Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Philosophy

Ordinary kinds, K, admit of leeway, both in the number of things that must be arranged K-wise and even in what arrangements count as being arranged K-wise. Consider a chair. A slightly smaller collection of things in pretty much the same arrangement would presumably still be some things arranged chairwise and would count as a chair. But there are plausibly many such collections of things in the vicinity of any chair. Thus, it seems that I am seated in many chairs. This is an instance of the problem of the many. The first half of the dissertation is about solutions to the problem of the many. In chapter 2, I evaluate the proposal that constitution, a relation of non-identity between a thing and what it is made out of, is needed to solve the problem. I argue against this by showing that parallel, constitution-free solutions solve the problem using the very same machinery as constitutionalists, sans constitution. In chapter 3, I develop, motivate, and defend a novel solution to the problem of the many. According to this solution, the many things that have what it takes to be a chair, say, are collectively identical to a single chair. In the second half of the dissertation, I discuss problems of the many that arise in personal ontology. The thinking animal problem is the main argument for animalism, the thesis that human persons are identical to animals. Animalists use this problem against constitutionalism, the thesis that human persons are constituted by, but not identical to, human animals. The thinking animal problem challenges constitutionalists to avoid the result that both the person and animal think. Animalists face the thinking parts problem, which challenges them to avoid the result that the human animal and its large proper parts think. In chapter 4, I argue that constitutionalists about human persons can solve the thinking animal problem using solutions parallel to those animalists use to solve the thinking parts problem. Furthermore, I argue that ani (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Benjamin Caplan (Committee Co-Chair); Julia Jorati (Committee Co-Chair); Taschek William (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy