There is no principled reason to deny that Oscar− is a dog at t if it becomes a dog at t'

(This paradox is also known as the paradox of 1001 cats; Geach 1980, Lewis 1993): Focus on Oscar and Oscar− at t — before Oscar loses his tail. Is Oscar− a dog? When Oscar loses his tail the resulting creature is certainly a dog. Why then should we deny that Oscar− is a dog? We saw above that one possible response to Chrysippus’ paradox was to claim that Oscar− does not exist at \(t'\). But even if we adopt this view, how does it follow that Oscar−, existing as it does at \(t\), is not a dog? Ye