Abstract
Standard animalists are committed to a stringent form of restricted composition, thereby denying the existence of brains, hands, and other proper parts of an organism (they also deny the existence of inanimate, composite objects). One reason for positing this near-nihilistic ontology comes from various challenges to animalism such as the Thinking Parts Argument, the Unity Argument, and the Argument from the Problem of the Many. In this paper, I show that these putatively distinct arguments are all instances of a more general problem, which I call the ‘Too Many Candidates Problem’ (or ‘TMC’ for short). Given my formulation of the problem, it is evident that standard animalists are mistaken in believing that restricting composition (and denying the existence of the proper parts of organisms) is the only solution. I show that there is another option for solving the TMC. The advantage of such a position, which I call ‘unrestricted animalism’, is that it is compatible with (a temporally-relativized version of) unrestricted composition and the existence of brains and other proper parts of an organism. I conclude by sketching several strategies one can take regarding this latter solution to the TMC.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Ontological and compositional nihilists, and perhaps some idealists, may disagree.
The TMC, of course, resembles the “too many thinkers” problem as applied to animalism (as opposed to being a problem for constitution views or psychological continuity theories of personal identity). However, my label of ‘TMC’ designates the problem as I set it up below (where not all “too many thinkers”-type problems would fit).
Merricks (2001) is non-committal about the existence of non-conscious organisms.
Another reason that standard animalists give for denying the existence of proper parts of organisms is because they reject the doctrine of arbitrary, undetached parts (DAUP), cf. van Inwagen (1981) and Olson (1995). Solving the problem of material constitution is their primary reason for denying DAUP, though I take it that such a solution is no more plausible than many of the other possible positions (e.g., colocationism, perdurantism, etc.) and may in fact be less plausible given that such a view denies the existence of proper parts of organisms such as brains and hands.
Olson suggests that there is a link between mereological universalism and a temporal-parts theory of persons, compositional nihilism and personal nihilism, and restricted composition and animalism—though he does not take the link to be that of entailment, only that adopting one most plausibly yields the other.
There may even be some reason to prefer one of these “smaller” candidates, cf. Hudson’s (2007).
Some of these arguments target materialism about human persons more generally, which would still show the falsity of animalism. By ‘materialism’, I mean only to talk about substances or objects and not in terms of properties, states, events, and so forth.
Lowe actually provides two arguments on behalf of (UA2), but I leave aside his other argument since it requires accepting mereological essentialism, which is a contentious thesis that I reject.
See also John Foster (2001, pp. 209–210) for a similar argument.
I follow Bynoe and Jones’ (2013) reconstruction of Unger’s argument.
Bynoe and Jones use ‘subjects’ to signify objects that are conscious in the way that we are (2013, p. 110).
Zimmerman (2010) has offered another defense of (PM1) that also relies on the Problem of the Many. Let us suppose that conscious mental states are fundamental phenomenal states in the way that property dualists often describe. After rejecting an ‘act-object’ theory of phenomenal states, Zimmerman claims that property dualists should espouse adverbialism such that when there is a red object in front of some subject, that subject is, to follow Chisholm’s terminology, being appeared to red-ly. Following Gilbert Harman’s metaphor, these phenomenal states are like ‘mental paint’ that must be applied on some object; and given adverbialism, the mental paint is applied on the subject herself.
Now any material object that is a plausible candidate for being the subject of phenomenal states—candidates such as organisms, brains, cerebra, etc.—will have vague spatial boundaries. Since adverbialism “implies that the thing with the phenomenal property is a subject of experience, a conscious being”, our question is over which object the “mental paint” should be applied (Zimmerman 2010, p. 139). Rejecting epistemicism, Zimmerman asserts that the indeterminacy of whether some particle at the fuzzy boundaries of the object is “in” or “out” is a matter of our semantic indecision with respect to the application of certain terms such as ‘organism’, ‘brain’ and so forth. He goes on to say,
We speak of a human body or brain as though there were just one physical object in the vicinity, when in fact there are many largely overlapping, perfectly precise things, none of which has been specified with enough precision by us to qualify as the one-and-only object of reference…as with clouds and mountains, the vagueness of bodies and brains is accounted for by pointing out that there are many equally eligible candidates for being ‘the body’ and ‘the brain’, and we have failed to do enough to determine which one we are talking about. And I shall assume that, if some property is not had by all the eligible candidates for being the brain, organism, table, etc., then it is wrong to say that the brain, organism, or table definitely has the property (ibid., 140).
