In Defence of Logic VII: The Ship of Theseus and Persistence Through Change

The Ship of Theseus is often presented as a paradox of identity: either the ship survives wholesale material replacement, in which case identity seems to detach from matter, or it does not, in which case ordinary repair appears to destroy the thing itself. This paper argues that the paradox is misdescribed from the outset. The issue is not static composition but persistence through change. A ship is not identical to its present carrier taken at one frozen moment. The planks are the carrier, the vessel is the organised structure, and the identity of that vessel belongs to the continuous artifact-line through which it is tracked across repair, use, damage, and maintenance. Once carrier, structure, and tracked identity are kept distinct, the force of the paradox weakens sharply. The branching case involving reconstruction from discarded planks does not restore the problem, because reconstruction and continuation are not the same thing. The paper concludes by comparing this pressure with Sorites while keeping their domains distinct.