{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/79357"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/79357","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Embodied Minds and the Sparse Ontology: The Intersection of Personal Ontology and Composition","abstract":"Ph.D.","abstract_html":"Ph.D.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Dowland, Stuart"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Hershenov, David","Philosophy"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-04-04T20:30:47Z","date_published":"2019-04-04T20:30:47Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:16Z","subjects":["philosophy","metaphysics"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79357","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Hershenov, David","Philosophy"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Dowland, Stuart"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2019-04-04T20:30:47Z","2019","2018-12-21 04:16:27"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["philosophy","metaphysics"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79357"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Ph.D.","What sort of things are we, essentially? This is the primary question of personal ontology. Its answer has implications for the closely related area of personal identity, as well as for important, practical concerns such as defining death. Among views for which we are physical things, two of the most commonly defended sorts of views are those for which we are defined in some sense by our mental features and those for which we are essentially living organisms. According to the embodied mind account—versions of which have been defended by such philosophers as Parfit and McMahan—we are not organisms; instead, we are essentially minded beings. This dissertation defends a version of the embodied mind account, concluding that it, and not animalism or some other rival approach to personal ontology, is the correct account of what we are. But, rather than simply defending pre-existing versions of the embodied mind account, I aim to offer a better version. In addition to personal ontology, this dissertation is also concerned with composition. The intersection of these two areas has almost exclusively been addressed by those animalists who argue that composition is restricted and that there are no (macroscopic) composite objects other than organisms. I find much about their arguments for these sparsist accounts of composition to be convincing, but maintain they err in endorsing animalism. Here, I defend a pairing of the embodied mind account and compositional sparsism. I call this combination embodied mind sparsism. I argue that, given the motivations behind sparsism and the arguments used to support it, the embodied mind account is a better fit for it than is animalism. I also argue that the embodied mind account, like animalism, faces trouble if not paired with sparsism, and that sparsism provides a way to respond to various objections to the embodied mind account. I break from others, such as Parfit and McMahan, in proposing that the embodied mind account be paired with sparsism, and also in my approach to our persistence conditions and individuation. I have no decisive way to individuate capacities for consciousness, and there are reasons to think that most of us have more than one such capacity. I thus prefer to avoid any claims that presuppose we each have but one, such as the claim that you have a capacity for consciousness, and exist so long as you retain it. I aim to offer an approach to our individuation and persistence that remains neutral on the number of capacities for consciousness one has, while still holding that retaining at least one such capacity is necessary for persistence. I then consider more closely the implications of animalism and animalist versions of sparsism, in order to compare and contrast them with implications of embodied mind sparsism. That embodied mind sparsism is preferable to animalism is can be reinforced through consideration of animalism’s implications for two sorts of conjoined twinning cases, one of which presents animalists with a too-many-thinkers problem, and does so in a way that does not allow animalists to avoid the problem without undermining the force of the thinking-animal argument (perhaps the strongest argument for animalism). Avoiding problems with such cases, as well as both the thinking-animal and remnant-person problems, gives the embodied mind account a significant advantage over animalism and some other competing views. Meanwhile, animalism’s consequences for a number of cases are much more unwelcome than even the most counterintuitive implications of embodied mind sparsism.As part of my defense of the proposed account, I defend thinking-subject minimalism, a principle presupposed by the embodied mind account, according to which one’s parts are limited to things playing the right sort of contributory role in one’s mental features. Olson objects that this principle fails to secure the correct number of thinkers on its own, and must be paired with an individuation principle for thinkers in order to avoid potential trouble. He considers one such principle, and then objects to it. As I argue, that principle differs from the individuation principle implied by the embodied mind account. However, as some of Olson’s objections are applicable to each of these individuation principles, I go on to reply to those objections, showing them to be circular.I close by addressing some concerns related to fission cases. The standard view of fission is that it cannot be survived, at least without a ‘tie-breaker’ that makes one fission product more similar to the original thing. But if we are embodied minds, then hemispherectomies may count as fission for us, and few doubt we survive surgically successful hemispherectomies. In response, I first argue that surviving fission is possible, though not guaranteed, and that alleged ‘tie-breakers’ are irrelevant to this. An unwelcome implication is that surviving a surgically successful hemispherectomy is not guaranteed. However, this approach, unlike closest-continuer accounts, resolves fission problems without violating the ‘only x and y’ rule. For the second part of my response, I argue that organisms are not immune to fission-related concerns. If either part is correct, then fission cases provide no reason to prefer animalism to the embodied mind account. If both are correct, then fission cases may provide further reason to prefer the embodied mind account to animalism."