Zimmerman also asserts what he calls the “law of qualia generation”, such that “whenever some neurons are organized and behaving like so—e.g. like the ones in my brain right now—something-or-other will be caused to have such-and-such fundamental phenomenal property” (ibid., 141). He goes on to state that from adverbialism, if I am a conscious material object that is inflicted with the kind of vagueness we have been considering, then “the laws governing the generation of qualia must ensure that every eligible candidate for being me has this perfectly precise property” (ibid., 142). So there will be many material objects that are non-natural—in the sense that they do not “carve nature at its joints”—that are candidates for being conscious, such as my upper-half or the object composed only of my brain and lower-half. I’ll ignore the other details of his argument since I believe enough has been provided for my purposes. What is important is that both Unger and Zimmerman claim that there are a whole host of material objects within the vicinity of my chair that are eligible candidates for being the subjects of my conscious states. Given (PM1) and the rest of Unger’s original argument, we can conclude that conscious beings such as you and I are not material objects, and so we are not animals.
For ease of exposition, we can assume that I do not have any vague boundaries. If we want to make room for vagueness, we can say that R is the region that includes all the particles that are determinately and indeterminately a proper part of the animal in my chair, or we can say that region R is the region that is occupied by all those particles as well as all the particles that are within an inch of my putative boundaries (e.g., skin). That would take care of worries about vagueness, especially since we can stipulate that there are no other human beings within that region.
If we want to permit vagueness and we let ‘R’ stand for a boundary that includes both those particles that are determinately and indeterminately a part of the animal, then we can say that there is a composite material object that is entirely located (or even weakly located) in R, in the sense given by Parsons (2007).
Again to make the set-up a bit simpler, I will assume that the boundaries of an animal and the number of particles that compose an animal are not vague but precise. For my response to worries involving vagueness, especially worries arising from Zimmerman (2010), see footnote 37.
The object need not be a smaller object, as the Argument from the Problem of the Many indicates a whole host of overlapping arguments, some of which may be the same-size (i.e., is composed of the same number of particles) or larger than whatever “swarm of particles” we stipulate as composing the animal. Again for simplicity sake, I will focus the discussion on a smaller object that is a proper part of the object that is exactly located in R.
Or occupied by those particles that are arranged brain-wise or would compose a brain if they composed anything at all.
The parenthetical qualification is to cover cases involving the Problem of the Many in which the competing material object is not a proper part of the animal but an object that is “more inclusive” and so is partially composed of particles near the boundaries and which are not themselves proper parts (or determinately proper parts) of the animal. Again for ease of exposition, I will leave these cases aside and focus on cases that involve objects that are (determinately) proper parts of the animal.
These principles would have to be temporally-relativized given that animalism is typically associated with three-dimensionalism, which is incompatible with a non-temporally-relativized version of unrestricted composition. For considerations concerning a four-dimensional or perdurantist version of animalism, see Hershenov (forthcoming).
Trenton Merricks is another animalist that denies Object-Part. He offers an argument that is just another instance of the TMC (2001, pp. 94–95), but Merricks uses it to deny the existence of the proper parts of an organism.
Though one can also perhaps combine animalism and the typical form of unrestricted composition where parthood is not relativized to some time or spatio-temporal region, cf. Hershenov (forthcoming).
The animalist can also deny both Competitor and Object-Part, but I leave such a possibility aside.
Some exceptions may be Bailey (Forthcoming) and Madden (2012), though they do not explicitly endorse such a move.
Nor are any of the objects that significantly overlap the animal so as to include the particles that compose or would compose the brain, such objects being entertained in the Problem of the Many Argument.
Hawthorne and McGonigal (2008) may accept this result since they believe it serves as a way of defending an epistemicism account of vagueness. But the problem of “Too Many Thinkers” has led some to accept (A2).
