Organon F

Volume 31, November 2024, Issue 4, Pages 388–398

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

‘What is so bad about permanent coincidence without identity?’ (Mackie 2008: 163). This is the very question at the heart of the debate between pluralists and monists about constitution (Baker 1997, Fine 2003, Gibbard 1975, Johnston 1992, Lewis 1986, Thomson 1983). My answer to Mackie’s question is that it contradicts a supervenience principle we all believe we know to be true. I approach this by considering three possibilities and the supervenience principles with which they conflict. One is somewhat politically controversial; the others are described by Wittgenstein (1967) and Dummett (1979). I focus on the possibility described by Dummett and the supervenience principle with which it conflicts. Our reaction to that possibility shows that we believe that supervenience principle to be true. But I argue that (as is obvious), it is inconsistent with permanent coincidence without identity. That is what is so bad about permanent coincidence without identity.

Distinctions; supervenience; macrophysical; microphysical; pluralism.

Author

Harold W. Noonan

Affiliation

University of Nottingham

Address

Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, United Kingdom

E-mail

Harold.noonan@nottingham.ac.uk 

Received

17 July 2024

Revised

10 September 2024

Accepted

18 October 2024

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Noonan, H.W. (2024). What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity? Organon F, 31(4), 388–398. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31403

Chicago

Noonan, Harold W. 2024. "What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity?" Organon F 31 (4): 388–398. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31403

Harvard

Noonan, H.W. (2024). What Is so Bad about Permanent Coincidence without Identity? Organon F, 31(4), pp. 388–398. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31403

© Harold W. Noonan

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