The Matter of the Clay and the Statue

The words are describing two diffent aspects of the statue.

Even were all of the clay replaced with aluminum, the molecules of clay do not disappear. You can make an entirely diffent item, call it "Bowl" with the clay you removed from "Statue."

Although, I've never heard a statue being called a piece of clay (or whatever material). I suppose you could do that though, even though it's less expressive. It's like calling a person a mass of bone, muscle, etc.

That doesn't follow. To say that "Statue" and "Piece" do not have identical definitions is not to say that they are two different objects.

Fortunately, I didn't say Statue and Piece lack "identical definitions." I said "Statue is not identical with Piece." And if X is not identical with Y it does appear to follow that X and Y are "two different objects."

I know. This "philosophical dilemma" only works if one keeps the concept of "identity" as ambiguous as possible. That is why I used the term "definitions": since the dilemma depends on our mapping the ambiguity of X and Y's identity onto physical objecthood, it doesn't matter how one defines "identity," as long as we believe that X not equaling Y is the same as X being a different object than Y, which doesn't follow.



It may appear so to you, but it doesn't to me. It follows only if X and Y are defined in reference to specific physical objects rather than properties of physical objects or names we give to physical objects, which they needn't necessarily be.

X = a green copper statue
Y = The Statue of Liberty

X and Y are not identical, but there is no philosophical dilemma in claiming that both X and Y exist in the same place in New York, right off the tip of Manhattan. Like the Clay Statue Paradox, this statement is "paradoxical" only if we keep silent about the terms of "identity" between X and Y and hope that the reader will assume that this identity is contingent upon specific physical objecthood.

I don't know how to quote on here.

I think the issue about the green copper statue - X - and the Statue of Liberty - Y - is as problematic as the piece of clay/statue situation. (The green copper statue being the one where the Statue of Liberty is.) Isn't a green copper statue a physical object? If not, what else could it be? It's not a spiritual or divine object. Ditto the Statue of Liberty. Whatever we may say about it's place in our human scheme of things, it is a physical object. The Statue of Liberty isn't a name or a property, I don't think. "Statue of Liberty" is a name, but that's a different matter.

No, it's a description of a physical object. That is why it can be applied to many different objects (potentially an infinite number of them). "Statue of Liberty," by contrast, is the name of a physical object. Both terms refer to physical objects but the latter refers to a specific physical object while the former refers to any physical object that happens to be green, copper, and a statue. That is why it is possible for both terms to "exist in the same place": it is not that two different physical objects are occupying the same space, it is that one object is there and the one of the terms is attributing properties to it.



Says who? Why isn't a name? Because it refers to a physical object? You seem to suggest that a term must be either a name or an object, but that's a needless binarization. A term can be both.

Same with statue and clay. In this context (which is an important stipulation of the kind that "philosophical dilemmas" are often required to ignore), the former term is a name given to an object, the latter an attribute of that object. The "Clay Statue Dilemma" is really just an elaborate way of saying that an object can be identified more than one way, and it's only a "dilemma" if you believe that multiple identities is the same thing as multiple objects, which it isn't. According to the logic of the Clay Statue Dilemma, it is impossible for you to be "a male" and "a mammal" at the same time, since (according to the argument's reasoning) those refer to physical entities and it is impossible for two entities to be in the same place. A few seconds' empirical observation should suffice to see if that argument holds.

What about this?

Consider the 2 inch spherical region in the center of a piece of clay. Say the region is filled with clay and entirely surounded by the clay in the piece. Is there a piece of clay in that region?