ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three areas: composition, persistence and identity and concentrates on how these areas help us answer questions about what material objects there are, and specifically examines the relationship, the consanguinity, between these areas. Persistence is often phrased as a question about how things persist. So phrased, it makes it sound as if there is a deep mystery as to how an object persists from one moment to the next, and certainly it is not obvious that this is mysterious. So the question is somewhat murky. Indeed, the two answers to that question, perdurantism and endurantism, have themselves struggled to find a clear definition, so examining them won’t necessarily clear up this murkiness. There are numerous motivations to believe universalism. Like nihilism it guarantees simplicity. It also renders composition non-vague, for it always takes place.
