Donald L. M. Baxter

Composition is the relation between a whole and its parts--the parts are said to compose the whole; the whole is composed of the parts. But is a whole anything distinct from its parts taken collectively? It is often said that 'a whole is nothing over and above its parts'; but what might we mean by that? Could it be that a whole just is its parts?This collection of essays is the first of its kind to focus on the relationship between composition and identity. Twelve original articles--written by internationally renowned scholars and rising stars in the field--argue for and against the controversial doctrine that composition is identity. An editor's introduction sets out the formal and philosophical groundwork to bring readers to the forefront of the debate.

Hume’s critique of the traditional account of abstraction applies to his own account of the idea of identity. Abstraction is mentally separating what are inseparable in reality. The inseparable are identical. So abstraction is mentally separating something from itself. That is to conceive it as distinct from itself, which seems inconceivable. For Hume, conceiving of identity requires taking two views of something, first as one, single thing and second as multiple, distinct things. So it requires conceiving of the single thing viewed one way as somehow distinct from itself viewed the other way. If that is conceivable then so is abstraction. Thus, traditional abstraction and Hume’s account of the idea of identity stand or fall together. Along the way the chapter argues that Locke’s version of abstraction is the traditional one rather than the partial consideration some commentators attribute to him.

While Baxter’s name has been associated with the Strong Composition thesis—that a whole is numerically identical with its parts collectively—he actually holds (echoing a remark by David Lewis) the Stranger Composition thesis—that what are distinct individuals on one standard of counting are one and the same individual on another. This chapter argues that only this view respects our common-sense beliefs that a whole is a single thing, its parts are many things, being a single thing is opposed to being many things, and that a whole just is its parts. Taking all these pre-theoretical commitments seriously requires holding that the same thing can differ from itself in number, and in other ways; it can have differing aspects that are not distinct from it; there is discernibility of identicals. Furthermore, there is an identity more fundamental than numerical identity; call it cross-count identity.

One of the advantages of my account in the essay “Instantiation as Partial Identity” was capturing the contingency of instantiation—something David Armstrong gave up in his experiment with a similar view. What made the contingency possible for me was my own non-standard account of identity, complete with the apparatus of counts and aspects. The need remains to lift some obscurity from the account in order to display its virtues to greater advantage. To that end, I propose to respond to those who have grappled with it in print. There are various criticisms by commentators: that it is rendered absurd by the transitivity of identity, that it makes instantiation necessary instead of contingent, that it is unclear what counts are, that aspects are simply tropes, that my view does not capture multiple location, that I make an unclear reference to a theory of composition as identity, that the account suffers from problems with polyadicity, and that it is not a realist account of universals after all. I give responses to these objections.

In this volume--the first, focused study of Hume on time and identity--Baxter focuses on Hume’s treatment of the concept of numerical identity, which is central to Hume's famous discussions of the external world and personal identity. Hume raises a long unappreciated, and still unresolved, difficulty with the concept of identity: how to represent something as "a medium betwixt unity and number." Superficial resemblance to Frege’s famous puzzle has kept the difficulty in the shadows. Hume’s way of addressing it makes sense only in the context of his unorthodox theory of time. Baxter shows the defensibility of that theory against past dismissive interpretations, especially of Hume’s stance on infinite divisibility. Later the author shows how the difficulty underlies Hume’s later worries about his theory of personal identity, in a new reading motivated by Hume’s important appeals to consciousness. Baxter casts Hume throughout as an acute metaphysician, and reconciles this side of Hume with his overarching Pyrrhonian skepticism.

We asked our readers to answer the question, in 250 words or fewer, "Of all the articles that have been published in Hume Studies over the past 50 years, which one is most noteworthy to you? Why so?" We realized that what is noteworthy to individual scholars will vary by their research interests and many other factors. Here are the responses we received, ordered by the date of the Hume Studies articles chosen, from earliest to most recent.Saul Traiger, "Impressions, Ideas, and Fictions," Hume Studies 13, no. 2 (1987): 381–99Hume argues that various mental states are "fictions" of the imagination. The ancient philosopher's commitment to material substance is a fiction, as are our ascriptions of diachronic identity... Read More.

