affirm less familiar supervenience relations, including what Zimmerman (1995, p. 88) and Rea (1997) call coincidents-friendly supervenience: for any worlds w 1 and w 2 and objects x and y, if the parts of x compose something in w 1 that has exactly the same non-modal properties as something that the parts of y compose in w 2, then the parts of y compose something that has in w 2 exactly the same modal properties as something that the parts of x compose in w 1.
This objection is forcefully pressed by Olson (2001), who presses the same worry regarding coincidents-friendly supervenience, broached in footnote 9.
I write here of conjoining facts; a somewhat more careful characterization of the conjunctive facts is that they are those facts which can be reported in any given situation by conjoining a contingent sentence P with a sentence reporting a table-fact if P is true; and conjoining \(\neg P\) with a sentence reporting a table-fact if P is not true.
Bennett (2004, p. 344) notes that some forms of supervenience need not indicate any explanatory relation at all. The argument we are discussing shows that her conclusion is too cautious. No form of supervenience in the literature need indicate that the supervening properties are to be explained even in part in terms of the subvening properties. Does this mean that no form of supervenience has any further interesting upshot? I don’t know. One could, of course, specify a relation that evaded the argument, and call it “supervenience.” Most simply, one could add an explanatory requirement, that the supervening properties obtain in virtue of the subvening properties. Even if the result is still a supervenience relation, the argument from a failure of this sort of supervenience to an explanatory failure would be obviously circular.
Fine (2003, p. 206). Monists have rather a lot to say against the pluralist’s argument for her position, including both the version which appeals to alleged modal differences, (Lewis 1986, Sect. 4.5) and the version which appeals to the sort of non-modal differences under discussion here (King 2006). Since our aim is not to settle the pluralism-monism debate, I don’t want to dwell on the relative strengths of the pluralist’s arguments here. The present point is that if we assume that the pluralist’s claims about which things have which properties are correct, then she can secure the strong supervenience of modal properties on non-modal properties.
If identity properties turn out, contrary to appearances, to be modal properties, then the claim that modal properties strongly supervene on non-modal properties is implausible, quite independently of the pluralism-monism dispute. This is a corollary of the argument from the possibility of qualitative twins in Sect. 3 below. The idea in effect is that it is possible that there be distinct individuals which are indistinguishable except in terms of identity facts regarding the spatiotemporal regions they occupy or the microphysical particles they comprise. Thanks to Mark Moyer and David Christensen for discussion on this point.
The argument of this section shows that supervenience by itself does not suffice for any interesting explanatory relation. But the converse claim, that explanatory relations require supervenience, is very plausible. The pluralist must deny that the properties Lumpl and Goliath do not share supervene on the properties they do. We would have a Grounding Problem, then, if it were legitimate to demand that we explain the disparate features of Lumpl and Goliath in terms of their shared features. The arguments of Sect. 3 below are designed to show that this explanatory demand is illegitimate. If those arguments succeed, then the denial of such supervenience claims does not indicate a Grounding Problem. For critical discussion of pluralism on the grounds that it denies such supervenience claims, see Olson (2001) and Rea (1997). Both Olson and Rea concentrate their criticisms on a different alleged case of coincidence, between human thinkers and their constituters.
Gibbard himself, who came up the Lumpl–Goliath example, uses it to push such skepticism (Gibbard 1975).
Any explanation of the substantive modal differences between Lumpl and Goliath will also explain their mere modal difference. Thus, the sortal strategy discussed below provides an example of another, complementary explanation of the mere modal difference.
Some pluralists (e.g., Baker 1997) accept that there is a sense in which Lumpl is a statue. But its being a statue in this sense depends on it constituting something which is a statue. Thus, Lumpl’s statuehood is derivative. Obviously, it is Goliath’s non-derivative statuehood that is doing the explanatory work in the text.
Technically, we should distinguish the sortal strategy from a stronger view, which we might call the pure sortal strategy, which adds to the application of the sortal strategy the claim that the disparate sortal features of Lumpl and Goliath are primitive. The arguments in the main text apply to both views.
The example of Gumby might suggest that Goliath could survive squashing. Suppose it is possible that the laws that actually regulate the Space Age material also govern clay. Suppose too that it is possible to make Goliath in such a case. Then Goliath itself might survive squashing, just as Gumby does. But if we put the issue instead in terms of the natural or nomological impossibility of Goliath’s surviving squashing, there would still be a modal difference between Lumpl and Goliath, and our discussion would be otherwise unaffected. Thanks to David Christensen for suggesting the need for this clarification.
One might even insist that statue is just shorthand for the real sort at the heart of the explanation, which is much more difficult to state because it incorporates the relevant features of the circumstances. One might claim, for instance, that the sort at hand is statue made of clay.
This remark does not imply that, pluralism aside, it is plausible to claim that the proffered features provide a complete explanation of Goliath’s statuehood. I only mean to emphasize that the features in question won’t distinguish Lumpl from Goliath, and so won’t explain sortal differences between them.
