Undermining Motivations for Universalism by Nikk Effingham | Papers by Nikk

This is a draft version. The final version is forthcoming in Noûs Undermining Motivations for Universalism ABSTRACT: Universalism (the thesis that for any ys, those ys compose a further object) is an answer to the Special Composition Question. In the literature there are three arguments (the arguments from elegance) that are often relied upon, but rarely examined in-depth. I argue that these motivations cannot be had by the perdurantist, for to avoid a commitment to badly behaved superluminal objects perdurantists must answer the Proper Continuant Question. Any answer to that question necessarily ensures that there is a restricted answer to the Special Composition Question that is just as elegant as universalism. Thus, if you are a perdurantist, the arguments from elegance fail to motivate universalism for there will always be a restricted composition that is just as good. 1. Introduction The Special Composition Question is: Special Composition Question (SCQ): What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the ys to compose a further material object? Universalism, the thesis that everything always composes, is the most popular answer to the SCQ. Whilst some motivations for universalism have received wide coverage (such as the LewisSider argument from vagueness) some arguments – the arguments from elegance – have been given only scant discussion. In that they appear to drive some large part of the popular support for universalism, a close examination has long been needed. For reasons of space, however, I only deal with the motivations from a perdurantist point of view (where perdurantism is the thesis that for every instant t that an object exists at it has an instantaneous temporal part at t). This is no great impediment as universalism is more often than not paired with perdurantism (or the stage theoretic variations thereof, which are close enough for our purposes here). Proponents of such a pairing include Armstrong [1989], Braddon-Mitchell and Miller [2006], Heller [1991], Hudson [2001], Lewis [1986] and Sider [2001]. In §1 I give the three arguments from elegance. Before diving into my argument against those motivations, I first explain the alleged commitment of perdurantism-universalism to superluminal objects (§2) and then discuss one way to avoid that commitment (§3). Using this method to avoid the commitment raises another question (§4), the answer to which necessarily undermines each of the arguments from elegance (§5-6). §7 deals with a possible response on behalf of the perdurantist-universalist. Finally, §8 explains how the only other way to avoid superluminal objects results in having to answer the question from §4 anyhow. Thus, given this prima facie commitment to law breaking objects (such as superluminal objects), the perdurantist-universalist must make concessions that undermine certain (popular) arguments for universalism. 2. The Arguments from Elegance There are three arguments from elegance. The argument from simplicity is that universalism is a very simple answer, and that is reason enough to accept it over and above competing answers to the SCQ [Cameron 2007: 116;1 Hudson 2005: 130; Markosian 2008: 343; and Nolan 2005: 36 all count it as a motivation. See also van Cleve 1986: 145, although it is less clear whether he is suggesting the argument from a healthy ontology (q.v.)]. For instance, compare universalism to another answer to the SCQ, say Serial: For all ys, the ys compose a further object iff either the ys are F1s and are R1 related, or the ys are F2s and are R2 related or the ys are F3s and are R3 related or … Serial is a decidedly complex response. Far better, so the argument goes, to prefer a simple answer like universalism to Serial, and similarly for all other answers to the SCQ. For every 1 Although see his n45. 1 alternative, universalism (in simply saying that everything composes) is always going to be more attractive. The only comparable answer is nihilism (the thesis that nothing composes), but presumably the universalist comes armed with excellent reasons to deny nihilism so universalism wins by elimination. You may well have qualms with this argument (such as whether we should prize such simplicity given the counterintuitive gerry-mandered objects universalism commits us to; whether all competing non-nihilist answers are, in fact, more complex; or whether we should deny nihilism etc.) but charitably set them aside. In summation: we should prize theoretical simplicity; such simplicity is had by taking an answer to the SCQ that says that either every collection of objects compose or none of them do; nihilism is false; therefore universalism is true. So we have the first of the arguments from elegance. The second argument from elegance is the argument from cultural prejudice [Hawthorne 2006: xii; 2 Hudson 2006: 636; Jubien 1993: 2; Merricks 2001: 74-5; Sider 2008: 257-61]. Other people and cultures have different beliefs about what objects exist from what we do – their folk ontologies are different. Here are some examples: Example one: French butchers don’t cut beef the same as English butchers, instead dividing the animal into different portions not recognised by their island bound counterparts – the French, quite literally, think the English aren’t cutting nature at the joints [David 1998: 333].3 Example two: Western culture holds that a yam persists when it goes from ripe to being overripe, but the Trobriander people believe that what we call an unripe yam is a ‘taytu’ that ceases to be during the ripening process, and is replaced by a ‘yowana’ (which is distinct from the taytu) [Lee 1950: 91]. Whilst these cultural differences aren’t as severe as the difference between admitting/denying the existence of objects composed out of any material objects you care to mention, it is little stretch of the imagination to think that such cultural divisions are, in principle, possible (see the languages introduced by Dorr [2005] and Hirsch [1982: 32-3]). Given restricted composition, at least some (maybe merely possible) cultures are wrong about what things compose. So the argument from cultural prejudice goes, this will be prejudiced as restricted answers to the SCQ attempt to meet certain allegedly intuitive desiderata, which only seem intuitive because of the cultural upbringing of the proponent. So such an answer will be motivated from an unwarranted prejudice towards a certain culture. Add in the assumption that we should shun cultural prejudice, and we end up with universalism. 