DEC-04-2014 14:38 ACTS, EVENTS AND THINGS* Kit Fine ‘The objects that clutter up ou daily lfe—chairs, desks, slicks im water, bits of becs-w. have long been the source of philosophical reflection; and I hope that I may therefo be forgiven for persisting in further reflection of this kind. Take the statue before me. It is a handsome ereation, made of bronze and in the ima of Goliath. But what exactly is it? What is its nature or identity? ‘There are various ways in which this question may be taken. It might be, and often 1 taken to concern the nature of the matter that constitutes the statue. This is, to my min f deep and difficult quesiion. But let us take the identity of the matter for granted. Th the question might also be taken to concern the identity of the statue in its relation 10 mauer, OF course, it is not as if I have a spesial interest im statues. I take statues to be typi specimens of the material things we ordinacily talk about. What then goes for them shout ‘one hopes, go for those other material things. ‘One natural anewer to our question fs that the statue and its matter are one and the cam. Wis not as if we have a duality of thing and matter, of substance and stuff. We have mere fone item, referred to indifferently as the matter or as the statue. ‘There are various considerations that make this answer seem s0 natural, Firs, itis suggest by our ordinary judgement that the matter, the stuff over there, is a statue. Granted th the ‘ic? here ig the ‘is? of identity and that there is but one statue over there it then follo: that the statuc and its maticr aze identical. Second, there is what one might call a focation coincidence between the statue and tts matier; they occupy the same place at the giv time, One is therefore tempted to infer their identity from the wellknown principle that ts things cannot oceupy the same place at the same time. As two, the statue and the matt seem ta compete for the same pace; there it no r00% For them both In addition to the locational coincidence, though perhaps dependent upon it, is « enormous descriptionat coincidence, a coincidence of descriptive propetts. Observe supesticial properties of the statue and its matter; weigh them; sebmit them to the mc refined tests, No difference will emerge; and itis, of course, absurd that jt should, Now no coincidence, no matter haw vast, need imply an identity. There i, ia thic rerpe: an asymmetry in the application of Leibnis’s principle of the indiscernibility of identica for whereas one differing property will yield a non-identity, no number of shared properti need yield an identity. But even though we concede the lack of a logical guarantee, it s1 might be though that, in thif case, it is only the identity of the statue and its matter th can plausibly explain their coincidence of properties. Perhaps, thought’ the muin reason for denying a distinet identity 10 the statue is met physical, We conceive of the physical universe as consisting of matter or of whatever matt fs ultimately composed, The idea of material things, in addition to the matter, then scet strange and mysterious ‘This answer then is very natural. But sil it is wrong. Suppose that the bronze is melt down tomorrow, Then the statue ceases to exist at that time; but the bronze doet not. T fone has the property of ceasing to exist tomorrow; the other lacks it, Therefore the ts are distinct. ‘There is, of course, 2 standard response to this line of argument. What we have here, is said, is an intensional context. The terms ‘the statue" and ‘ihe matter" refer to the sat thing, but by means of different descriptions. What miakes it falee that the fatue ex: P.O01DEC-04-2014 14:38 i i t | I P.002 tomorrow is that the given thing ceases 9 possess the description associated with the term ‘the statue’, while what makes it true that the matter cxists tomorrow is that the same thing continues to postess the description associated with the term ‘the matter’. Thus what accounts for the aiffercnee in the trath-valve of the existence-daims is not a difference in the items referred to but a difference inthe descriptions by which ceference is made. It would take too long for me to comment on this response in detail, but let me merely note the following. If we do have aa jatensional context here, i is not of @ standard sort. ‘A standard example of an intensional context is provided by the sentence “the police are looking for the murderer’. Now the truth-value of such a sentence is sensitive to changes in coveferential definite description: the police are looking for the murderer; they are not, in a clear scnse, looking for the mayor, even though we murderer is the mayor. However, the contexts we have been talking about are not, in this way, sensitive to variation in definite description. The statue might be my most treasured possession, the light and joy of my hfe, the object of all my dreams. If the statue ceases to exist tomorrow, thea so does my most ‘reasused possession, the Hight and joy of my life, the object of all my dreams. If these contexts are intensional, thea some new account of their intensionality must be fiven, one that makes them transparent to definite descriptions but not 10 other kinds of Singular terms, Now such an account can be, and has been, developed. But it is untatural, unwieldy and, in the last analysis, unworkable. Since there is a simple and straightforward liternative that squaies 30 well with the nguistic data, there seems t0 be very little reason, philosophical prejudice apart, for not preferring it. ‘Let us assume then that our argument from existence-conditions establishes the distinct~ ness of the statue and its matter. The question remains as to the idemtty of the statve, But a ready answer is at hand: the statue is a femporal segment of the bronze. Given any enduring ‘Object, we may retrict it 10 certain of the times at which it exists. Its as if we cut through the object at those tines. The resulting object, the segment or restriction, will be like the ‘parent object when it exists, Dut, unlike the parent, it will only eaist during the moments of Fesiriction, We may now think of the statue as the temporal restriction of the bronze 10 those times at which it has the right shape, (We should also insist that the shape have the right genesis; but let us, for simplicity, ignore