Abstract:
The puzzle of the ship of Theseus, a problem about objects’ identity over time, has been intensely discussed in recent decades. Eight typical ways to solve the puzzle, six existing and two new, appear if it is properly reconstructed. These solutions, however, are confronted with insurmountable technical and intuitional difficulties. What’s worse, two background theories, the best candidate theory and the only x and y principle, hiding in most solutions, conflict with each other, and have their own troubles respectively. It is pragmatically suggested that the puzzle will disappear if we think of objects’ identity over time not as a topic about reality, but as a topic about a logical construction based on relevant benefits.