4 A variation on the argument would be to recognise that other cultures have as much grounds to believe in the existence of the objects of their folk ontology as we do, so if you think you should believe in the folk objects of your own ontology (e.g. mountains, islands, cars etc.) parity leads you to believe in the folk objects of every (even merely possible) culture. As it appears in principle possible for a culture to include in its folk ontology the existence of objects composed out of any collection of material objects you care to mention, universalism follows. The final argument is the argument from a healthy ontology. Define a healthy ontology as an ontology that includes all of the objects of our folk belief, and a sparse ontology as one that does not. Sparse ontologies, in lacking the objects of folk belief, are necessarily committed to one of two options. Option one is to introduce some fancy theory (such as the paraphrasing strategies given by van Inwagen or Merricks) to account for why the folk are not radically incorrect when 2 Hawthorne’s argument concerns itself with those who accept the plenitude principle: that any filled region of spacetime is exactly occupied by a material object. Whilst not the same as universalism, it is so close that for our purposes it is reasonable to conflate Hawthorne’s argument here as being one for universalism also. 3 With thanks to Shane Glackin for pointing out this example to me (and the tagline). 4 Indeed, to capture conflicting cultural beliefs about the lifespans of objects, such as in the taytu/yowanna case, we will need perdurantism as well. 2 they talk about the objects of folk ontology even though they don’t exist. The second option is to bite the bullet and say that no such theory is forthcoming, and that the folk are radically incorrect when it comes to what objects exist. In the former case we need to do some serious work to get such a theory off of the ground (as the debate surrounding paraphrasing demonstrates), whilst in the latter case it is, at the very least, embarrassing to claim that everyone is just out-and-out wrong about what objects exist (for it is not as if saying ‘There are unicorns’ and ‘There are tables’ are on a par). These problems may not be fatal, but the argument from healthy ontology argues that they are costs we should, and easily can, avoid by instead accepting a liberal principle of composition that guarantees a healthy ontology i.e. universalism (there might be alternative principles, but assume for sake of argument that there aren’t). Markosian sums up the argument thusly […] unlike some answers to SCQ […] [Universalism] posits the existence of plenty of objects. Thus the proponents of [Universalism] will never have to deal with the problems that go with having a sparse ontology. [Markosian 2008: 343] Similarly, we see Hawthorne endorsing the argument from a healthy ontology, for he says of universalism that, as well as meeting the demands of the argument from cultural prejudice: This expansion [of what objects exist given universalism] brings with it the added benefit of explaining how it is possible for members of our community to refer successfully so much of the time without having to be lucky. [Hawthorne 2006: vii] Thus finishes my exposition. In each case, you might have problems with the arguments. Charitably set them aside in order to concentrate on my response: that the perdurantistuniversalist, at least, cannot rely upon these motivations as perdurantist-universalists look likely to endorse the existence of law breaking objects, and any attempt to escape that commitment undermines each of the arguments from elegance. 3. Superluminal Objects Hudson presents the argument for superluminal objects given perdurantism, universalism and a relatively innocuous assumption about motion [Hudson 2002]. The assumption about motion is: Sufficiency for Motion (SFM): It is sufficient for an object to be in motion during an interval T that (i) it occupies one region of space at the start of the interval, and another disjoint region of space at the end and (ii) every region of space that it occupies at one instant is in almost exactly the same place as the region it occupies at the next instant.5 Hudson further needs it to be possible that there exist a cone shaped object, call it Cone, that (i) exactly occupies a continuous three dimensional region of space R and (ii) for every two dimensional sub-region of R, there is an object that exactly occupies that region. Hudson thinks it intuitively plausible that there could be an object that satisfies (i), and then relies upon the Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetatched Parts (DAUP) to satisfy (ii).6 Whilst this would do the trick, there is no need for this contentious assumption. Both conjuncts can be satisfied if the perdurantist-universalist believes that there is a cone-shaped region, R, such that every point-sized sub-region of R could be occupied by a point particle. If that were possible, it would obviously be possible for every two dimensional sub-region of R to be full of point particles. As we have already assumed universalism, those point