Abstract

In this article the problem of the so-called 'coinciding objects', i.e. the question whether a substantially homogeneous thing is something ontologically different from the corresponding 'piece of stuff' it is made of or not, is examined from a pragmatical and language-analytical point of view. Instead of recurring to ontological assertions, I propose to regard 'stuffs' or 'substances' as a mode of speaking about things that fulfil the condition of being homogeneous in respect to a certain kind of properties that are called substantial properties. The coincidence problem is resolved by demonstrating that terms for substantially homogeneous things and the corresponding 'pieces of stuff' are predicative expressions in an Aristotelian genus-species relationship