The Problem Of The Many

Abstract

Abstract It is my intention to propose a new philosophical problem which I call the problem of the many. This problem concerns the number of entities, if any, that exist in actual ordinary situations and in counterfactual or hypothetical situations. The problem concerns the number even at a given moment of time, and it becomes only yet more baffling when durations of time, and changes, inevitably complicate the issue. It is a philosophical commonplace to note that, without any further specification, there is no definite finite answer to the question of how many entities a given ordinary situation contains. Considering my own present situation, for example, it might be said to contain a salt shaker, also each of the grains of salt in the shaker, also the atoms that compose the shaker, as well as each of those in the grains, and this is only to begin to enumerate what seems natural. Artificial or contrived entities, so to introduce them, greatly complicate the picture. There is the left half of the shaker, as viewed from right here, and also the right half; there is the scattered concrete entity whose salient parts are that left half of the shaker and the second largest grain of salt inside the shaker; perhaps, there is even relevantly in the situation, the abstract entity that is the set whose sole members are the two concrete items most recently specified; and so on, and so forth.