Abstract
A recent solution to the Body-Minus problem, which is a problem of material constitution, claims that ordinary proper parts (such as left feet) exist, but the complements of these objects (such as left-foot complements) do not exist. In this paper, I examine a defense of this solution from the worry of arbitrariness and from its ineffectiveness against a revised version of the problem that focuses on the head, and I show that this defense fails.
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Notes
For a discussion of the problem of material constitution and most of the typical solutions, see Rea (1997).
Unlike some of the other responses, (OP) does not solve all of the problems related to the co-location of material objects, such as puzzles that do not involve the loss of a proper part.
One worry that Carmichael discusses but that I won’t address is based on the co-location of an object and a mass of matter. However, I agree with Carmichael that such co-location is to be rejected (and I also maintain that terms for masses of matter are referentially plural), and hence I agree that this worry does not threaten (OP).
While some theories of composition do not propose different grounds of composition (e.g., nihilism, universalism, organicism), there are views about material objects different from Carmichael’s that do offer different grounds of composition for different kinds of composite objects, see for example Fine (1999).
Jaworski (2016) appears to be aware of this problem and so offers a distinct way of addressing the arbitrariness problem by appealing to the notion of a biofunctional part and privileging the division between biofunctional parts (such as eyes, legs, and hearts) from non-biofunctional parts, where the former are posited in our best empirical descriptions, explanations, and methods (2016, 131). While this solution can be used to avoid the arbitrariness problem, it does not succeed against the decapitation version discussed below, which is why Jaworski solves that problem not by appealing to (OP) but by claiming that the problematic objects (head, brain, etc.) do not survive after the decapitation (ibid., 133–136).
Carmichael (2020, 214) does claim that the proponent of (OP) can endorse dualism or an embodied minds view to avoid this problem (i.e., they can claim we are identical to immaterial substances or brains/cerebra), which may avoid this worry. But he rejects these proposals, as do I, and so these considerations will not be further discussed.
Carmichael considers an objection that is based on identifying Descartes with his whole body prior to decapitation. But since the body does not survive as a head, then neither does Descartes, which goes against his response to the decapitation problem. He responds by suggesting that either Descartes and his body are not identical (because they do not exactly overlap) or that Descartes’ body is not essentially a body and so can survive as a head. However, the first disjunct is strange since it requires saying that blood cells are proper parts of Descartes but are not proper parts of Descartes’ body. But then I no longer know what Carmichael means by ‘Descartes’ body’ since a commonsense notion of a human body seems to include blood cells as proper parts of human bodies. Carmichael’s second disjunct is more promising, especially if by ‘Descartes’ body’ Carmichael means a human animal, for some have argued for the view known as accidental animalism—where animals are not essentially animals. However, embracing that position appears to imply that animals have strange persistence conditions (Olson 2016).
Even on the assumption that the head survives after decapitation, Carmichael has offered no strong support for his denial that blood cells are part of the pre-mortem head. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this point.
Many thanks to Tim Butzer, David Spewak, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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Yang, E. Ordinary Parts and Their Complements: Together They Rise, Together They Fall. Erkenn 88, 389–396 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00352-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00352-y