The Ship of Theseus

The Ship of Theseus has become a classic problem in contemporary metaphysics. The following four claims all seem plausible, but lead to a contradiction: (1) The ship in the harbour is the original ship. (2) The ship in the museum is the original ship. (3) The ship in the harbour is not the ship in the museum. (4) Identity is transitive. (If a = b and b = c, then a = c.) We discuss several proposed solutions: (1) Only the ship in the harbour is the original one. (2) Only the ship in the museum is the original one. (3) They are all the same ship, which is right now in two locations at one. (4) The original ship was actually two ships. (5) The original ship was an area of overlap between two 4-dimensional space-time worm ships. (6) Victor throwing his hands in the air and saying that the whole puzzle stems from believing that reality itself must incorporate some logically nice relation of identity, and not seeing why one would want to believe that. (Does this mean denying that identity is transitive? Or does it perhaps rather mean denying that identity is a worldly relation, rather than just something we constitute in our practices?) Victor Gijsbers teaches philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. You can follow him on mastodon: @[email protected].