Hume’s empiricist reason for rejecting “school metaphysics” makes it natural to assume that Hume rejects all metaphysics. A.J. Ayer certainly reads Hume this way. The natural assumption is wrong, however. Hume only rejects the aprioricity of metaphysics, and not the science itself. I will argue that his empirical science of human nature supports three basic metaphysical principles. (1) The Contradiction Principle: The clearly conceivable implies no contradiction. (2) The Conceivability Principle: The clearly conceivable is possible. (3) The Conceptual Separability Principle: Things are different if and only if distinguishable, and distinguishable if and only if separable in conception. On these principles the rest of Hume’s metaphysics is based, including his atomistic ontology and his denial of necessary connection. And so, for Hume metaphysics is an empirical science.

For Descartes, duration is an attribute of everything that takes up time. Things with duration have successive temporal parts. Hume agrees that duration entails succession. However, his skeptical empiricism constrains him from attributing duration to everything that takes up time. To all appearances, some things—steadfast objects—take up time without being successive. Seeing Hume’s idiosyncratic view as a successor to Descartes’s under skeptical empiricist constraints makes Hume’s easier to understand and appreciate.

Hume’s empiricist reason for rejecting “school metaphysics” makes it natural to assume that Hume rejects all metaphysics. A.J. Ayer certainly reads Hume this way. The natural assumption is wrong, however. Hume only rejects the aprioricity of metaphysics, and not the science itself. I will argue that his empirical science of human nature supports three basic metaphysical principles. (1) The Contradiction Principle: The clearly conceivable implies no contradiction. (2) The Conceivability Principle: The clearly conceivable is possible. (3) The Conceptual Separability Principle: Things are different if and only if distinguishable, and distinguishable if and only if separable in conception. On these principles the rest of Hume’s metaphysics is based, including his atomistic ontology and his denial of necessary connection. And so, for Hume metaphysics is an empirical science.

Hume’s critique of traditional abstraction entails a result that undercuts his account of the idea of identity. To save his account of identity, Hume would have to accept abstraction as well. What links these two discussions is (1) Hume’s widely shared assumption that traditional abstraction is separating in the mind what are inseparable in reality, (2) his principle that what are different are mentally separable, and (3) his principle that we cannot conceive of the impossible. Given these, it will turn out that abstraction is mentally separating something from itself, which will entail that abstraction is conceiving of something as distinct from itself. But it is impossible for something to be distinct from itself, and so it is inconceivable. Therefore abstraction is impossible. Yet consider Hume’s account of the idea of identity. On that account, to conceive of an identity is to conceive of something as one single thing viewed one way and as two distinct things viewed another. How we can take these opposing views of the same thing is a problem that I’ve termed Hume’s Difficulty concerning Identity. It will turn out that we can take the opposing views only if we can conceive of the single thing viewed one way as somehow distinct from itself when viewed the other way. That is, we must be able to conceive of something as distinct from itself. However, if we cannot conceive of something as distinct from itself when abstracting, then we cannot do it when conceiving of an identity. So traditional abstraction and Hume’s account of the idea of identity stand or fall together.

Stefanie Rocknak has written an ambitious and challenging book1 in which she argues for a new interpretation of Hume's account of how we come to believe in external objects, and what it is we believe in. I am hampered by the fact that she and I seem to agree on so little. Thus, my criticisms run the danger of simply not seeing what she is up to.A preliminary terminological point: where Rocknak uses the word "object," I will often use the word "body," since I think Hume sometimes uses "object" in a more general sense that includes perceptions.If I understand correctly, Rocknak's Hume argues that we come to believe in bodies through a special kind of causal reasoning. We reason what must exist in order to cause...

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis.

Is a social complex identical to many united people or is it a group entity in addition to the people? For specificity, I will assume that a social complex is a plural subject in Margaret Gilbert’s sense. By appeal to my theory of Aspects, according to which there can be qualitative difference without numerical difference, I give an answer that is a middle way between metaphysical individualism and metaphysical holism. This answer will enable answers to two additional metaphysical questions: (i) how can two social complexes have all the same members and (ii) how can there be a social complex of social complexes?