particles would compose a two dimensional object that 5 One possible counterexample to SFM would be a stationary object at rest that was teleported by God from location to location, in such a fashion that it met both conjuncts [Carroll 2002: 57]. Ignore such counterexamples, as they won’t be relevant. If you are moved by such concerns, then substitute whatever similar sufficient condition you care for that excludes such exotica from moving. As the objects such as Quick (q.v.) are clearly not being plucked from spacetime and placed back by the hand of God (as Carroll’s exceptions require), Quick will meet your chosen revised conditions in any case. 6 DAUP is the thesis that if x exactly occupies region R then every occupiable sub-region of R is exactly occupied by a proper part of x. Because of the ‘occupiable’ constraint Hudson would also need to be liberal about what regions were receptacles i.e. accept that all regions are occupiable (or at least be liberal about most regions being receptacles) – but he accepts that as well [Hudson 2005: 47-56]. 3 exactly occupies that region (thus meeting the second conjunct). Further, the point particles in R would compose an object that exactly occupied R (so that’s the first conjunct met as well). So (pace Hudson’s original assessment) we need not rely upon a contentious premise like DAUP when we can instead rely upon a very plausible belief about the possible locations of point particles. So, assume there could be an object such as Cone. Stipulate that Cone is 2 light seconds in height (so it is an enormous cone).7 Cone exists (at least) during an interval, T (say, one second). Of Cone’s parts there are (by stipulation) non-denumerably many cross-sectional parts, one for every cross-sectional slice of R. Call the set of these cross-sectional parts the Slice Set. As an extended interval, T has a non-denumerable number of instants. Call the set of these instants the T-set. The cardinality of the Slice Set and the T-set are the same, so we can put their members in one-to-one correspondence. Pair them off such that the Slice with the largest diameter is assigned to the earliest instant of T, and for any two slices, if the first slice is larger than the second slice, then the first slice is assigned to an earlier instant than the second slice. Given this method of assignment, the bottom slice is assigned to the first instant, the next slice up is assigned to the next instant, the next slice after that is assigned to the next instant, and so on until we get to the tip of Cone, which is assigned to the last instant of T.8 Given perdurantism each of the Slices has a non-denumerable number of instantaneous temporal parts, one for every instant of T. Call these the t-parts of the slices, where a t-part is the instantaneous temporal part of the slice that exists at t. There is then a set, the Quick Set, with the following membership: for every instant t from the T-set, the t-part of the slice assigned to t is a member of the Quick Set. Given universalism the members of the Quick Set compose an object. Call that object Quick. So Quick is a two dimensional object that, at the first instant of T, exactly occupies the twodimensional cross section at the bottom of Cone. Over the course of T, Quick occupies each twodimensional cross-sectional region from the bottom of Cone to the disjoint region at the tip of Cone. At each instant, the region Quick occupies is almost in exactly the same place as the region it previous occupied. So given SFM, Quick is moving. Moving fast. Moving very, very fast. In fact, Quick manages to travel two light-seconds in one second – Quick is superluminal! But people often think that the following is a consequence of Special Relativity: Speed Constraint: There exist no objects that travel faster than the speed of light. So we end up with a contradiction, and one of the principles must go. Whilst some, like Balashov [2003a, 2003b], think universalism is the culprit we are here assuming universalism to be true by hypothesis (ditto for perdurantism). So it must be Speed Constraint or SFM that has to go. 4. Denying Speed Constraint Start by trying to deny Speed Constraint. First, let us dispatch an irrelevant reason for thinking Speed Constraint is false – that it doesn’t follow from Special Relativity. There may be many things that travel faster than the speed of light without Special Relativity being false, and perhaps Quick should just be added to that list. For instance, relativity admits the possibility of tachyons [Feinberg 1967 inter alia], which (were they to exist) are always travelling superluminally. More recently, some have suggested that the speed of light was once faster than it currently is [Magueijo 2003], and so (in a sense) there have existed objects that travel at superluminal speeds. The more outlandish may even mutter about Alcubierre warp drives – devices that permit faster than light travel [Alcubeirre 1994]. None of these examples can save Quick for they all meet some exotic condition that Quick does not. We could construct the Quick Set such that Quick 7 8 The next two paragraphs are almost verbatim of what Hudson says. I’ve taken some poetic license with that last sentence, as in a continuous spacetime there won’t be any ‘next slice up’. I hope it still nevertheless serves as an adequate demonstration. 