Combining hylomorphism and animalism might also yield another version of unrestricted animalism, cf Toner (2011). Hylomorphism is often associated with an Aristotelian theory of substance, such that the human organism is a substance but none of its proper parts are (which follows from what is traditionally called the “unicity” of substantial forms). Hence, none of the proper parts of an organism is a candidate for being the conscious person since none of them are substances (on the assumption that only substances can be such candidates). Thus, hylomorphic animalism denies Competitor since it is not the material difference that matters but rather the formal differences that determines whether an object is conscious or not. Though I am sympathetic with such an approach, I do not commend it in the body of the paper since my aim is to be more ecumenical so as to include animalists of any stripe—not merely those who want to accept such a robust Aristotelian metaphysic. Moreover, there are lingering concerns, such as explaining why the organism should count as a substance whereas its proper parts do not (and there is a vast literature that tries to make sense of substantiality in terms of “independence” or “unity” criterion). I suspect that my final strategy of LT can also be adopted by hylomorphic animalists while bypassing the controversy over the correct criterion of substantiality.
Another reason I avoid discussing hylomorphism is that it typically denies conscious states to objects that have no life, and so proponents would claim that it is impossible for super-computers to ever think. I am not here advancing anything so strong; only that conscious states are linked with the biological functions of an organism.
Thus, what Jaworski means by “functional analysis” is quite different then what is meant by it from the typical functionalist view in philosophy of mind.
Of course this supposes that the organism does not engage in activities that contribute to an even larger system, a system that may be treated seriously by social scientists or existence monists (leading some to treat “the World” as a whole as the only substance). A full defense of this view must then show a distinction between the kinds of activities that contribute to an organism and the kinds of activities that contribute to a less-unified entity such as a society or the World. Again, I don’t take what I’ve written here as a full-blown defense; I am merely sketching one possible, and hopefully coherent, account for the animalist to adopt in order to avoid the TMC.
Concerning the Problem of the Many, Hudson (2001) notes an “exclusion problem” and a “selection problem”. The strategy being offered here resolves the exclusion problem since there is a single life, and it resolves the selection problem since that life is best attributed to the organism as a whole.
For example, kinesthetic awareness (or proprioception) is a conscious state (e.g., the conscious awareness of my posture) that involves the organism as a whole.
There remains a worry that is most apparent in the Problem of the Many Argument. It may be indeterminate whether some of the particles located at the putative boundaries of the organism are genuine parts of the organism. What can the current strategy say in response? I can think of two replies. First, we can say that there are some proper parts or subsystems that determinately contribute to the organism, and so they are genuine proper parts of the organism. But for some of these outliers, it is indeterminate whether they contribute to the activities of the organism or a sub-system of the organism, and hence it is indeterminate whether it is a proper part or not. So the first response would be, following van Inwagen, to suggest that the boundaries of an organism are vague (and to accept the consequences that follow such as vague identity and vague existence). This is compatible with unrestricted composition, since for every collection of particles in R, there is an object located in R, but none of them will be the organism. There is a single organism in R, an object that has fuzzy boundaries. We would then have to modify [A1] since the organism would not be “exactly located” in any region. However, I suggested in footnote 17 that we can make R a region that is larger than the organism such as the region that extends an inch out from my putative boundaries (e.g., skin). Construing R in this way, we can modify [A1] by claiming that the conscious object is entirely located (and not exactly located) in R (in the sense found in Parsons 2007).
Another reply is to say that the boundaries are super-precise; some of these outliers determinately contribute to the overall activity of the organism and some of them do not. This second response, then, can claim that it is a matter of empirical ignorance that we cannot determinately state whether a particle on the boundary is or is not contributing the overall activity of the organism (especially if we take seriously the idea that the parts of a substance are those that contribute to its overall activity). This does not amount to epistemicism, since epistemicism claims that we can never be in a position to state where the cut-off line is. The response I’m suggesting claims that we are in no position to do so now, but perhaps as the empirical sciences become more sophisticated, we may be able to state for each particle whether it contributes to the activities of the organism (or one of its sub-systems or sub-activities) or not.
References
Bailey, A. (Forthcoming). “You needn’t be simple”, Philosophical Papers.
Brueckner, A., & Buford, C. (2009). Thinking animals and epistemology. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 90, 310–314.
