The Puzzle of the Statue and the Clay

The Puzzle of the Statue and the Clay

The Puzzles (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

1. The Constitution View (P1 P2 ~C1):

This view, defended by Wiggins, Baker, and others, accepts the seemingly contradictory conclusion that David and Lump are distinct objects co-existing in the same space and time. They argue that constitution is a relation of dependence, where the statue is "nothing over and above" the lump of clay, but not a relation of identity.

2. Mereological Nihilism (P1 P2 ~C1):

This eliminativist view, associated with Unger, denies the existence of both David and Lump, claiming that only fundamental, indivisible entities (simples) exist. The puzzle is dissolved by rejecting the existence of the objects that give rise to it.

3. Mereological Essentialism (P1 P2 C1):

This eliminativist view, defended by Chisholm, posits that the whole is essential to the parts, meaning that whenever you have the same parts, you have the same whole. The puzzle is resolved by denying that David came into existence on Tuesday; rather, he existed on Monday as the same collection of parts that later compose the statue.

4. Dominant Kinds View (~P2 C1):

This view, proposed by Burke, argues that objects have the persistence conditions of their dominant kind, which is the kind that entails the widest range of properties. Since "statue" dominates "lump of clay," the original lump ceases to exist when sculpted into a statue, and a new object (the statue) comes into existence.

5. Four-Dimensionalism (P1 P2 ~C1):

This view, advocated by Lewis and Sider, claims that objects persist through time by having different temporal parts at different times. David is a temporal part of Lump, existing only during the period when the clay has the form of a statue.