4 moved from slower than the speed of light to faster (pace the laws governing tachyons); Quick can move faster than the contemporary speed of light (pace the variable speed of light theorists); Quick can move without spacetime expanding and contracting (pace Alcubierre). In lacking these exotic properties, Quick will find no safe haven in such examples even if scientists do, one day, discover exotic objects that break the speed of light. Indeed, whilst tachyons and warp drives might give us a reason to think Speed Constraint is false, Quick had better not do. If it did, then most of the laws of nature would be refuted by the existence of gerry-mandered objects. Consider these laws: ‘No object spontaneously sheds mass’ and ‘All objects will travel at constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force’. Universalism guarantees the existence of gerry-mandered objects that appear to breach these laws. That object composed out of all my temporal parts up until now and all the temporal parts of some electron from now onwards, is an object that spontaneously goes from having a mass of over 75 kilograms to having a negligible mass. The fusion of all the temporal parts of Halley’s Comet until now and all the temporal parts of Jupiter from now is an object that has a radical change in its velocity even though no force acts upon it. So for most laws, there exist gerry-mandered objects that apparently breach that law. Given that you don’t want to give up on the laws of nature, and Quick is just a special case of the above examples, it is unreasonable to take Quick’s existence to refute Speed Constraint. If Speed Constraint is false, it is a principle for physicists to refute, not mereology and metaphysics. A better option is to say that Speed Constraint is not false, but that it applies only to a restricted domain of material objects. This is Hudson’s tactic, saying that laws of nature like Speed Constraint apply only to what he dubs ‘proper continuants’ [Hudson 2003: 21-22]. To make clear what a proper continuant is, let us first define what it is for a law of nature to ‘apply’ to an object. Treat laws of nature as being propositions of the form ‘All F’s are G’s’ (or some variant thereof), whereby laws include a universal generalisation. Define: Law L applies to x=df x falls within the domain of the universal quantifier within L. So for a law that says ‘All objects are unable to escape the gravitational pull of black holes once past the event horizon’ there is a universal quantifier present. According to Hudson, we should say that not all objects fall within its domain. You and I fall within its domain, but the gerrymandered fusion of (i) all the temporal parts up until this instant of an alien space wreck that has only just fallen past a black hole’s event horizon and (ii) all my temporal parts from this instant onwards, does not fall within that domain. In applying to a restricted domain of entities the law is still true and that the gerry-mandered spaceship-Nikk fusion ‘escaped’ the black hole moments ago does not undermine it one jot. With that in mind, we can define a working definition of ‘proper continuant’: x is a proper continuant =df Speed Constraint applies to x.9 So Hudson demarcates the world into two groups of objects: the proper continuants and the nonproper continuants. Speed Constraint is restricted to apply only to the proper continuants. But it won’t just be Speed Constraint that is so restricted. As there exist gerry-mandered objects that falsify most laws of nature, we should restrict those laws to applying only to the proper continuants as well. And then how odd it would be for some laws to apply to a restricted class of 9 Notice I say ‘applies to’, not ‘obeys’. Perhaps there are some proper continuants that disobey the laws of nature (a fortiori Speed Constraint). Here I am thinking of angels and the like (which I don’t think we should rule out by definition). Whilst they disobey the laws of nature (being capable of miraculous acts) I take it that the laws apply to them, but that they circumvent the laws (in the same way that legal laws apply to the rich and wealthy, but lamentably they often circumvent those laws – they apply, even though they are not obeyed). That is why angels etc. would be miraculous, whilst gruesome junk like spaceship-[author] is not miraculous. Neither obeys the laws of nature, but they only apply to the angels, so only the angels’ disobedience is evidence of a miraculous agent. 5 objects whilst other laws applied unrestrictedly, so we should say that all laws apply only to proper continuants. So ditch the working definition, and use instead: x is a proper continuant =df the laws of nature apply to x. Thus we have Hudson’s response to the problem of Quick’s existence (and a response as to why gerry-mandered objects in general don’t refute the laws of nature). 5. An Ensuing Question Hudson’s move saves perdurantist-universalism from the fatal cost of affronting contemporary science. However, the introduction of this division of objects undermines the arguments from elegance. The problem begins because anyone who takes Hudson’s tact will have to answer the following: Proper Continuant Question (PCQ): What are the jointly necessary and sufficient conditions some ys that compose an object must meet for it to be the case that they compose a proper continuant? Generically label the PCQ’s answer ‘X’. Even though we don’t know the exact details of X, we can still tell some details of what any satisfactory answer must be like. X cannot be that the ys always compose a proper continuant, for then all material objects would be proper continuants. That would include Quick (and comet-Jupiter, and Nikk-spaceship etc.) and that was what we were meant to avoid. Nor can it be that the ys never compose a proper continuant, for there are obviously at least some material objects (electrons, say) that the laws of nature apply to. Thus X must be such that not all ys compose a proper continuant, but that some of them do. It is a restricted answer. An answer to the PCQ will be such that you could use it as an answer to the SCQ. Call Xism the answer to the SCQ you get if you do use X as an answer to the SCQ rather than the PCQ. So if X was that the ys must meet condition F to be proper continuants, then Xism is the claim that the ys must meet condition F in order to compose a further object. As