Some commentators motivate the respecification in question by in effect assuming that the supervenience of statuehood on certain other features implies that statuehood is explained in terms of those features. Since the sortal strategy denies that Goliath’s being a statue has an explanation, accepting this assumption lands the sortal strategist with the implausible view that it is possible that there be something made just as Goliath was, but no statue is thereby produced. See, for instance, an argument suggested at Zimmerman (1995, p. 87). The argument of Sect. 1 shows that the assumption should not be accepted, so this motivation fails.
This argument is available only to a pure sortal strategist, in the terminology of footnote 21.
Bennett (2004) appreciates this point, and coins the phrase “sortalish differences” to cover both kinds of differences. She uses this terminology to characterize the Grounding Problem as the problem of explaining the sortalish differences between Lumpl and Goliath.
See, e.g., the discussion of the Grounding Problem in Olson (2001), where it is called “the Indiscernibility Problem.” Most of the explanatory tasks considered by Olson involve non-modal explananda.
There are also the constitution differences between them. I set those aside because of the complications attending the characterization of the constitution relation. But whatever the pluralist can do with identity differences, she can do with identity differences plus constitution differences, so long as constitution is characterized non-modally. I will be suggesting that the identity differences suffice on their own to give the pluralist the resources to meet ET3.
Here, I assume that the artist had no intentions regarding Goliath in particular at or before the time of creation, in virtue of which Goliath is a statue. It is not obvious that this assumption is true. If it turns out to be false, then we could recapitulate the monism-pluralism dispute with a case involving something humbler than a statue. Consider, for instance, a ball bearing stamped out by a machine. A pluralist would distinguish the ball bearing from the lump of alloy constituting it. We may further suppose that no one ever thought about this particular ball bearing, so no one has any intentions regarding it.
Thus, this response to respecification provides an example of an application of the sortal strategy that is not a pure sortal strategy in the sense of footnote 21.
Notice that this claim does not imply that Goliath is necessarily a statue. Many find the latter claim quite plausible. But even those who doubt it (see Olson 2001, p. 347 for some related doubts) should accede to the claim in the main text, at least in the absence of any scepticism about the meaningfulness or truth of de re modal claims generally.
In accord with general usage, I mean by “qualitative terms” a specification of the facts in question which makes no mention of any particular individual, and so no particular quark, lepton, spacetime region, physical push or pull, etc. Such a specification does not involve the identity properties of any particular thing.
A monist might appeal to the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (see Black (1952) for discussion) to argue that the alleged examples of qualitatively indiscernible but distinct individuals are impossible. If so, then explanatory task ET4.1 may present a Grounding Problem. But proponents of the Grounding Problem certainly don’t argue for the Identity of Indiscernibles in their presentation of the problem, and the possibility of cases of distinct qualitative duplicates are powerfully plausible. Nevertheless, a full consideration of the merits of arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles is beyond the scope of this paper. Readers who endorse it may take the arguments of this section as revealing a new application for arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles: such an argument removes an impediment to posing a Grounding Problem.
In accord with general usage, I use “qualitative property (relation)” for any property (relation) which has a qualitative specification, i.e., a specification that requires no mention of any particular individual.
There may be special cases in which the identity facts involving a certain thing are explicable in other terms. Perhaps the most compelling case is the claim that the identity facts regarding sets obtain in virtue of their membership relations. But these special cases provide no reason to demand the explicability in general of identity facts, nor do they provide any reason to demand the explicability of identity facts involving statues or lumps of clay, while taking identity facts involving spacetime regions and microphysical entities as explanatorily basic.
Some commentators have suggested that relying on an identity-based explanation of the disparate sortal and modal features of Lumpl and Goliath is tantamount to insisting that those features are primitive. The course of our discussion shows that the suggestion is incorrect. I have argued that identity-based explanations are immune to respecification; whatever one thinks of the merits of this argument, it is quite different from arguments that are advanced in favor of primitive sortal and modal properties (see Wiggins 1980; Bennett 2004; Moyer, unpublished). Also, I have argued that identity-based explanations provide the pluralist a way of accommodating the intuition that statuehood is not primitive. Obviously, a view on which statuehood is primitive cannot accommodate this intuition; it must explain it away. Thanks to Jonathan Garthoff.
One might argue that the monist’s demand for the explicability of the pluralist’s identity claims is based on simplicity considerations: the pluralist must take certain identity claims as primitive; since the monist does not think that those claims are true, he takes fewer identity claims as primitive. Set aside for the moment how to make clear the idea that there are “fewer” primitive identity facts in the monist’s theory. This simplicity argument is tantamount to favoring monism because it has a sparser ontology than pluralism. I take such simplicity-based arguments to be distinct from the Grounding Problem, and so beyond the scope of our discussion.
