Abstract

The general account of material constitution presented in my article, Spatially Coinciding Objects (Ratio vol. 24.1, June 1982), is further developed. There we saw how distinct objects in the same place at the same time can be strictly ordered by an asymmetrical, transitive relation of material constitution. I show herein how this relation can conceivably form ‘upright trees’ in which one object constitutes two other objects, neither of which constitutes the other. It is, however, impossible to have ‘inverted trees’ in which one thing is constituted by two things neither of which constitutes the other. (This impossibility is implied when supposing that there is just one thing which counts as the proximate matter of a thing.)