with X, even though we don’t know the exact details of Xism we can still say something about it. The first thing to say is that as X must be a restricted answer, Xism will be a restricted composition. With that in mind, we can proceed to demonstrate that, with regards to each of the arguments from §1, Xism is as elegant as universalism. Thus, it will turn out that the arguments from elegance don’t favour universalism and at best favour a choice between universalism and some restricted composition, namely Xism. The rest of this section demonstrates that Xism is as elegant as universalism with regards to the arguments from simplicity and cultural prejudice. The argument from a healthy ontology is more complex, and is dealt with separately in §5. Recall the argument from simplicity: that we should believe universalism because it is simple (where a simple answer is one where the conditions are always fulfilled, or are never fulfilled). Xism does not yield a simple answer to the SCQ for it says neither that the conditions are always fulfilled, nor never fulfilled. But on the other hand Xism does have a simple response to PCQ: that the conditions laid down in the PCQ are always met. Xism can say this for, in using X as an answer to the SCQ, it excludes all of the objects that are not proper continuants from even existing. Given Xism, if the ys compose, then they must compose a proper continuant. Hence, Xists have a simple answer to PCQ, even though they have a complex answer to the SCQ. Compare this to universalists who have a simple answer to the SCQ and a complex answer to PCQ (for X is necessarily restricted, and so it’s not the case that the conditions always obtain or never obtain). Both universalism and Xism use exactly the same answers, one answer for the SCQ and the other for PCQ, differing only in which answer is used for which question. So the amount of complexity/simplicity in both theories must be the same when you look at the whole theory rather than just in relation to the SCQ. So no matter how simple universalism is, there will always be a competing restricted composition that is just as simple. 6 Next, recall the argument from cultural prejudice. X, as it is an answer to PCQ, dictates which composite objects the laws of nature apply to. The laws of nature, and what objects adhere to those laws, is not a matter of cultural bias and the laws of physics are no different for me than they were for the Aztecs. For instance, an object does or does not obey the laws of Newtonian motion, it does or does not obey Planck’s Law, it does or does not warp spacetime when it rotates etc. and none of this depends upon what culture you originate from. So X will not be culturally prejudiced in trying to meet culturally dependent desiderata. If X is not attempting to meet cultural dependent desiderata then Xism won’t be either. So the premise of the argument from cultural prejudice which says that all restricted compositions try to meet culturally dependent desiderata, is false and the motivation for universalism unsound. In the second variation of the argument, where parity considerations lead one to universalism as islands, cars, mountains etc. are no more special than all of the other gerry-mandered objects that (some merely possible) cultures believe in, the argument is stopped in its tracks. If the universalist gets to be adamant that proper continuants are more special than non-proper continuants, then the Xist can also be adamant that the objects they are committed to are such that there is some reason to think they are more special than those they repudiate. So Xism is not open to charges of cultural prejudice. Certainly it will turn out that Xism entails that certain cultures are wrong about what exists (for instance, perhaps Xism dictates that there are no yams and only yowanna/taytu pairs, so Western culture is wrong) but that doesn’t mean Xism is prejudiced. Xism wouldn’t be caught in the grip of cultural prejudice anymore than Kantian Deontology is ‘biased’ against the Aztecs for saying sacrifice is wrong. Whilst Deontology correlates to some cultural beliefs more than another, correlation alone does not entail prejudice. The same applies here. Xism, as the one true answer to the SCQ, may correlate more to one culture’s beliefs than another, but that correlation is not evidence of untoward prejudice. The argument from cultural prejudice wasn’t that every culture had to be right about what objects existed, but only that we had to have non-culturally prejudiced reasons to say they were wrong. So Xism, just like universalism, will be biased to no cultural perspective and the argument from cultural prejudice doesn’t favour universalism, instead at best favouring a choice between universalism and Xism. 6. How Healthy Is Xism? When we come to the argument from a healthy ontology things are somewhat more complex. Undermining that motivation depends upon whether every folk object must be a proper continuant or not. 5.1 If every folk object must be a proper continuant It is straightforward if we assume that every object from our folk ontology must, if it exists at all, be a proper continuant, for then Xism and universalism necessarily have ontologies as sparse as one another. When the universalist uses X as an answer to the PCQ, either all of the objects from our folk ontology will turn out to be proper continuants or not. If it does include them all then, in using the same answer to the SCQ for which ys compose, Xism will clearly include them all also. So Xism and universalism will clearly have equally healthy ontologies – both being as healthy as can be! Alternatively, if X didn’t ensure that the proper continuants included all of the folk objects then, as we have assumed that a folk object must be a proper continuant if it is to exist at all, those folk objects that X doesn’t include as proper continuants simply don’t exist. So universalism would miss out certain folk objects, and whilst Xism would miss out those objects also, universalism and Xism would nonetheless have the same folk objects in them. Their ontologies would be as sparse as one another, and whatever downsides Xism suffers from having a sparse ontology is no reason to prefer universalism for it has exactly the same downsides. 