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Embodied Minds and the Sparse Ontology: The Intersection of Personal Ontology and Composition"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Hershenov, David","Philosophy"],"dc:creator":["Dowland, Stuart"],"dc:date":["2019-04-04T20:30:47Z","2019","2018-12-21 04:16:27"],"dc:description":["Ph.D.","What sort of things are we, essentially? This is the primary question of personal ontology. Its answer has implications for the closely related area of personal identity, as well as for important, practical concerns such as defining death. Among views for which we are physical things, two of the most commonly defended sorts of views are those for which we are defined in some sense by our mental features and those for which we are essentially living organisms. According to the embodied mind account—versions of which have been defended by such philosophers as Parfit and McMahan—we are not organisms; instead, we are essentially minded beings. This dissertation defends a version of the embodied mind account, concluding that it, and not animalism or some other rival approach to personal ontology, is the correct account of what we are. But, rather than simply defending pre-existing versions of the embodied mind account, I aim to offer a better version. In addition to personal ontology, this dissertation is also concerned with composition. The intersection of these two areas has almost exclusively been addressed by those animalists who argue that composition is restricted and that there are no (macroscopic) composite objects other than organisms. I find much about their arguments for these sparsist accounts of composition to be convincing, but maintain they err in endorsing animalism. Here, I defend a pairing of the embodied mind account and compositional sparsism. I call this combination embodied mind sparsism. I argue that, given the motivations behind sparsism and the arguments used to support it, the embodied mind account is a better fit for it than is animalism. I also argue that the embodied mind account, like animalism, faces trouble if not paired with sparsism, and that sparsism provides a way to respond to various objections to the embodied mind account. I break from others, such as Parfit and McMahan, in proposing that the embodied mind account be paired with sparsism, and also in my approach to our persistence conditions and individuation. I have no decisive way to individuate capacities for consciousness, and there are reasons to think that most of us have more than one such capacity. I thus prefer to avoid any claims that presuppose we each have but one, such as the claim that you have a capacity for consciousness, and exist so long as you retain it. I aim to offer an approach to our individuation and persistence that remains neutral on the number of capacities for consciousness one has, while still holding that retaining at least one such capacity is necessary for persistence. I then consider more closely the implications of animalism and animalist versions of sparsism, in order to compare and contrast them with implications of embodied mind sparsism. That embodied mind sparsism is preferable to animalism is can be reinforced through consideration of animalism’s implications for two sorts of conjoined twinning cases, one of which presents animalists with a too-many-thinkers problem, and does so in a way that does not allow animalists to avoid the problem without undermining the force of the thinking-animal argument (perhaps the strongest argument for animalism). Avoiding problems with such cases, as well as both the thinking-animal and remnant-person problems, gives the embodied mind account a significant advantage over animalism and some other competing views. Meanwhile, animalism’s consequences for a number of cases are much more unwelcome than even the most counterintuitive implications of embodied mind sparsism.As part of my defense of the proposed account, I defend thinking-subject minimalism, a principle presupposed by the embodied mind account, according to which one’s parts are limited to things playing the right sort of contributory role in one’s mental features. Olson objects that this principle fails to secure the correct number of thinkers on its own, and must be paired with an individuation principle for thinkers in order to avoid potential trouble. He considers one such principle, and then objects to it. As I argue, that principle differs from the individuation principle implied by the embodied mind account. However, as some of Olson’s objections are applicable to each of these individuation principles, I go on to reply to those objections, showing them to be circular.I close by addressing some concerns related to fission cases. The standard view of fission is that it cannot be survived, at least without a ‘tie-breaker’ that makes one fission product more similar to the original thing. But if we are embodied minds, then hemispherectomies may count as fission for us, and few doubt we survive surgically successful hemispherectomies. In response, I first argue that surviving fission is possible, though not guaranteed, and that alleged ‘tie-breakers’ are irrelevant to this. An unwelcome implication is that surviving a surgically successful hemispherectomy is not guaranteed. However, this approach, unlike closest-continuer accounts, resolves fission problems without violating the ‘only x and y’ rule. For the second part of my response, I argue that organisms are not immune to fission-related concerns. If either part is correct, then fission cases provide no reason to prefer animalism to the embodied mind account. If both are correct, then fission cases may provide further reason to prefer the embodied mind account to animalism."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79357"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["philosophy","metaphysics"],"dc:title":["Embodied Minds and the Sparse Ontology: The Intersection of Personal Ontology and Composition"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:16Z"}