Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Author’s Abstract

1. The thinking parts problem poses a very serious challenge to Animalism¹. Eric Olson has recently argued that Animalists² can meet the challenge if they adopt an organicist ontology, according to which the only composite material objects that exist are organisms³.
2. In this paper, I argue that not only does Olson’s proposed solution fail, but also that there is another challenge Animalists face⁴ which is similar to the one posed by the thinking parts problem, but which organicism does not help to solve.