5.2 If folk objects need not be proper continuants But this all assumes that every folk object must be a proper continuant. It may seem intuitive that statues, restaurants, guns etc. are proper continuants (thinking that statues (etc.) can no more 7 travel faster than the speed of light, or what have you, than anything else) but not everyone believes it is so. Hawthorne writes: Now one does not have to be a specialist in physics to realize that restaurants and statues are not going to satisfy the dynamical laws that physicists are likely to settle on. Suppose one signs a legal document such that prior to the signing, Johnny’s Restaurant is constituted by one building, and then after the signing, it is constituted by another. Numerically different buildings, numerically the same restaurant. The restaurant, it would seem, has moved along a discontinuous path, has travelled faster than the speed of light, and so on. [Hawthorne 2006: 112-3] For purpose of argument, assume Hawthorne is right and statues, restaurants, guns etc. aren’t proper continuants. So they won’t appear in the Xist’s ontology, but could well appear in the universalist’s (albeit featuring as non-proper continuants). It appears that universalism has a healthier ontology than Xism. But this appearance is deceiving. Call the objects that such a universalist wants to identify with objects from our folk ontology candidate objects. I contend that either the candidate objects are not objects from our folk ontology, or that they are but that the identification undermines the spirit of the argument from a healthy ontology. Start by taking some candidate object that appears in the universalist’s ontology, but not the Xist’s e.g. the object composed of the statue-shaped temporal parts of a lump of clay where that object is the proposed candidate for being a statue (it won’t be in the Xist’s ontology as here we are now assuming that statues aren’t proper continuants). I believe we should deny that this proposed object is, in fact, a statue. Whilst some properties of the candidate object match with those that we think the folk object would have (e.g. with respect to size, shape, colour etc. the candidate object matches our beliefs about what a statue would be like) the candidate object isn’t causally efficacious for it is a non-proper continuant. That non-proper continuants are causally inefficacious is relatively easy to demonstrate: if objects cause things to happen then they are the subject of scientific inquiry, and must obey the laws of nature; 10 but that’d make them proper continuants; thus the non-proper continuants don’t cause things to happen. Since the candidate object isn’t causally efficacious then it can’t qualify as being a folk object as it’s got the wrong properties, for even though it’s the right shape and size, folk objects are causally efficacious (e.g. guns shoot people and are capable of causing harm and injury; spectacles cause people to see better; engines cause cars to move; a statue that falls over causes a sound to be emitted etc.). So it appears that universalists don’t have a healthier ontology than the Xist. Instead they just have scads of candidate objects that are ‘a bit like’ folk objects in some respects (such as shape and size). But that’s not the same as having a healthy ontology; if anything it’s worse. Not only does it miss out the folk objects, it populates your ontology with lots of causally inefficacious detritus that corresponds to no part of folk ontology. It doesn’t have the objects you want, and too many of the ones you don’t. It’s not healthy, it’s cancerous! There is an alternative. Maybe those candidate objects are folk objects, and we should just revise our intuition that folk objects aren’t causally efficacious. I think this is a fine move for the perdurantist to make (and one that, I take it, Hawthorne would applaud), but it undermines the argument from a healthy ontology. The argument from a healthy ontology is intended to guarantee a pre-theoretically sensible ontology. But the ontology we end up with is not one in line with common-sense at all! It is full to the rafters of causally inefficacious detritus. Given that ontology, a plethora of common-sense beliefs are all false! Guns don’t kill people; the engine of my car is not what makes my car move; my spectacles do not cause me to see better, falling statues do not cause sounds to be emitted etc. Whilst one would have guaranteed that the objects 10 There might be exceptions, for instance if some things had causal powers outwith the laws of nature. Perhaps there are such things, for instance angels and the like, but they are miracle workers. So even if you did take this option the candidate object, whilst causally efficacious, would be a miracle worker. As folk objects such as statues, restaurants, guns etc. are clearly not miracle-workers, it follows that such candidate objects would, again, not be folk objects. 