Confucius gave counsel that is notoriously hard to follow: "What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others" (Huang 1997: 15.24). People tend to be concerned with themselves and to be indifferent to most others. We are distinct from others so our self-concern does not include them, or so it seems. Were we to realize this distinctness is merely apparent--that our true self includes others--Confucius's counsel would be easier to follow. Concern for our true self would extend concern beyond the narrow selves we appear to be. The neo-Confucians held just such a view. They espoused an identity with the universe and everything in it, arguing that this identity explains a natural concern for everyone and everything, not just for our narrow selves. However, many things in the universe differ from each other, that is, some have qualities others lack. If they are all one and the same thing then that one thing differs from itself. I will suggest that the objection can be answered with some metaphysical innovation. I will address the objection by sketching a theory--call it the theory of aspects--that explains how numerically identical things can differ qualitatively.

ABSTRACT An apparent objection against my theory of instantiation as partial identity is that identity is necessary, yet instantiation is often contingent. To rebut the objection, I show how it can make sense that identity is contingent. I begin by showing how it can make sense that identity is temporary. I rely heavily on Andre Gallois’s formal theory of occasional identity, but argue that there is a gap in his explanation of how his formalisms make sense that needs to be filled by appeal to my theory of Aspects.

The ancient theory of substance and accident is supposed to make sense of complex unities in a way that respects both their unity and their complexity. On Hume’s view such complex unities are only fictitiously unities. This result follows from his thoroughgoing critique of the theory of substance. I will characterize the theory Hume is critiquing as it is presented in Locke, presupposing what Bennett calls the “Leibnizian interpretation.” Locke uses the word ‘substance’ in two senses. Call substance in the first sense “individual substance” and in the second sense “pure substance.” I will discuss the seven main parts of Hume’s view: (I) that we have no idea of pure substance, (II) that there is no complex individual substance, except in a loose sense, (III) that the fiction of complex individual substance arises in a way parallel to that of the fiction of identity through time, and (IV) results in the fiction of pure substance, (V) that simple qualities and perceptions satisfy the definition of individual substance, (VI) that there is no such thing as inherence, and (VII) that there is no such thing as pure substance. Hume’s views on substance are often mentioned without being discussed in detail. Kemp Smith, Stroud, and Garrett, for example, mostly summarize various claims of Hume in the course of expounding on his theory of the idea of personal identity. In contrast, I will attempt to present a systematic treatment of Hume on substance as a refutation of Locke.

Oliver's and Rodriguez-Pereyra's important interpretation of the problem of universals as one concerning truthmakers neglects something crucial: that there is a numerical identity between numerically distinct particulars. The problem of universals is rather how to resolve the apparent contradiction that the same things are both numerically distinct and numerically identical. Baxter's account of instantiation as partial identity resolves the apparent contradiction. A seeming objection to this account is that it appears to make instantiation symmetric, since partial identity is symmetric. Armstrong's standard reply is that the difference between a particular and a universal is what makes instantiation asymmetric. Brown suggests, though, that the instantiation of a universal by a universal is sometimes symmetric. However, the examples on which he relies are not universals.

ABSTRACT According to David Lewis, alteration is "qualitative difference between temporal parts of something." It follows that moments, since they are simple and lack temporal parts, cannot alter from future to present to past. Here then is another way to put McTaggart's paradox about change in tense. I will appeal to my theory of Aspects to rebut the thought behind this rendition of McTaggart. On my theory, it is possible that qualitatively differing things be numerically identical. I call these differing, numerically identical things "aspects." I will argue that alteration can be a qualitative difference between temporal aspects of something that lacks temporal parts. So a moment can alter in tense. By rejecting Lewis's assumption my theory can solve this version of McTaggart's paradox.

In this volume--the first, focused study of Hume on time and identity--Baxter focuses on Hume’s treatment of the concept of numerical identity, which is central to Hume's famous discussions of the external world and personal identity. Hume raises a long unappreciated, and still unresolved, difficulty with the concept of identity: how to represent something as "a medium betwixt unity and number." Superficial resemblance to Frege’s famous puzzle has kept the difficulty in the shadows. Hume’s way of addressing it makes sense only in the context of his unorthodox theory of time. Baxter shows the defensibility of that theory against past dismissive interpretations, especially of Hume’s stance on infinite divisibility. Later the author shows how the difficulty underlies Hume’s later worries about his theory of personal identity, in a new reading motivated by Hume’s important appeals to consciousness. Baxter casts Hume throughout as an acute metaphysician, and reconciles this side of Hume with his overarching Pyrrhonian skepticism.