The following discussion of the problems faced by identity-based explanations owes a great deal to conversation and correspondence with Kit Fine.
Cartesianism is inspired by Descartes’s doctrine that the essence of body is extension; see the Principles, I, 53 (Descartes 1985, pp. 210–211). I leave the question of what Descartes’s actual position was or would have been to more qualified commentators.
Lockeanism is so-called because of Locke’s rejection of Descartes’s claim that the essence of body is extension in bk. II, Chap. 4 of the Essay, entitled “Of Solidity” (Locke 1975).
Though Lockeanism is the consensus view, there are significant dissenters. For instance, Quine (1981, p. 17), Lewis (1986, p. 76n.), and Sider (2001, p. 110) suggest in passing some reasons to prefer the Cartesian view. A sustained defense is offered in Schaffer (2009), where it is called supersubstantivalism. Thanks to Jonathan Schaffer for pointing me towards contemporary defenses of Cartesianism.
A third response to the question is to reject the presupposition that the relevant properties have an explanation in terms of some further features of S and R, respectively.
And maybe there is no special problem about differences among spatially coincident material objects, unless they share material parts. In this connection, see Sider’s case of two objects made out of stuffs that interpenetrate without reacting (Sider 2001, p. 141). The objects are spatiotemporally coincident, but we needn’t think that claiming they are distinct or differ modally or sortally raises any analogue of the Grounding Problem. The differences between them may be explained in part by the different kinds of matter that compose them. Some commentators (Moyer, unpublished) take the Grounding Problem to arise when coincident objects share all of their parts. Others (Olson 2001) take it to arise when they share all of their microphysical parts.
If any of the qualifications of n. 48 are adopted, then the relevant sort will have to be narrower. For instance, if we accept Sider’s case of interpenetrable kinds of matter at face value, our sort might be being a material object made entirely of atoms, on the assumption that matter made entirely of atoms is not interpenetrable in a way that allows for exact spatiotemporal coincidence.
The response may be warranted for slightly different reasons however. On an identity-based explanation, the argument for this response is that the sortal differences imply that Lumpl and Goliath differ in their identity properties, and all legitimate explanatory demands are met by appeal to identity differences. If we insist instead that the sortal features are fundamental, then the argument is obvious: all legitimate demands for explanation are met by appeal to sortal differences; and all demands to explain the basic sorts are illegitimate.
Thanks to Dean Zimmerman for suggesting this response.
This explanation of “complete decomposition” closely follows the definition given at Zimmerman (1995, p. 62).
If the appeal to pair sortals is considered too artificial, we could always put the point in terms of collective attributions of sort to pluralities of individuals, as in, “Gossie and Gertie are best friends,” or “\({\mathcal{A}}\) and \({\mathcal{B}}\) are disjoint sets.” The relevant collective attribution would be, “Lumpl and Goliath are materially coincident objects.”
If we can imagine “extended simples”—individuals which have spatial extent but no proper parts, see Markosian (1998)—then we might also imagine the arrangement of such into the relevant pattern. Wasserman (2004, pp. 696–697) suggests that, on the assumption that there could be extended simples, the dispute over pluralism could be set in a case in which a Goliath-sized statue is constituted by a single extended simple; in fact this is a consequence of the view defended in Markosian (1998).
As is customary in discussing necessary features of individuals, I am suppressing the qualifier “if it exists”, which may be required in my sketch of the pluralist’s argument in this case. But the discussion in the main text is unaffected by this wrinkle.
It might be held that a Grounding Problem arises because Tip and Adam share parts after all: Tip is an improper part of itself, but a proper part of Adam. This response requires a version of pluralism on which the constituter is a part of the constitutee; see, e.g., Fine (2008) and Koslicki (2008). But, on this view, Tip has a complete decomposition into material parts, viz. {Adam}, but Adam has none. So, Adam and Tip still do not materially coincide, and we should expect no Grounding Problem. Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this response.
Thanks to E.J. Lowe for helpful discussion of this case.
For instance, Fine (2003) is entitled, “The Non-Identity of a Material Thing and Its Matter;” see also the discussion at p. 206.
More accurately, Moyer’s pluralist takes Goliath’s essential statuehood to be primitive, and explains its unsquivability on that basis.
Sider’s pluralist maintains that there are modal differences between Lumpl and Goliath even though there are no non-relational modal properties that one of them has and the other does not. This requires (and gets) quite a bit of explanation from Sider.
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Acknowledgments
Versions of this paper were read at McGill University and at the “Because” conference at the Eidos Centre for Metaphysics at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks to Bill Butchard, David Christensen, Kit Fine, Jonathan Garthoff, E.J. Lowe, Mark Moyer, Derk Pereboom, Zoltán Szabó, Dean Zimmerman, and an anonymous referee for comments on various drafts.
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deRosset, L. What is the Grounding Problem?. Philos Stud 156, 173–197 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9590-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9590-4