Some philosophers think identity over time is brute: diachronic identity facts are not further explained. Markosian proposed (though later rejected) a view on which composition is brute: whether a bunch of simples make up an object at a time has no further ground.
It seems to me that it would be very natural to hold the two views together in the case of objects composed of simples. Consider the thesis:
- When we have a plurality of particles at t1 and a plurality of particles at t2, it is brute whether there is one object which both pluralities compose.
If the pluralities are the same and t1 = t2, then as a special case we get the bruteness of composition. And if we presuppose that both pluralities compose, then we get the following bruteness of identity for objects composed of simples: namely, it being brute whether the object at t1 composed of the xs is identical with the object at t2 composed of the ys. Since bruteness of diachronic identity for simples is itself extremely plausible, and it is very plausible (pace gunkiness) that everything is either simple or composed of simples, it follows that the above thesis very plausibly yields bruteness of diachronic identity in general.
While one could hold to bruteness of diachronic identity without holding to bruteness of composition or vice versa, it does not seem very natural to me to do so.
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