8 exist, meeting some pre-theoretic intuitions, you’ve wrecked havoc with common-sense by ‘discovering’ that they’re causally inefficacious. It is intolerable to recommend that we don’t accept Xism on the grounds that we’d have to revise our beliefs about what folk objects there were given the alternative is radically revising our beliefs concerning their causal roles. The argument from a healthy ontology is intended to save common-sense, not revise it, so accepting this alternative ends up undermining the argument from a healthy ontology anyhow. To conclude: If all folk objects must be proper continuants then universalism and Xism are as sparse as one another. If folk objects need not be proper continuants then either there aren’t any folk objects for the universalist (and again Xism and universalism are as sparse as one another) or there are folk objects for the universalist (and not for the Xist) but it turns out that they don’t have the properties we normally ascribe to them. In that last case, the ontology we are left with is revisionary with regards to common sense, and the universalist undermines the aims of the argument from a healthy ontology anyhow. That finishes the explanation of how an answer to PCQ undermines the arguments from elegance. In every case, an answer to PCQ furnishes us with a restricted composition, Xism, that is just as elegant. This is a result of trying to avoid a commitment to superluminal objects by denying Speed Constraint. Before considering what happens if we instead deny the other assumption (SFM), I want to discuss a major problem: that X might qualify as a perfectly reasonable answer to PCQ but would, for some reason, be disqualified as an answer to the SCQ. 7. The Disqualification Problem Imagine that you accept universalism and some answer X to the PCQ where X is an answer such as: Examplism: For any ys that compose an object, they compose a proper continuant x iff object x is composed of the ys, and x satisfies some set S of conditions. Indeed, Hudson uses an answer just like Examplism to answer the PCQ: that Speed Constraint applies only to those objects capable of propagating causal signals i.e. given the ys compose, they compose a proper continuant iff they compose an object that is capable of transmitting a causal signal.11 Answers like Examplism are a fine response to PCQ but obviously not to the SCQ! If used as a response to the SCQ we get Trivialism: The ys compose a further object x iff object x is composed of the ys, and x satisfies some set S of conditions. An answer like Trivialism is trivial! It’s as trivial as saying ‘The ys compose a further object iff the ys compose an object’. Further adding that the object satisfies certain extra conditions doesn’t turn that trivial answer into a non-trivial answer. This problem can be remedied. If it turns out that X is of the form that Examplism takes, we need only make a minor modification to get a qualifying answer to the SCQ. Rather than simply taking the answer and slotting it in unaltered as an answer to the SCQ, we add in the clause ‘if it were the case universalism was true’ to yield: Examplism*: The ys compose an object x iff if it were the case universalism was true, then the object composed of the ys would satisfy some set S of conditions. Unlike Examplism, I do not believe answers like Examplism* are problematic. Here are three reasons for thinking they might be, and why those reasons are misleading. Reason one: You might still think Examplism* is trivially true. But clearly it isn’t. By stipulation we know that, for the universalist, X as answer to PCQ will always be restricted: so Examplism* will be such that the conditions that must be met aren’t met by every object the universalist believes in. So if Examplism* was true, not all the objects that the universalist would 11 Other answers could be along the same lines as those suggested by Hawthorne [2006: 111-43]. They, too, would appear to have the same form as Examplism. 9 believe in would exist a fortiori universalism would be false. Universalism being false isn’t trivial, so Examplism* isn’t trivial either. Reason two: van Inwagen demands that no mereological term appears in the right hand side of any answer to the SCQ [van Inwagen 1990: 31]. Clearly Examplism* features such a mereological term, and given this condition Examplism* is disqualified from being an answer to the SCQ. I am guilty as charged, but believe the constraint itself is unjust [see also Hudson 2001: 81, especially n9]. Presumably the constraint was brought in to rule out such trivial answers as: The ys compose a further object iff the ys compose an object x. The ys compose a further object iff the ys are all part of an object, x, no two of the ys overlap and there is no part of x that does not overlap one of the ys. Both are trivially true. It is right and proper that such answers should be ignored on the grounds. But don’t say that they’re false. The answer might not be a good answer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s untrue. The above answers are defective in that they are trivial, thus rendering them unfit for purpose – not that they are false. So the problem can’t be that Examplism* turns out to be false, but that it must turn out to be trivial. But as explained above, Examplism* is not trivial, and so there is no problem here either. Reason three: If the ys don’t actually compose, but we consider worlds at which universalism is true then it appears we are considering worlds where the laws of composition are different. As the laws of composition are (allegedly) metaphysically necessary and counterfactual conditions are (allegedly) vacuously true in cases where the antecedent is impossible, everything always composes (even when it is metaphysically impossible for those objects to do so!). That would make a mess of Examplism*. I have three responses. First, composition may be contingent rather than metaphysically necessary [Cameron 2007]. Second, given that we can interpret other counterfactual conditionals with (allegedly) metaphysically impossible antecedents without thinking them vacuously true (such as ‘If there were universals corresponding to every general term there would be a non-self exemplification paradox’, ‘If God did not exist, nothing else would exist either’, ‘If objects endured then temporary intrinsics would be relations’ etc.) there must be some way for me to do likewise with Examplism*. Whatever that way is, I will rely upon it here. Related to the second reason, the third is that I am not on my own. Others have made exactly this move themselves – utilising theories which rely upon counterfactual conditionals with (supposedly) metaphysically impossible antecedents [Dorr 2005; Merricks 2001; Sider 1999: 339-41]. So my move here is not unprecedented. So whilst it might be that answer X to PCQ is of the form of Examplism, thus disqualifying Xism from being an informative answer to the SCQ, there will be a corresponding answer to the SCQ (of the form Examplism* takes) that is not defective. 