Abstract
The notorious problem of the many makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that almost coincident with any ordinary object (such as a cat or a coffee cup) are a vast number of near-indiscernible objects. As Unger (Midwest Stud Philos 5:411–467, 1980) was aware in his presentation of the problem, this abundance raises a concern as to how—and even whether—we achieve singular thought about ordinary objects. This paper presents, clarifies, and defends a view which reconciles a plenitudinous conception of ordinary objects with our having singular thoughts about those objects. Indeed, this strategy has independent application in the case of singular thoughts about other putatively ‘abundant’ phenomena, such as locations or lumps of matter. In essence, singular thought-vehicles need not express just one singular content. If there are many objects, one’s singular thought-vehicle may express as many thought-contents.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The notion of a lump of matter throughout this paper is compatible with many different metaphysical views. Nihilists—and many of those who impose a restriction on composition—may reinterpret this as semantically plural talk about simples. As Jones (2010: 31) points out, the problems below will still arise on such views when we ask which (if any) simples collectively instantiate ordinary kind properties like being a cat or constituting a cat.
It is important to distinguish this way of arriving at (MC) from one proceeding from an observation of fuzziness in an ordinary object’s material boundaries (Lewis 1993). The latter at least threatens to generate higher-order worries (it being borderline which atoms are borderline parts of Tibbles). Even supposing it is perfectly clear which things are parts of Tibbles, there are still many massively overlapping lumps of matter for (PMD*).
Unger (1980) himself opted to reject this last step, embracing nihilism about ordinary objects like Tibbles the cat. As I describe in Sect. 2, Unger took the truth of (MC) to be incompatible with our having singular thoughts about cats, and with much of our knowledge about cats, and so nihilism seemed at no disadvantage for entailing that such thoughts and knowledge were not possible. By reconciling (MC) with (ST), this paper undermines much of the perceived parity between nihilism and (MC). Still, I will not be defending (MC) itself here.
Even those sceptical of a generalized ‘acquaintance’ requirement on singular thought (e.g. Hawthorne and Manley (2012)) will agree that where perceptually-based singular thoughts are concerned, for instance, whatever reference-determining features there are will not privilege any one of the many.
One could, in the spirit of Breckenridge and Magidor (2012), instead claim that Alice’s thought ‘arbitrarily refers’ to one of the many cats, despite our in-principle inability to know which. This strategy would have to deny the plausible idea that semantic facts (e.g. that cat567 is being referred to) are always determined by other facts (e.g. facts about use). In other words, it would be to deny that there are aboutness-fixing facts per se.
Epistemicists may insist that S’s perceptual-demonstrative judgment is about just one of the many places despite its being unknowable which, perhaps because such knowledge would violate a ‘psycho-semantic’ safety principle (Williamson 1994). For criticism of the metaphysical bruteness this view results in, see Horgan (1997).
(Jones 2015). His ingenious view takes certain properties of Tibbles to be had ‘relative to a constituter’. One corollary is that the view is committed to rethinking the adicity of relations like parthood, too. Tibbles only has any of the parts he has relative to some constituter. Having parts may turn out not to be an intrinsic property.
Given these dialectical ambitions, I will not be examining whether or not (MC) itself is true, nor will I be discussing philosophical concerns for metaphysical systems which embrace (MC)—for instance, that once we say each lump at t1 constitutes a cat we must answer where the persisting cats go when there are fewer lumps at t2 (due to the destruction of one or two particles). Since they must have the persistence conditions of cats rather than lumps, we face the question: which lump constitutes them? Thanks to David Jenkins for raising this point.
For some discussion of this view, see Dorr (2014) and (Dorr and Hawthorne 2014: 333–6). My presentation is indebted to Jones (2010) (who does not endorse the view). Since writing this paper, Merlo’s (2017) has been brought to my attention, which explores a similar view while trying to remain neutral on his analogue of (MC).
There is no such thing as the truth-conditions of ‘Tibbles is hungry’ or ‘That is a cat’ (even on an occasion of use). Accordingly, ‘is true’ in L expresses many properties, and, on any given interpretation, penumbral constraints will have the effect that ‘‘T26 is a cat’ is true’ is either true or false.
The notion of uniformity is due to Dorr (2014).
For further indication of some claims about singular thought with which (MT) is not obviously compatible, see the discussion of Objection 1 in Sect. 5.
To be clear, so long as one accepts (MC), with or without constitution, the view proposed in Sect. 3.1 is available. A further alternative, for those inclined to take up Unger’s conclusion that there are no cats—only lumps of matter—would be to conclude that nothing like tracking or reliable belief-forming dispositions is involved in (perceptual-demonstrative) singular thought; only an appropriate causal relation is required. From this they can adopt a version of the many contents view, noting that the subject bears an appropriate relation to the many lumps of matter. Applied to natural language, this view may find it harder to account for intuitive sameness of meaning in ‘Tibbles’ across time (and conversations) and for the truth of attitude and indirect speech reports.
I am not entirely unsympathetic to this claim (see Openshaw and Weksler (2020) for discussion). Note that, in light of our discussion of Objection 1, this view is unavailable to the likes of Burge and Schellenberg.
