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Mereological Nihilism argument against animalism?
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By Mereological nihilism I mean the view that there are no composite objects.

By animalism, I mean the view of personal identity that holds that I am a human organism and my persistence conditions are identical to those of my human organism, i.e., I am an animal.

Here is the argument I have in mind. Please let me know if somebody has written on something similar. That is the point of my post, I want to read more on this connection.

  1. animals are composite objects
  2. Composite objects don't exist
  3. So, animals don't exist
  4. So, If I am an animal, then I don't exist
  5. But, I do exist
  6. So, I am not an animal

So, obviously you could just deny 2. But I am interested in seeing if, taking mereological nihilism for granted, this follows through. I imagine that what one will want to say is that "I am not an animal, per se but I am a set of molecules arranged animal-wise". But this, I think, loses much of the initial probability of animalism. Surely, I am not a "set of molecules", right? After all, this set changes every moment, and so it looks like on this view I would not persist, but I do persist. I'm 100% positive there are ways one can deepen the nuance and move the dialectic forward. Know of anywhere I can look for this?

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2 years ago