8. Denying Sufficiency for Motion We have discussed what happens if you try to deny Speed Constraint, but it was not the only assumption. In addition to the assumptions of perdurantism and universalism, SFM was assumed to be true. The perdurantist-universalist might deny SFM instead of trying to restrict the domain of Speed Constraint. It is prima facie implausible to deny SFM for it is exceedingly intuitive and concurrently quite costly to deny. But, just as with Speed Constaint, we might restrict the domain that SFM applies to. The universalist might say that we are attracted to SFM because it seems to be intuitively true of objects like you and me, cats and dogs, cars and jet planes etc. so we shall allow SFM to still apply to those objects, but just as with Speed Constraint we’ll restrict it so that Quick and its ilk fall outside of its domain. Thus: The ‘Which Objects Move’ Question (WOM): What the necessary and sufficient conditions for SFM to apply to any given object? 10 The answer to WOM must be such that ordinary objects like you and me, cats and dogs, cars and jet planes etc. are included whilst gerry-mandered objects like Quick are excluded. As SFM is a law of nature the natural answer is that SFM only applies to the proper continuants. So the non-proper continuants can flagrantly breach SFM, in virtue of being objects that laws (such as SFM) do not apply to. Whilst this gets the desired result (you and me, cars and dogs etc. being such that SFM applies to us, whilst excluding Quick and its kin), we would then be obliged to demarcate the objects into the proper/non-proper continuants a fortiori answering PCQ anyhow. So if this natural answer to WOM is correct, we again must conclude that the perdurantist cannot rely upon the motivations of elegance to support universalism. For the natural answer to be wrong, there must be an example of a proper continuant that SFM did not apply to, or alternatively an example of a non-proper continuant where it did. SFM, being a law, applies to proper continuants by definition, so the former is ruled out. Meanwhile, if SFM applied to an object the only way for that object to be a non-proper continuant would be for some other laws to fail to apply to it. It seems dubious whether that is possible, for presumably if one law applies to an object, all laws apply to that object. So the natural answer looks to be correct, and a restriction of SFM demands an answer to PCQ that ruins the arguments from elegance just as happens in the case of restricting Speed Constraint. 9. Conclusion At first glance, perdurantist-universalists are committed to law breaking objects, such as Hudson’s superluminal objects. Presumably no perdurantist-universalist will accept such a commitment. However, as they are committed to the objects they will have to explain why those objects do not, in point of fact, breach any laws. Sections 4 and 8 have looked at two such plausible explanations, and detailed how such explanations undermine some popular motivations for universalism (namely, the arguments from elegance). Thus, if there is no alternative explanation, perdurantist-universalists must rely upon other arguments to motivate universalism. Before concluding, there are two points to note. First, the perdurantist-universalist may give up on relying on the arguments from elegance, and instead rely solely upon other arguments for universalism (e.g. the argument from vagueness [Sider 2001: 134-9]). But those arguments are themselves contentious, and in any case it would be still be a victory for the proponent of restricted composition to prevent the universalist from having access to these popular motivations. Second, there may be ways other than those presented in §4 and 8 for the perdurantist-universalist to include objects like Quick in their ontology, without admitting that any laws of nature are broken. So the conclusion of this paper can be seen as a challenge to the perdurantist-universalist: can they explain why the objects do not break the laws of physics without that explanation thereby making concessions that allow one to come up with an equally elegant theory that endorses restricted composition. Whilst I think the first bit may be relatively simple (i.e. giving an explanation of why the objects don’t break the laws of nature) doing so without equipping those who believe in restricted composition with the tools to produce their own elegant theory is (as §5-6 makes clear) far more difficult.12 10. Bibliography Alcubierre, M. 1994. The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast Travel Within General Relativity, Classical and Quantum Gravity 11: L73-L77. Armstrong, D. 1989. Universals: An Opinionated Introduction, London: Westview. Balashov, Y. 2003a. Temporal Parts and Superluminal Motion, Philosophical Papers 32: 1-13. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this journal, Katherine Hawley, Robin Le Poidevin, Robbie Williams and the Leeds Postgraduate Seminar group (especially George Darby, who spent many hours discussing ‘Hudcones’ with me) for their help with this paper. An extra special thanks goes to Joseph Melia for his invaluable aid and advice. 12 11 Balashov, Y. 2003b. 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