Questions: Constitution and the Constitution Relation

Question 1

A sculptor shapes a lump of bronze into a statue. Later, the statue is melted and recast into a different shape. What does the constitution/identity distinction predict?

• A. Both the statue and the bronze lump are destroyed, since they are materially identical
• B. The bronze lump is destroyed when reshaped; the statue, having no physical form, persists abstractly
• C. The statue ceases to exist when reshaped, but the bronze lump continues to exist in the new form
• D. The statue and lump are identical, so whatever happens to one happens to the other

Answer: (C)

The statue and the lump have different persistence conditions: statues are individuated under the sortal 'statue,' which ties their identity to their form; lumps are individuated under 'lump of bronze,' which persists through reshaping. Melting destroys the statue (the form is gone) but the lump simply takes a new shape. Options A and D commit the error of treating constitution as identity — they assume the statue and lump must have the same fate because they share the same matter.

Question 2

The argument that a statue and its constituting lump of clay are not identical appeals to Leibniz's Law. What specific property difference does the argument use?

• A. They have different spatial locations at the moment of creation
• B. They have different masses because the statue includes the sculptor's work
• C. They have different modal and temporal properties — the statue would not survive reshaping, but the lump would
• D. They are made of different materials at the microscopic level

Answer: (C)

Leibniz's Law: if x = y, then x and y share all properties. The statue has the property 'would be destroyed if reshaped'; the lump lacks this property (it would survive). This modal difference — a difference in what would happen under counterfactual conditions — is what drives the non-identity argument. Physical properties like mass, location, and composition are shared by the statue and lump at the moment in question, so those cannot do the distinguishing work.

Question 3

If the clay lump constitutes the statue, the lump can survive events that destroy the statue.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is exactly the force of the constitution-without-identity view. The lump and statue come apart under modal and temporal conditions: squashing the statue destroys it (the form is gone) but the lump persists in the new shape. The lump also pre-existed the statue before the sculptor began work. These asymmetric persistence facts are what show the two are numerically distinct despite complete material overlap at any given moment.

Question 4

The constitution relation is symmetric: if A constitutes B, then B also constitutes A.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Constitution is asymmetric. The lump constitutes the statue — the lump is the underlying material from which the statue is made. The statue does not constitute the lump. This asymmetry mirrors the metaphysical dependency: the statue's existence depends on the lump (or some similar material base), but the lump's existence does not depend on being shaped into a statue. Confusing constitution with identity is partly why students expect symmetry — identity is symmetric (if a = b then b = a), but constitution is not.

Question 5

Explain why the constitution relation is described as 'like identity but not identity.'

Model answer: Constitution resembles identity in that the two objects — say, the statue and the lump — completely overlap materially at any given moment: same parts, same location, same intrinsic physical properties. But unlike identity, constitution is not symmetric (lump constitutes statue, not vice versa), not transitive across all cases, and not permanent (the constitution relation can end while both relata persist). Most importantly, the objects differ in modal and temporal properties, which identity forbids: if they were identical, they would have to share every property, but statues and lumps have different persistence conditions under different sortals.

The tension between material overlap (which looks like identity) and modal/temporal divergence (which requires distinctness) is what makes constitution philosophically important. It forces us to recognize that two numerically distinct objects can occupy exactly the same space at the same time — a conclusion that requires sortal-relative identity conditions.