(1) Unger essay

Why does Unger think that belief in ordinary objects commits one to the ‘miracle of
metaphysical illusion’ and ‘miracle of conceptual comprehension’? Critically
evaluate his arguments

Unger’s version of the Sorites of Decompositions is as follows:

(1) There is at least one stone
(2)For anything that there may be, if it is a stone, then it consists of a many atoms but a
finite number
(3)For anything that there may be, if it is a stone, then the net removal of one atom, in a
way that it is most innocuous and favourable will not mean the difference as to whether
there is a stone in the situation
(4) There exists a stone with n atoms (where n is many but finite) (from 1 and 2)
(5)A stone with n-1 atoms is a stone (from 3 and 4)
....
(n+6) A stone with n-n atoms is a stone (from n and 3)
(n+7) A stone with 0 atoms is a stone (transformation of n+6)
(n+8) A stone consists of many atoms and a stone consists of 0 atoms1 (from (2) and (n+7)

The sorites paradoxes are problematic as they present purportedly true premises, coupled
with uncontroversial reasoning to a seemingly false conclusion. As with any paradox we have
four possible responses2:
1) denying that logic applies to soritical expressions, at least classical bi-valent logic
does not apply
2) denying some premise(s),
3) denying the validity of the argument form
4) Accept it, or some forms of it as being sound.

Unger solves the Sorites paradox by taking the accepting (2) for the Sorites of decomposition.
He denies the first premise of the Sorites of decomposition, thus diffusing the paradox,
though by doing this he denies the existence of a single stone. Unger believes that ordinary
things are incoherent. Our concept of a stone is ‘without application’ and so stones must be
1
Based on Unger’s Sorites of Decomposition
2
Stanford Sorites
cast out of our ontology. He develops two sorites-style arguments, one direct, and one
indirect to show that all ordinary things are incoherent. The direct argument uses the Sorites
of accumulation shows that for any thing, it is not a stone and thus there are no stones. The
indirect argument shows, by a combination of gradual accumulation and decomposition that
every thing is a stone. This essay will discuss the arguments that Unger makes for his
mereological nihilism.

Unger claims that persistence with the belief in ordinary things in the face of mereological
nihilism one must accept a miracle. To assert the miracle of metaphysical illusion, is to assert
the claim that there are joints in reality that stop nature from being relevantly gradual and
preserve the existence of ordinary things. If reality were not gradual, and instead jointed in
such a way to preserve ordinary things we can reject the third premise, as there would be a
point at which the stone no longer is a stone. For example, when grinding atoms from a stone,
there may be a point where it is physically impossible to remove another atom, or if you
could, it would explode, or turn into something else – nature would conspire so that ordinary
things would actually fit our terms for them3. The second miracle is the miracle of conceptual
comprehension. This miracle supposes, contrary to what seems to be the case, that all the
time when we are employing vague ideas we are actually employing incredibly precise ones.
When one steadily removes a small number of atoms from a stone, at some point an atom is
removed and the stone is no more, as it no longer conforms with the precise definition for
stone, even if the stones are indistinguishable.

I think there is something unsatisfactory with the way these miracles are defined. I think it is r
plausible to accept that the miracle of conceptual comprehension is a miracle, I agree with
Unger that our everyday thought is imprecise and unrefined. However, I think his
characterisation of the miracle of metaphysical illusion is false. It could be the case that
reality is jointed. Say we take a sub-atomic particle – a proton as an example. Here our
conceptual comprehension coheres with the metaphysic of the object. We conceive the object
precisely (and if current scientific thinking is to be believed) nature is jointed in that way too,
if we remove some small part from that object, it does become something wholly different.
Similarly, there could be a point where we remove some atom from a stone, and it is
suddenly no longer a stone, even though we would not know this. This would imply that
though our terms are vague, reality is not. What we consider to be ordinary things have a
3
Skepticism and nihilism
restricted composition, if the properties of an ordinary object stray too far from this restricted
composition, it is no longer that object. However, one would not know the composition
boundaries required to be a stone, a table, or a swizzle stick. I’m not stating that this is the
case, it is merely possible, if it were true, it would allow us to reject premise (3).

