 It is worth emphasizing that the debate between somatic and organic animalists is not merely verbal and that the sort of linguistic evidence sometimes marshaled (e.g., by D. Mackie 1999b) is—while germane—unlikely to settle the question at issue. The debate between somaticist and organicist conceptions of the conditions of animal continuity reflects a substantive (if, as yet, inadequately explored) disagreement about the nature of (human) animals. (Are they essentially living? How ought life itself be understood?) Moreover, while the issue of whether something can be both an animal and dead illustrates the somaticist-organicist debate, it is hardly the only context in which that debate manifests itself. The same debate could be illustrated when considering unborn human fetuses, human animals in suspended animation, etc.