We ordinarily make statements of the form "They are the same thing," if there has been reason to distinguish what we now judge identical. But such statements seem not to make sense. "They" indicates that there are more than one thing, whereas "same" indicates that there is only one thing. How can many be one? Hume's obscure Principle of Identity passage in the Treatise addresses this problem. Call it the Number Problem for Identity. Clarifying Hume's account reveals that, despite its richness and suggestiveness, it is ultimately unsatisfactory. In discussing identity, he tries to solve an apparent number problem at the level of objects of ideas, only to leave himself with a real one at the level of ideas. He tries to solve the number problem for identity by appeal to one continuous whole and its many continuous parts, only to leave himself with a different number problem for parts/whole. He tries to make discontinuity necessary for numerical difference, but neither are. ;I develop his account into a satisfactory one, influenced by British Idealist discussions of Identity in Difference and by Hume's discussion of Distinctions of Reason. In response to I propose the concept of "Difference in Respect" based on the dictum that it is possible for an object in different respects to have and lack a property. In the problematic identity attribution I began with, "they" refers to the object in certain various respects, while "same" indicates that it is one object. This is a solution to the number problem for identity. In response to I solve the number problem for parts/whole by suggesting that parts and whole exist and count in different contexts. Which context is the better one to count in varies with purpose and interest. In response to I suggest that Hume's supposedly necessary conditions for numerical distinctness become criteria for judging between contexts, e.g. for many purposes it is better to count a single continuous whole rather than its many continuous parts. I end by applying my newly developed theory to other problems. I show how the same thing can have or lack a property depending on contexts determined by interest or purpose.

Pace Perry, wondering whether perceived things are identical is thinking about them, for Hume, with no thought of perceptions of them. Hume is not a proto-Fregean; Hume's Difficulty is not a version of Frege's Puzzle. Pace Falkenstein, wondering about an identity is not wondering whether clearly distinct things--stages, surfaces, names--are connected in some way. Pace Garrett, wondering about the identity of an observed object is wondering whether it is really one or two things, not whether there is one F or two Fs. Second, Humean consciousness is apperception, not immediate awareness. Third, Hume finds nothing with epistemic merit.

Construing the instantiation of a universal by a particular in terms of my theory of aspects resolves the basic mystery of this "non-relational tie", and gives theoretical unity to the four characteristics of instantiation discerned by Armstrong. Taking aspects as distinct in a way akin to Scotus's formal distinction, I suggest that instantiation is the sharing of an aspect by a universal and a particular--a kind of partial identity. This approach allows me to address Plato's multiple location and One over Many problems, Bradley's problem concerning the instantiation of relations, and the problem of change.

Hume discusses the distinction of reason to explain how we distinguish things inseparable, and so identical, e.g., the color and figure of a white globe. He says we note the respect in which the globe is similar to a white cube and dissimilar to a black sphere, and the respect in which it is dissimilar to the first and similar to the second. Unfortunately, Hume takes these differing respects of resemblance to be identical with the white globe itself. Contradiction results, undermining his theory of abstraction. The way out is apparently to admit an intrinsic complexity in even simple things.

Hume argues that the idea of duration is just the idea of the manner in which several things in succession are arrayed. In other words, the idea of duration is the idea of successiveness. He concludes that all and only successions have duration. Hume also argues that there is such a thing as a steadfast object—something which co-exists with many things in succession, but which is not itself a succession. Thus, it seems that Hume has committed himself to a contradiction: A steadfast object lacks duration because it is not a succession, but has duration because it co-exists with something which has duration. I am not going to discuss why Hume thinks these things. My goal is simply to show that what he thinks is consistent. To do so, I will offer a Humean temporal logic.

Armstrong has loose identity be an equivalence relation, yet in cases of something becoming something else, loose identity is not transitive. My alternate account has an attribution of loose identity be really two: a true attribution of an underlying relation (perhaps not transitive) and a false attribution--a Humean feigning-of strict identity. The feigning may become less appropriate as the underlying relation grows more distant. What makes it appropriate initially is that the underlying relation supports a predictable change in some collective. The importance of the predictably changing collective is signaled by regarding it as a single thing.