that). “there Is one slight defect in this account as it stands, It rests on the assumption that the statue cannot change lis matter over tine. But this is = genuine possibility, what with wear and tear and minor repairs. And even though a statue cannot completely change Its matter over time, there are other kinds of object that can. ‘This defect, thovgh, is easily put right. AC different times, the statue is constituted by different matter. Restect each such parcel of matter to the times at which it has the right shape (and the right causal genesis). Then let the statue be the temporal aggregate of the resulting temporal segments. "The account. as thus amended, has many merits. It explains the difference in the existence conditions of the statue and the matter; for when the bronze is melted down, it no longer hhas the Goliath-shape and so the temporal segment which is the statue no longer exists. “The account explains the locational and deseriptional coincidence betwenn the siatue and the matter; for at any time al which the statue as temporal segment or aggregate exists, it ‘will share the locational and other properties of its patent, the matter. The account would iso appear to justify our ordinary judgement that the matter is a statue. For there is a hhatural sense in which a temporal cegment and its parent are parts of one another at any time at which they both exist. Taking the “is' to be the ‘is, not of identity, but of mutual pat then gives us the required conclusion that the mater Is, a¢ the given time, a statue. ‘The account. finally, is metaphysically appealing. It conforms to what One might call an extensional picture of physical reality, ‘extensional not in the logician’s new-fangled sense but in the traditional sense that relates to talk of a body's extension. In effect, each material thing is conceived of in terms of its occupancy of extension in space and time, so that things ‘with the same spatio-temporal extension are judged to be the samme. Such @ view thon seems oeDEC-04-2014 14:38 tc take the mystery out of the material thing as something additional to the matter. For We thay think of the material things as providing us with a way of talking about different matter miyiffefent times. Or if matter in its turn fs reduced to maze points, we may think of matter ara things alike as providing us with way of talking about the different congeries of mass points ‘Dut despite those many merits, the account is sill unsatisfactory. It is subject to a modal yarnant of out previous temporal acgument, Let us suppose that the bronze always has the Goliath shape. Pechaps God made the bronze that way and man, with uncharacteristic sloth. fas left it alone. Then on the extensional view, the bronze and the statue are the same, ince they fail to differ in theie spatio-temporal extension. ‘Dut imagine now that the bronze had been melted down. Then the statue would Nave ceived 10 ent; but not the bronze. So the statue has the counterfactual property that it Mrould cease to exist if the bronze were melted down, while the bronze lacks that property. Te put it in other terms, consider a possible world in which the bronze ie melted down. ‘Thee the statue, unlike the bronze, has the property of not existing at the given time in Iie given ponible world. Thus the statue and the bronze have diferent modal or counter~ factual properties and therefore are not the same. “As in the temporal case, one may attciap to alide out of this argument by appeal to inten ‘But the eificulies with this way out are the same; the given contexts are it ‘definite description. There is also a dislectical point vo be made, Some philosophers have been tempted to appeal to intensionality of context in {his bur not the temporal case, Yet given the complete symmetry between the wo casts, It is hard to see how any such attitude ean be justified. Let us grant then that, in the imagined case, the statue and the bronze are distinct. How is the distinction between them to be explained? 1¢ is tempting, at this point, to make use fof modal segments, somewhat in analogy 10 temporal segments. Just as we allow that sn Object may be restricted to some of the times at which it exists, so we allow that an object thay be restricted to some of the worlds (or wortdtimes) at which if exists. We cut through the object not just in the temporal sphere but also in what might be called the modal sphere. ‘The resutting object, of modal segment, will then be like the parent object at those worlds {or world times) in which it exsis, but will only exist in the worlds (or world times) of the ‘We may now think of the stalue a3 the restriction of the bronze fo those worlds, or rather world-times, at which it tas the right shape. Or if we allow the matter of the statue to vary, From world to world, we may let the statue be a modal aggregate of such restrictions, "The above account solves our present puzie; for although the statue and the bronze coincide in this world, there will be many other worlds in which they do not coincide, The seout also has all of the advantages of the previous account. It explains the temporal divergence in existence conditions, the coincidence of properties, and the apparent judgement Of identity, In addition, it too conforms to an extensional picture, but under a broadened Conception of extension for which modality also provides a sphere or dimension in which Objects exist, Indeed’, the progress of our theories—from the identity theory, through the Tempore! siew, to the present modal account—can be seen as arising from a successive brondening in the notion of extension, from spatial, to spatio-temporal, to spatiotemporal modal. “The extensional view is so appealing that itis hard to give up, But even this new secount har a fundamental flaw. 1 have talked all along of matter constituting @ material thing. But what exactly is this lation? What do we mean when we say that such and such a matter ‘constitutes a material thing? ‘On the face of it, we have bere a relationship of part (o whole; the matter ‘makes up", it a part of, the statue, Now on the segmental or extensional view, we can indced distinguish relationships + partewhole. Ascun. for sixelicity, that the statue enjoys (be same matter Goughovt ils career, Then we may say without temporal qualification shat the statue, % P.003