The disjunctive strategy
The em ployer of the disjunctive strategy hold s that all action and psychological properties are plurally predicated of group term s, b u t that other properties m ay be singularly predicated o f them . If I am right about the am biguity o f “is”, there are two w ays in w hich one m ight em ploy the disjunctive strategy. One m ight sim ply claim th at group term s are am bigu ous, referring either to singularities or pluralities, bu t alw ays to the latter w h en attached to action and psychological predicates. Or one m ight say th at group term s refer to singular th in gs, but th at w hen action and psychological predicates are attached to them the resu ltan t
sen ten ces m ake claim s, not abou t the group entity, bu t a s in the ca se of (R), abou t w hat th is entity is constituted by.
The disjunctive strategy h a s perhaps one advantage over its rival. The uniform strategy cannot adm it of d istin ct b u t co-exten sive groups, for a plurality of individuals will alw ays be identical to a plurality of all and only the sa m e individuals. B u t it follows trivially from the non- extensionality^ of groups th at nothing rules ou t Microsoft, M cDonalds and E sso sharing all and only the sam e m em bers mi,... m n. Were th is so, the following claim would be true:
(S) There are three groups of w hich mi,... mn are the only mem bers.10
Now sin ce it hold s that group term s at lea st som etim es refer to singular entities (i.e. w h en not the su b jects of action and psychological
predication), th e disjunctive reply h a s no difficulty providing a natural truth condition for (S). The claim is true ju s t in c a se there is an x a i/ and
^ W hich is perhaps a defining p ro p e rty o f groups (it d istin g u ish e s th em from sets). If groups are located w here there m em bers are, it follows th at there are three groups in the sam e sp ace at the sam e tim e. I co n sid er the coh eren ce o f th is in Chapter Six.
a z o f w hich mi,... mn are the only m em bers, where x is a group, y is a
group and z is a group, and where y ^ z and x^z. The uniform strategy h a s the resources to say that there are som e en tities w hich plurally sell com puter products, som e en tities w hich plurally sell fast food, and som e en tities w hich plurally sell petroleum and th at each of
th ese collections of entities is the plurality mi,... m n. B ut it can not accou nt for the claim th at there are three su ch pluralities. If it tries to ape the truth-condition given by the disjunctive strategy, it will say th at som e en tities mi,... m n are non-identical with som e entities mi,... m n. And th is is strictly false.
C onclusion
We saw that the uniform strategy fails if groups have tem poral and modal properties that show that they su rvive the actual and
counterfactual lo ss and replacem ent of their m em bers. The disjunctive strategy fails if groups have action or psych ological properties that show that they survive the actu al and counterfactual lo ss and replacem ent of their m em bers. If a subject p e r s is ts in bearing properties throughout the replacem ent of its parts, it m u st be able to survive su ch change, for no su ccessio n of distin ct pluralities can be the persisting su bject of a
property-instantiation. I will call properties p ersisten tly borne p ersistin g
properties. If groups have p ersistin g action or psych ological properties then, both the strategies outlined above fail. In Chapter Five I argue that
The defender o f the uniform strategy could in s is t th at each individual person be d istin g u ish ed from th e M icrosoft-m em ber, M cD onald’s-m em ber, E sso-m em ber etc., that h e constitutes. Schem atically, one could th e n alw ays d istin g u ish a plurality o f X-
m em bers from a plurality o f Y-members even w h en ea ch X-m em ber ‘c o -in c id e s’ w ith a Y-member. The approach w ould accom m odate th e num erical quantification over groups we've s e e n ordinary language com m its u s to (though w e m ight find it difficult to explain how mi,... mn th em selv es, a s op p osed to som e d istin ct individu als, get to be m em bers o f groups). B ut su rely the natural th in g to sa y is that group-m em bership is a (perhaps lifelong) p h a s e o f a sin gle individual, n o t the defining property o f a n ew
individual.
som e grou ps have persisting psychological properties. 1 therefore advocate a m ixed resp on se, according to w hich the uniform and disjunctive strategies fail for som e groups b u t can reasonably be expected to su cceed for others.