Burke, M. (1994). Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution to an ancient puzzle. Journal of Philosophy, 91, 129–139.
Bynoe, W., & Jones, N. (2013). Solitude without souls: Why Peter Unger hasn’t established dualism. Philosophia, 41(1), 109–125.
Foster, J. (2001). A brief defense of the Cartesian view. In K. Corcoran (Ed.), Soul, body, and survival. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hasker, W. (2010). Persons and the unity of consciousness. In R. Koons & G. Bealer (Eds.), The waning of materialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hawthorne, J., & McGonigal, A. (2008). The many minds account of vagueness. Philosophical Studies, 138, 435–440.
Hershenov, D. Four-dimensional animalism. In S. Blatti & P. Snowdon (Eds.), Essays on animalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
Hudson, H. (2001). A materialist metaphysics of the human person. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hudson, H. (2007). I am not an animal. In P. van Inwagen & D. Zimmerman (Eds.), Persons: Human and divine (pp. 216–234). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Jaworski, W. (2011). Philosophy of mind: A comprehensive introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lewis, D. (1993). Many, but almost one. In J. Bacon (Ed.), Ontology, causality and mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lowe, E. J. (2010). Substance dualism: A non-cartesian approach. In R. Koons & G. Bealer (Eds.), The waning of materialism (pp. 439–462). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Madden, R. (2012). “The Naïve Topology of the Conscious Subject”, Nous.
Merricks, T. (2001). Objects and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Merricks, T. (2003). Maximality and consciousness. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 66, 150–158.
Olson, E. (1995). Why I have no hands. Theoria, 61, 182–197.
Olson, E. (2003). An argument for animalism. In R. Martin & J. Barresi (Eds.), Personal identity (pp. 318–334). Oxford: Blackwell.
Olson, Eric. (2006). Is there a bodily criterion of personal identity. In F. MacBride (Ed.), Identity and modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olson, E. (2007). What are we? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parsons, J. (2007). Oxford studies in metaphysics (Vol. 3, pp. 201–232)., Theories of location Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, A. (2007). Materialism and Christian belief. In P. van Inwagen & D. Zimmerman (Eds.), Persons: Human and divine (pp. 99–141). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rea, M. (1995). The problem of material constitution. Philosophical Review, 104, 525–552.
Rea, M. (1998). In defense of mereological universalism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 58, 347–360.
Sider, T. (2003). Maximality and microphysical supervenience. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 66, 139–149.
Toner, P. (2011). Hylemorphic animalism. Philosophical Studies, 155, 65–81.
Unger, P. (1980). The problem of the many. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5, 411–467.
Unger, P. (2004). Oxford studies in metaphysics (Vol. 1)., The mental problems of the many Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Unger, P. (2006). All the power in the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
van Cleve, J. (2008). The moon and sixpence: a defense of mereological universalism. In T. Sider, J. Hawthorne, & D. Zimmerman (Eds.), Contemporary debates in metaphysics (pp. 321–340). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
van Inwagen, P. (1980). Philosophers and the words ‘human body’. In P. van Inwagen (Ed.), Time and cause (pp. 283–299). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
van Inwagen, P. (1981). The doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62, 123–157.
van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
van Inwagen, P. (2007). Plantinga’s replacement argument. In D. Baker (Ed.), Alvin plantinga (pp. 188–201). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yang, E. (2013a). Thinking animals, disagreement, and skepticism. Philosophical Studies, 166, 109–121.
Yang, E. (2013b). Eliminativism, interventionism, and the Overdetermination Argument. Philosophical Studies, 164, 321–340.
Zimmerman, D. (2010). From property dualism to substance dualism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary, 84, 119–150.
Acknowledgments
For helpful comments or discussion, I thank Steve Davis, Amy Kind, Dustin Locke, Alex Rajczi, Peter Thielke, those who attended a talk of an earlier draft at Gonzaga University and Spring Hill College, and an anonymous reviewer. I am especially indebted to Tony Brueckner (who recently passed away) for his insightful comments, for the many hours we spent discussing this topic, and for his kind and patient mentorship.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yang, E. Unrestricted animalism and the too many candidates problem. Philos Stud 172, 635–652 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0323-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0323-y