References
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1974). Comments on Professor R. L. Gregory’s paper. In Brown (Ed.), Philosophy of psychology. London: Macmillan, 1974. Reprinted in The collected papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, vol. 2. Oxford: Blackwell, 1981.
Bach, K. (1994). Conversational impliciture. Mind and Language, 9(2), 124–162.
Bach, K. (2010). Getting a thing into a thought. In R. Jeshion (Ed.), New essays on singular thought. Oxford: OUP.
Barnes, E., & Williams, J. R. G. (2011). A theory of metaphysical indeterminacy. In K. Bennett & D. W. Zimmerman (Eds.), Oxford studies in metaphysics (Vol. 6). Oxford: OUP.
Breckenridge, W., & Magidor, O. (2012). Arbitrary reference. Philosophical Studies, 158, 377–400.
Burge, T. (1979). Sinning against Frege. The Philosophical Review, 88(3), 398–432.
Burge, T. (2010a). Origins of objectivity. Oxford: OUP.
Burge, T. (2010b). Origins of perception. Disputatio, 4(29), 1–38.
Campbell, J. (1987). Is sense transparent? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 88, 273–292.
Campbell, J. (2002). Reference and Consciousness. Oxford: OUP.
Devitt, M. (1981). Designation. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dickie, I. (2015). Fixing reference. Oxford: OUP.
Dorr, C. (2014). Transparency and the context-sensitivity of attitude reports. In M. Garcia-Carpintero & G. Marti (Eds.), Empty representations: Reference and non-existence. Oxford: OUP.
Dorr, C., & Hawthorne, J. (2014). Semantic plasticity and speech reports. The Philosophical Review, 123(3), 281–338.
Eilan, N. (1988). Self-Consciousness and experience, D.Phil thesis submitted to the University of Oxford.
Evans, G. (1982). The varieties of reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fine, K. (1975). Vagueness, truth and logic. Synthese, 30(3/4), 265–300.
French, C. (2020). The unity of perception: content, consciousness, evidence, by Susanna Schellenberg. Mind, 129(513), 339–349.
Goodman, R. (2013). Singular thought: Making the most of the notion. PhD thesis submitted to the University of Chicago.
Hawthorne, J., & Manley, D. (2012). The reference book. Oxford: OUP.
Horgan, T. (1997). Deep ignorance, brute supervenience, and the problem of the many. Philosophical Issues, 8, 229–236.
Johnston, M. (1992). Constitution is not identity. Mind, 101(401), 89–105.
Jones, N. (2010). Too many cats: The problem of the many and the metaphysics of Vagueness. PhD thesis submitted to Birkbeck College, University of London.
Jones, N. (2015). Multiple constitution. In K. Bennett & D. W. Zimmerman (Eds.), Oxford studies in metaphysics (Vol. 9). Oxford: OUP.
Lewis, D. K. (1970). General semantics. Synthese 22(1/2): 18–67. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. Oxford: OUP, 1983.
Lewis, D. K. (1979). Attitudes de dicto and de se. The Philosophical Review, 88(4), 513–543.
Lewis, D. K. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lewis, D. K. (1993). Many but almost one. In Campbell, Bacon, & Reinhardt (Eds.), Ontology, causality, and mind: Essays on the philosophy of D. M. Armstrong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in his Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Liebesman, D. (2020). Double-counting and the problem of the many. Philosophical Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01428-9.
López de Sa, D. (2014). Lewis vs Lewis on the problem of the many. Synthese, 191, 1105–1117.
McGee, V., & McLaughlin, B. P. (2000). The lessons of the many. Philosophical Topics, 28(1), 129–151.
Merlo, G. (2017). Multiple reference and vague objects. Synthese, 194, 2645–2666.
Openshaw, J., & Weksler, A. (2020). A puzzle about seeing for representationalism. Philosophical Studies, 177, 2625–2646.
Peacocke, C. (1981). Demonstrative thought and psychological explanation. Synthese, 49(2), 187–217.
Pylyshyn, Z. W. (2007). Things and places: How the mind connects with the world. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pylyshyn, Z. W., & Storm, R. W. (1988). Tracking multiple independent targets: Evidence for a parallel tracking mechanism. Spatial Vision, 3, 179–197.
Recanati, F. (2012). Mental files. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Russell, B. (1913/1984). Theory of knowledge: The 1913 manuscript’. In E. R. Eames & K. Blackwell (Eds.), The collected papers of Bertrand Russell (Vol. 7). London: Allen & Unwin.
Schellenberg, S. (2018). The unity of perception: Content, consciousness, evidence. Oxford: OUP.
Strawson, P. F. (1959). Individuals. London: Methuen.
Unger, P. (1980). The problem of the many. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5, 411–467.
VanMarle, K., & Scholl, B. J. (2003). Attentive tracking of objects versus substances. Psychological Science, 14(5), 498–504.
Williamson, T. (1994). Vagueness. London: Routledge.
Williamson, J. R. G. (2006). An argument for the many. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 106, 411–419.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jonathan Berg, John Hawthorne, David Jenkins, and Assaf Weksler for discussions of this material in various forms. During the course of writing this paper I was grateful to receive funding from the Israel Science Foundation (Project No. 1220/17).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Openshaw, J. Thinking about many. Synthese 199, 2863–2882 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02904-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02904-9