Animalism and the Vagueness of Composition

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14210%2F19%3A00107392" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14210/19:00107392 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.organonf.com/journal/orgf-2019-26202/" target="_blank" >https://www.organonf.com/journal/orgf-2019-26202/</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26202" target="_blank" >10.31577/orgf.2019.26202</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Animalism and the Vagueness of Composition

Original language description

Lockean theories of personal identity maintain that we persist by virtue of psychological continuity, and most Lockeans say that we are material things coinciding with animals. Some animalists argue that if persons and animals coincide, they must have the same intrinsic properties, including thinking, and, as a result, there are ‘too many thinkers’ associated with each human being. Further, Lockeans have trouble explaining how animals and persons can be numerically different and have different persistence conditions. For these reasons, the idea of a person being numerically distinct but coincident with an animal is rejected and animalists conclude that we simply are animals. However, animalists face a similar problem when confronted with the vagueness of composition. Animals are entities with vague boundaries. According to the linguistic account of vagueness, the vagueness of a term consists in there being a number of candidates for the denotatum of the vague term. It seems to imply that where we see an animal, there are, in fact, a lot of distinct but overlapping entities with basically the same intrinsic properties, including thinking. As a result, the animalist must also posit ‘too many thinkers’ where we thought there was only one. This seems to imply that the animalist cannot accept the linguistic account of vagueness. In this paper the author argues that the animalist can accept the linguistic account of vagueness and retain her argument against Lockeanism.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA17-12551S" target="_blank" >GA17-12551S: Indeterminate Identity</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Organon F

ISSN

1335-0668

e-ISSN

2585-7150

Volume of the periodical

26

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

SK - SLOVAKIA

Number of pages

21

Pages from-to

207-227

UT code for WoS article

000469310400002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85076467193