What Is The Purpose Of The Ship Of Theseus By Mcse

Throughout the Module Completion Exercises (MCE), I was most intrigued with the MCE covering the concept of identity. Working through the identity MCE caused me to consider the thought experiment of “The Ship of Theseus”. During this analysis paper, I will be providing the following: a presentation of the experiment, the method of “The Ship of Theseus”, possible reactions to the thought experiment, and support for my argument of the experiment. The ship was used to celebrate the returning of Theseus and the young men from Crete after Theseus slayed the Minotaur. As a tradition, the Athenians continually sailed the ship, but after time, “They took away the old timbers from time to time, and put new and sound ones in their places...” (Plutarch,
Hume believes the identity of an object or person directly relies to the collection of parts within that object or person. We can derive this from one this quote, “In order to this, suppose any mass of matter, of which the parts are contiguous and connected, to be plac'd before us; 'tis plain we must attribute a perfect identity to this mass, provided all the parts continue uninterruptedly and invariably the same…” (Hume, p8). Once one part of the ship is replaced, in Hume’s eyes, the ship would not be the same vessel any longer because the parts did not remain uninterrupted and without a doubt the same. Though, I disagree with Hume on his idea of something having a perfect identity. When the collection of parts is disrupted, Hume decides that the identity of the collection is changed. What if I replace my mouse with the same exact product? The original collection parts was disrupted, but yet, I replaced the old mouse with a new mouse remaining an identical collection of parts. My computer set up now has a different mouse, but it still fulfils its original purpose. Therefore, I believe between the two set ups they should maintain that “perfect identity” in which Hume speaks of because of the replacement being identical, and this is why I disagree with Hume on this
In my eyes, the original ship and the ship with the replaced planks are one in the same. I believe my answer to the experiment succeeds because I remain to use the evidence presented, derived method, and criteria for judgment. Our method was comparing the two ships based on a criteria for judgment, and the criteria in which we were judging stated: for the two ships to be considered the same, they must fulfil the same purpose and maintain the intended design. With this standard and the evidence of the experiment, one must come to the conclusion that the two ships remain the same even with the planks being replaced. The answer does not make problematic or unwarranted assumptions because we are using the evidence that we know to be true. We objectively determine the method, and we solve accordingly with the unbiased