The assertion that the miracle of conceptual comprehension is miraculous trades on our
intuition that our concept of stone is not as precise as to allow that a removal of a single atom
is enough to change the truth value. In addition, Unger claims that in the case of a many
valued truth if the removal of an atom shows any change in truth value it requires of our
concept of an ordinary thing too great a sensitivity. A change in truth value upon the removal
of a single atom requires that our terms are sensitive on the atomic level. That these terms
should be that sensitive defies belief. Sanford agrees that any sudden drop is mysterious but
argues that if one rejects the principle of valence4 one can solve the ‘miracle.’ We can accept
the statement ‘X is a swizzle stick’ has a truth value of 1, and the continued removal of atoms
will lead eventually to the statement ‘X is a swizzle stick’ having a value of 0. However, the
intermediate stages do not have a determinate truth value. For Sanford, sometimes the
question – ‘Does this statement have a truth value of 1 or less than 1?’ cannot have an
answer. Instead, we can apply truth value ranges to be sure that we are excluding the truth
value assignments that one is sure are incorrect. If these ranges are overlapping this prevents
the certainty of any sudden drop. For example Unger’s Oscar would have a truth value of 1,
Felix would have and truth value of not less than 0.85, Leo’s truth value may be placed in a
range from 0.25 – 0.86... and so on. Any detectable change, aided or unaided, in the
composition of an ordinary thing does not need to alter a statement’s truth value. However,
some changes can exclude truth values that one is confident is incorrect. If one rejects the
principle of valence, no miraculous sudden drop in truth value occurs, and we can accept that
the minute change can lead to truth value change, or at the very least, indeterminacy.

Schneid postulates the concept of an ‘obliterating part.’ This would be the part that if
removed from an object would render it no longer. For example, if one removed 97% of the
Parkinson building, the Parkinson Building would be no longer. If we run a sorites on the
concept of an obliterating part, we can conclude that a single atom is an obliterating part ,
which Scheid claims contradicts the third premise. Unger argues that this doesn’t contradict
the third premise (I imagine he sees it expressed as Sn->Sn-1) , as it is not the negation of the
4
Nostalgia for ordinary things
 conditional, but a conditional with the same antecedent and the negation of the previous
consequent in the paradox above, which apparently adds fuel to the fire for Unger, as it
allows him to assert Sn-> (Sn-1&¬Sn-1). If something is a stone, then removing an atom from it
renders it both a stone and not a stone. I think this is uncharitable. Scheid’s claim of an a
single atom being obliterating part can be rephrased to (Sn is a stone & ¬(Sn-1 is a stone) which
provides a direct contradiction to our third premise if we rephrase as in premise (2) below.

Presupposition – n is a large but finite number

P0 (1) Sn is a stone Assumption
P1 (2) ¬ (Sn is a stone and ¬(Sn-1 is a stone)) Assumption
3 (3) ¬ (Sn-1 is a stone) Assumption, for reductio
P0, 3 (4) Sn is a stone and ¬(Sn-1 is a stone) 1, 3, &I
P0, P1, 3 (5) (Sn is a stone and ¬(Sn-1 is a stone)) & ¬ (Sn is a stone and ¬(Sn-1 is a stone)) 2, 4, &I
P0, P1 (6) ¬ ¬ ((Sn-1 is a stone) 5, 3, RAA
P0, P1 (7) Sn-1 is a stone 6, DNE

I additionally dispute Unger’s claim that ‘if one atom is an obliterating part, one atom less
than that is an obliterating part, thus nothing is an obliterating part – removing nothing from
something would render it obliterated. I disagree with Unger’s supposition that to get down to
a sufficiently small obliterating part one must use the Sorites. Say, when you take an
obliterating part out of an object, you take the thingness out of the ordinary thing. If one takes
97% of the Parkinson Building and moves it, one does obliterate the ‘original’ building. The
old Parkinson Building is no more. However, we are left with the thingness of the original
Parkinson Building. We can then take an obliterating part out of that thing and so on.
However, when we come to the atom, or to any physical object without parts we cannot take
an obliterating part out of it because it does not have parts. This argument does lead us into
postulating incoherency for the Parkinson Building but it motivates a rejection of premise (2).

The final thing Unger says against Scheid is that his reasoning ‘might be supposed to refute
the third premise’ [¬ (Sn is a stone and ¬(Sn-1 is a stone))] but ‘to preserve rational belief in such
objects ... we must refute such reasoning... which does not do as much, or worse, for our belief in
ordinary things.’ Unger claims this because he believes that Scheid’s claim refutes the first premise. If
I have shown above that Scheid can be taken more charitably, then we will not be lead to a refutation
of the first premise, and thus the non-existence of ordinary things. Instead, assuming the rest of
Unger’s reasoning is correct, it should lead us to a refutation of the belief there is a sharp cut off point
between the cases where a vague term applies and where it doesn’t apply. Additionally, if the sharp
cut off point is metaphysically defined, it needn’t be one we could ever discover.