We are in the sitting in the plush Customer Reception Lounge of Plato's Garage. Two customers are waiting to pick up their recently purchased second-hand vehicles.



 "I like your car Eutrapelia!  I see that like me you ignored the public conception of the old greasy-bearded second-hand car-salesman Plato as being an 'Ousia-Freak,' a knavish rogue, and an  untrustworthy fantasist, in addition to being a thoroughly unreliable transcendentalist wretch?"
You bought the vehicle here I presume?"


"Yes Taurorhupos I purchased the car here at Plato's Used Automobiles.
I saw one of  the leaflets that Aristotle distributed and  posted in the Agora, with the picture of Plato and the legend: 'Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?'
I know that Plato is considered to be a bit dotty, with his head always in the clouds
looking for floating templates, along with his ridiculous Ousia-scam, but I don't think   he is the evil character that many believe. 

Anyway, the car is actually guaranteed by the manufacturers Stoical Motors, so I don't have to rely on Plato for any back-up - he is only a factotum - a retailer of good cars and lousy ideas- it's a beauty though -  isn't it? Plato's thurifers have momentarily broken away  from their gay embraces and  are just attending to the documentation - they said I can drive it away in about 15-minutes. To be honest with you it is all paid for through the car insurance,  for my old car was stolen from the parking-lot in the Agora, and the police found merely a burned-out shell, from which most of the components and parts had been stripped.  
The thieves had removed the engine and gearbox, the seats, the doors, even the  boot-lid.
The ash-trays were also taken together with the radio and CD-player  of course - anything which  they could   sell to make some money out their crime.  
I've been without a car for three weeks now in all whilst my insurance claim was approved by Olympus Assurance.
I've hoofing-it through the streets full of hoi-polloical ordure, and the speculative and pervasively fetid rubbish, which the so-called 'philosophers' throw out of the Academy windows."

"Has it got a radio?"


"Yes, and stereo speakers all over the place."


"How many seats does it have?"


"Five, though I must admit it doesn't have all that much legroom in the back. The model I've bought  (the Poseidon Pick-Up) has an aluminium body shell and has the convenient flat-back area at the rear which will be very handy for me in my work as a antique dealer... Yes, it doesn't rust...not yet anyway... "


"What engine does it have?"


"It has a 2-litre 6-cylinder job."


"Can I ask you a daft question?"


"Sure, go ahead Taurorhupos."


"What is it that has all these things you describe?"


"Do you mean does the car belong to me? Yes it's my car..."


"No, I mean what is the it that has all these things - the aluminium body shell, the radio, the five seats, the 2 litre 6 cylinder engine etc?"


"Why Taurorhupos - the car of course."


"By that do you mean all the other parts of the car except for the  the flat-back carrying space, the aluminium body shell, the radio, the five seats the 2 litre 6 cylinder engine etc?"



"Well... no, not really the  the flat-back carrying space, the aluminium body shell, the radio, the five seats the 2 litre 6 cylinder engine etc., are parts of the car too."


"But how can they have themselves?" If the car has five seats, are those five seats part of the car while they are being had by the car? The seats are part of the car, and they, together with all the other parts of the car, make up or constitute the car - 'THEY' ARE THE CAR -  it's as simple as that. If we read out a list of every part and component that the car has without leaving anything out, what is it that 'has' all these parts?"

"The... car?"


"How many of these parts does the car have to have before it becomes the car that has all these parts?"



"I dunno... I haven't thought about it really. I suppose there must be a stage on the assembly line when what results from the combination of certain parts is considered to be a car, rather than a body-shell plus engine, or a body shell and engine plus seats...or something? If I think about it more seriously I suppose that there isn't something that HAS the totality of the parts of which it's made, it's just a convenient way for us to think about these things.  
So this nonsense about Platonist 'properties' is exactly what it really is - UTTER RUBBISH! Plato thought that there is a form of a car, and that if we assemble the correct parts in the correct way and the assemblage corresponds to the form of a car - then what is created on the assembly line can be said to be a car... am I right?"

"Exactly right! If we started to strip down a car and remove parts one by one, at what stage do you think it ceases to be a car? It depends, if you started by removing small parts - say the windscreen wipers, and the ashtrays, and the radio, it would still be considered a car minus these items, but if you first removed the body-shell I think for most people it would cease to be a car immediately. If you saw a car-engine on a bench would you say that it was a car engine without a car, or would you say it was a car with only an engine? It couldn't be thought of as a car with only an engine, for to be a car it would have to 'have' a body and wheels and other things as well as an engine. What about the car-engine on the bench being thought of as a car engine without a car? I think I would probably think more in terms of the car to which it belonged being without an engine, rather than the engine being without a car. But what if the engine didn't 'belong' to any car?  Am I right then that you think of a car as being the combination of all of its parts, and that each part from which it is made 'has' all the other parts, and at the same time that the ashtray is had by all the other parts of the car, the ashtray is also sharing in having all the other parts which together we call a car?


"Can I stop you there Taurorhupos?


"Sure - go ahead."



"Whilst we've been talking about the car having this or having that, I have realised that I don't think a body shell or wheels or an ashtray can have anything."


"What do you mean Eutrapelia?"


"Well inanimate objects are incapable of sharing in any human state - they cannot 'own' or 'have' anything - they just exist in space in a certain form - it matters not whether their position in space is that of lying on a workbench' or being attached by screws' or welded to another inanimate object."


"Do you think then that it is we human beings who bestow a non-existent state of having something then?"


"Yes, we humans transfer the existential states of having and consisting of... and of being new or old or clapped out or badly designed - all these states of being are not intrinsically true of the parts or the complete car - they are simply human terms which are attributed to them by us."

"What then about your new car,  when you take it out and drive it - will it go fast?"


"It will go as fast as I decide to drive it I suppose - within reason of course. Well, Plato's slave, the sly one who speaks such atrocious Greek, the car-salesman Heideggeranicus said it was fast - but the car doesn't... I mean the the car doesn't consider it goes fast...I mean the the car doesn't...doesn't consider anything. Do you think that 'speed' exists then?"


"Only in our minds Eutrapelia - we use the word 'speed' when we are describing
objects changing their existential spatial position in relation to other objects."


"Surely Taurorhupos speed is the action of a car isn't it - the engine explodes a gas, which drives the wheels, which because of the contact with the road and the traction of the rubber on the surface moves the body of the car forward? This is what causes speed isn't it?"


"We can perhaps discuss 'cause' the next time we meet? Well that series of what we call 'events' is the most obvious one, but the 'cause' could also be said to be the result of the men on the assembly line putting all the parts together to make the car, for without that having taken place there would be no car and no speed. The original 'cause' could be traced back to the Big Bang' I suppose?"

"So you believe that such things as "events" actually exist then...? No, it's OK, I'm only kidding.  But let's get back to speed - do you think it exists?"


"No I don't Eutrapelia - I believe that speed is a humanly observable phenomena of the action of the car, and that what we are observing as the car speeds past, is the car existing in a variety of ways - but it is the bundle of components we call 'the car' that actually exists -  and not its speed, which is no more than a manifestation of the existing car's behaviour. In other words we are watching the continuously existing car moving rapidly from one position to another,  and we call that rapid movement 'speed.'  I suppose that you are going to use the same ontological analogy to the 'dancing' of dancers or the 'Being' of things that exist? Hahaha! You are well ahead of me.
But look!  Here comes the knavish hunch-back slave Heideggeranicus with your keys.  Nice to see you Eutrapelia, I hope all goes well with your new car."

"Yes, I'll be off now.  Lovely to meet you Taurorhupos!  Say hello to Levulosia 

for me!"