Against Organicism: a defence of an ontology of everyday objects Sean Lastone Michael Jennings University College London PhD 2009 1 Declaration I, Sean Lastone Michael Jennings, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract This thesis claims that attempts to eliminate everyday objects from ontology on the basis of a priori reasoning about the composition relation fail. The thesis focuses on the positions of ‗Organicist‘ philosophers; philosophers who argue that all that exists are organisms and microscopic (or smaller) mereological simples. Organicist positions have two key foundations: 1) arguments from compositional failure, which conclude that there are no everyday objects because (it is argued) there are no non-living composite entities. 2) A rhetorical move, the ‗O-arranging manoeuvre‘, whereby it is claimed that the elimination of everyday objects from our ontology would make ‗no-difference‘ because object-wise arrangements of mereological simples take their place. The thesis maintains that arguments from compositional failure should be reinterpreted as arguments to the conclusion that the notion of ‗composition‘ being employed by Organicists is inadequate for the purposes of metaphysics. A minimal alternative account of everyday objects is posited. It is shown that by deploying the O-arranging manoeuvre Organicists (and other Eliminativists) commit themselves to all that is required on the presented account to entail the conclusion that everyday objects exist. The thesis concludes that there are everyday objects. It suggests that we should reject the idea that composition is what matters in ontology, but if one does not then the thesis gives reasons for rejecting compositional ontologies that entail the non-existence of everyday objects. 3 Contents Declaration .................................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 3 Contents ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter One: Organicism and compositional ontology .............................................................. 14 1.1 Compositional ontology ................................................................................................................. 16 1.2 Organicism and Extensional Mereology...................................................................................... 22 1.3 Other notions of part and other sorts of ‗compositional‘ ontology. ...................................... 28 1.4 Questions about composition ....................................................................................................... 35 1.5 What we can learn from answers to questions about composition ........................................ 43 1.6 Simples ............................................................................................................................................... 49 1.7 Could everyday objects be mereologically simple? .................................................................... 58 1.8 From composition to ontology? ................................................................................................... 61 Chapter Two: Arrangements of simples and the bundle theory of everyday objects .................. 67 A glossary of terms introduced in Chapter 2 .................................................................................................. 68 2.1 Everyday objects .............................................................................................................................. 71 2.2 Object concepts ............................................................................................................................... 84 2.3 A theory of everyday objects ......................................................................................................... 93 Chapter Three: substance and property bundle views ............................................................... 107 3.1 Property cluster theories: substance-attribute or bundle? ...................................................... 112 3.2 Locke‘s substance-attribute theory ............................................................................................. 121 3.3 Bundle theories and sortal theories ............................................................................................ 130 Chapter Four: The O-arranging Manoeuvre .............................................................................. 137 4.1 What is an o-wise arrangement? .................................................................................................. 138 4.2 What is the point of the O-arranging manoeuvre? .................................................................. 148 4.3 The property role. .......................................................................................................................... 151 Chapter Five: The O-arranging manoeuvre, object concepts and metaphysical commitment . 159 5.1 Merricks on the falsity of our object speech and beliefs ........................................................ 164 5.2 Van Inwagen on the truth of object speech and beliefs ......................................................... 170 5.3 Objects and objectivity ................................................................................................................. 178 5.4 Object concepts revisited ............................................................................................................. 185 4 Chapter Six: The overdetermination argument for the elimination of everyday objects ............ 188 6.1 The argument from overdetermination ..................................................................................... 189 Chapter Seven: Organicism and puzzles about everyday objects .............................................. 207 7.1 The sorites paradox ....................................................................................................................... 208 7.2 The Ship of Theseus ..................................................................................................................... 215 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 231 References .................................................................................................................................. 235 Figures Figure 1: A colour continuum: p. 210 5 Acknowledgements I studied for this PhD part-time, and it has gone on for a long while. In that time I have had cause to be grateful to many people and one organisation. The organisation is the Royal Institute of Philosophy, which provided me with bursary funding sufficient to cover my course fees on two separate years. This has been important in my finishing this thesis debt free. Equally important in this regard are my parents who have put a roof over my head for the years I have been studying. Without my family‘s ongoing support, it seems unlikely that I would have reached this stage. I am especially grateful to all those family members who, many years before the start of this project, spent hours teaching me to read. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are my aunt, Brenda Martin, and my grandmother, Eunice L‘amie—to both of whom I would like to dedicate this thesis. I want especially to thank my occasionally exasperated partner Liz, who has waited a long time for me to complete this thesis. I should thank too my colleagues at my workplace, the Institute of Education, who have been very supportive and have allowed me an exceptional amount of flexibility in my working arrangements so that I could meet my course‘s requirements. Lastly, I want to thank the students and staff in the philosophy department at University College London. I have been blessed with excellent supervisors at UCL; Jose Zalabardo, Lucy O‘Brien and Tim Crane all deserve my thanks. I would like to mention Lucy and Tim in particular, however. Lucy who got me on the right track at a time when she really had much more pressing concerns, and Tim who has helped me through to the end of this project. Thanks guys. 6 Introduction ‗Organicists‘ are committed to the claim that although there are people, strictly speaking none of them are wearing clothes. For Organicists claim that the only things bigger than an atom that exist are living things. Organisms exist, they claim, but clothes, cups, mountains, pebbles and lakes do not. Trees exist, but firewood does not. Apples cease to exist once plucked from the tree. People exist, but corpses do not1, and so on. It is important to be clear: this is not a sceptical claim. It is not the claim that we do not have sufficient reason to believe in