Shane Hemmer | University at Buffalo, State University of New York (original) (raw)
Supervisors: Maureen Donnelly and Neil Williams
Address: Buffalo, New York, United States
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Università degli Studi di Milano - State University of Milan (Italy)
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Papers by Shane Hemmer
This paper provides objections to a particular species of reductive presentism, called minimalist... more This paper provides objections to a particular species of reductive presentism, called minimalist reductionism. Presentism is the metaphysical thesis that only the present time, and present objects and properties, exist. It is often thought of as the commonsense view of the metaphysics of time. But problems arise for presentism which pose a direct threat to common sense. One problem that arises for presentists is the Truthmaker Problem. The problem is that there are many intuitively true propositions about the past and the future which are hard to explain if one is a presentist. This is because of what is known as the Truthmaker Principle, which holds that for any statement about the world that is true there must be something—a truthmaker—which makes that statement true. Another way to put it is that truth supervenes on being; that is, true propositions are true because of what exists in the world. Minimalist reductionism appeals to the laws of nature in order to ground truths about the past and the future on presently existing entities and the properties they instantiate. I focus on Ned Markosian’s recent defense of this position, and present three objections which show that it fails. The first objection comes in two parts, and is directed at a crucial assumption made by Markosian. The second objection explains that if the laws of nature are deterministic, the reductive presentist gets some truthmakers, but loses many. The third objection explains that if the laws of nature are indeterministic, then it turns out that the reductive presentist gets none of the truthmakers they seek. This leaves the minimalist reductionist with the dilemma of accepting either that there are far fewer truths about the past and future than we thought, or of abandoning their position in favor of another version of presentism.
Four dimensionalism is the philosophical theory that every object that exists has a temporal part... more Four dimensionalism is the philosophical theory that every object that exists has a temporal part at each moment it exists. Temporal parts are analogous to spatial parts: just as my hand is a (spatial) part of my body, the first year of my life is a temporal part of my whole life. Among the philosophers who endorse four dimensionalism, there is disagreement over how objects persist, or survive over a period of time. Some philosophers think that objects persist by having temporal parts at each moment they exist. The object is properly considered to be the sum of all those temporal parts. This is the view of perdurantism, which I defend in this paper. Some other philosophers believe that objects simply are the temporal parts themselves, rather than sums, or fusions of temporal parts. They persist by being related to other temporal parts in specific ways. This is the view known as the stage theory.
My goal is to show that the stage theory requires us to accept too many philosophically problematic claims. Most of the discussion in this paper deals with the "puzzles of coincidence." Coincidence is said to occur when two distinct objects seem to be located in precisely the same place. There are actually two problems presented by these puzzles: (1) that ordinary physical objects seem to be prohibited by the laws of nature from being co-located, and (2) that the seemingly distinct co-located objects are composed of all the same physical parts. Both perdurantism and the stage theory offer solutions to these puzzles. I argue that perdurantism offers the better solution. Later in the paper, I offer other reasons not to accept the stage theory.
This paper provides objections to a particular species of reductive presentism, called minimalist... more This paper provides objections to a particular species of reductive presentism, called minimalist reductionism. Presentism is the metaphysical thesis that only the present time, and present objects and properties, exist. It is often thought of as the commonsense view of the metaphysics of time. But problems arise for presentism which pose a direct threat to common sense. One problem that arises for presentists is the Truthmaker Problem. The problem is that there are many intuitively true propositions about the past and the future which are hard to explain if one is a presentist. This is because of what is known as the Truthmaker Principle, which holds that for any statement about the world that is true there must be something—a truthmaker—which makes that statement true. Another way to put it is that truth supervenes on being; that is, true propositions are true because of what exists in the world. Minimalist reductionism appeals to the laws of nature in order to ground truths about the past and the future on presently existing entities and the properties they instantiate. I focus on Ned Markosian’s recent defense of this position, and present three objections which show that it fails. The first objection comes in two parts, and is directed at a crucial assumption made by Markosian. The second objection explains that if the laws of nature are deterministic, the reductive presentist gets some truthmakers, but loses many. The third objection explains that if the laws of nature are indeterministic, then it turns out that the reductive presentist gets none of the truthmakers they seek. This leaves the minimalist reductionist with the dilemma of accepting either that there are far fewer truths about the past and future than we thought, or of abandoning their position in favor of another version of presentism.
Four dimensionalism is the philosophical theory that every object that exists has a temporal part... more Four dimensionalism is the philosophical theory that every object that exists has a temporal part at each moment it exists. Temporal parts are analogous to spatial parts: just as my hand is a (spatial) part of my body, the first year of my life is a temporal part of my whole life. Among the philosophers who endorse four dimensionalism, there is disagreement over how objects persist, or survive over a period of time. Some philosophers think that objects persist by having temporal parts at each moment they exist. The object is properly considered to be the sum of all those temporal parts. This is the view of perdurantism, which I defend in this paper. Some other philosophers believe that objects simply are the temporal parts themselves, rather than sums, or fusions of temporal parts. They persist by being related to other temporal parts in specific ways. This is the view known as the stage theory.
My goal is to show that the stage theory requires us to accept too many philosophically problematic claims. Most of the discussion in this paper deals with the "puzzles of coincidence." Coincidence is said to occur when two distinct objects seem to be located in precisely the same place. There are actually two problems presented by these puzzles: (1) that ordinary physical objects seem to be prohibited by the laws of nature from being co-located, and (2) that the seemingly distinct co-located objects are composed of all the same physical parts. Both perdurantism and the stage theory offer solutions to these puzzles. I argue that perdurantism offers the better solution. Later in the paper, I offer other reasons not to accept the stage theory.