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The ship of Theseus
The setting is Ancient Greece. A young man, Androgeus, sets sail from Crete for Athens to
take part in the games that are held there every five years. Being strong and skilful he is
highly successful, and soon becomes a crowd favourite. However, there are some who are
not so pleased with his success, and they assassinate him.
Unfortunately for Athens, Androgeus was the son of King Minos, who is angered when he
hears of what has befallen his son. He orders the Cretan fleet to sail for Athens and asks
King Aegeus to surrender his son’s murderers.
Not knowing who the murderers were, rather than suffer at the hands of the Cretans,
Aegeus surrendered the whole town to Minos’ mercy. His punishment was that every
seven years the seven most courageous boys and the seven most beautiful girls would be
sent to Crete as a sacrifice to the Minotaur.
The Minotaur, as many people know, was a creature with the head of a bull and the body
of a man. Being the offspring of beast and human, the Minotaur was ferocious, and could
only live on human flesh. Minos therefore had him locked away at the heart of a gigantic
labyrinth. It was into this maze that the Athenian youths would be sent to meet their end.
On the third occasion of the sacrifice, Theseus, son of both King Aegeus and Poseiden,
who had slept with the same woman, Aethra, in the same night, volunteered to slay the
Minotaur. He boarded the boat to Crete, was stripped of his weapons by the guards, and
set sail to his destiny.
When he arrived in Crete he met Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, who fell in love with
him. She decided to help him. She went to the builder of the labyrinth, Daedalus, and
asked him how the Minotaur could be found. He, of course, told her, and this information
she gave to Theseus, along with a clew - a ball of thread wrapped around a stick.
That night, Ariadne took Theseus to the labyrinth. When he entered, he tied the end of the
thread to the door post – and took from his tunic a sword that he had hidden there.
Following Ariadne’s instructions he made his way to the centre of the labyrinth, woke the
Minotaur, and, after a fierce battle, slew the beast.
Following the thread, Theseus found his way out of the labyrinth, gathered together the
other Athenians, Ariadne, and her younger sister Phaedra, and escaped from Crete on a
ship, which became known as the ship of Theseus.
However, they didn’t return directly to Athens. Instead, they went on a long journey, during
which Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island – but that’s another story.
During their voyage of many years, from time to time a piece of the ship needed to be
replaced. A plank here, a handrail there, the masts, even the sails. In fact, by the time they
returned to Athens, every piece of the ship had been replaced.
Questions to think about
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So, the question is, is the ship of Theseus that arrived at Athens the same ship of
Theseus that set sail from Crete?
If the ship of Theseus that arrived at Athens is a different ship to the one that left Crete,
when did it become a different ship?
Some answers that were suggested
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It is a different ship because it is made of different stuff, even if wood is replaced with
wood. This is a materialist response. Thomas Hobbes was a materialist, who posed
this thought experiment in response:
If someone followed Theseus, picking up all the discarded pieces as they were
left behind, and put them back together, are there now one or two ships of
Theseus? Which is the ship of Theseus?
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It is a different ship because everything changes from millisecond to millisecond. The
ship that exists now is different to the ship that existed a minute ago. Heraclitus wrote
that everything in the universe is ever changing. He said, “"No man ever steps in the
same river twice".
It is the same ship because it is still Theseus’ ship. It serves the same function for
everyone and it looks the same. Aristotle identified four causes or reasons that
describe a thing. Although the ship has a different material cause, ie it is made of
different stuff – it still has the same formal cause – its design – and final cause – its
purpose. The fourth type of cause is the efficient cause – how and by whom something
is made – and the ship could have been repaired by the same people using the same
tools.
Application to personal identity
Science has shown us that every seven years, every single cell in our bodies is replaced.
But we still say that the baby in pictures and the adult who looks back at us from the mirror
are the same person. So, what is it that makes us the same person at different times?
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People are different to things: they have a soul. Aristotle said the soul is the form or
essence of any living thing, but is not separate from the body.
People are different to things: they have a body but they have a mind too. Descartes, a
dualists, said these two things were separate but they interact. Berkeley, an idealist,
said there is only mind.
We might change on the outside but we have memories and thoughts, unlike things,
and our personalities stay the same. Locke said our memory links us to our past
selves, so we are the same person through time. But does this mean our personalities
can’t change? And what happens when we lose our memory?
A young girl, when posed with this question, responded that she was different to a ship
because she had a ‘me-bit’. But where is the ‘me bit’?