Professor, Department of Philosophy, Lewis & Clark College

The Ship of Theseus

Added on by jay odenbaugh.

Suppose the Ship of Theseus has undergone quite a bit of wear and tear. We decide to replace the wooden planks one by one. We store those planks. For fun, let's call the repaired ship B and suppose we reconstruct the stored planks into a new ship C. Theseus' ship, A, and the others B and C admit of the following:

  • A is neither identical to B or C. 
  • A is identical to B or A is identical to C. 
  • A is identical to both B and C. 

 Which of these options is most plausible? Why?