Endurantism and timeless worlds (original) (raw)
Related papers
Mereological challenges have recently been raised against the endurantist. For instance, Barker and Dowe (2003) have argued that eternalist endurantism entails (1) persisting objects are both 3D and 4D, and that (2) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. They also argue that presentist endurantism also entails, albeit in a tensed way, that (3) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. While they’ve further argued (2005) that the objections raised by McDaniel (2003) and Beebee and Rush (2003) fail, here I show that such objections are tenable without requiring further significant metaphysical commitments; I argue that such endurantist defences are tenable, contra to prior analyses.
IS ENDURANTISM REALLY MORE PLAUSIBLE THAN PERDURANTISM FROM A COMMON-SENSE PERSPECTIVE?
I will discuss three arguments in favor of perdurantism, the thesis that objects persist by having temporal parts located at different times. Firstly, I will introduce the rival accounts of persistence of perdurantism and endurantism. Then I will discuss three arguments for perdurantism: the problem of temporary intrinsics, the argument from vagueness and the argument from Special Relativity. I will conclude that none of them represents a knock-down argument for perdurantism. However, endurantism faces important difficulties in offering its solutions to the issues at stake, and the solutions proposed are often at odds with commonsense. Therefore, if one of the main problem for perdurantism is its being at odds with commonsense, endurantism is in no better position with respect to this issue.
A New Taxonomy of Persisting (Relativistic) Objects
The paper presents a thorough exploration of the problem of persistence in a relativistic context. Using formal methods such as mereology, formal theories of location and the so called intrinsic formulation of special relativity we provide a new, more rigorous and more comprehensive taxonomy of persisting entities. This new taxonomy differs significantly from the ones that are present in the recent literature. 1 We are being deliberately vague here. By things we simply mean whatever entities someone is committed to in their ontology. 2 We will use endurantism and perdurantism interchangeably for three and four-dimensionalism respectively. Those familiar with the debate will probably see that we will not talk about what is sometimes referred as exdurantism or stage-view. This is because we do believe, although we cannot argue for it here, that exdurantism has the same ontological commitments as four-dimensionalism, i.e. exdurantism commits to a four-dimensionalist ontology. 3 It is indebted to the pioneering works of Gilmore , Gilmore (
Enduring and Perduring Objects in Minkowski Space-Time
2000
I examine the issue of persistence over time in the context of the special theory of relativity (SR). The four-dimensional ontology of perduring objects is clearly favored by SR. But it is a different question if and to what extent this ontology is required, and the rival endurantist ontology ruled out, by this theory. In addressing this question, I take the essential idea of endurantism, that objects are wholly present at single moments of time, and argue that it commits one to unacceptable conclusions regarding coexistence, in the context of SR. I then propose and discuss a plausible account of coexistence for perduring objects, which is free of these defects. This leaves the endurantist room for some maneuvers. I consider them and show that they do not really help the endurantist out. She can accommodate the notion of coexistence in the relativistic framework only at the cost of renouncing central endurantist intuitions.
Philosophia Naturalis, 2012
The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By "logical equivalence" I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about "what there is". In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as in the case of the presentism/eternalism debate, one can be both a perdurantist and an endurantist, depending on which linguistic framework is preferred. The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By "logical equivalence" I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about "what there is". In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as 1 My thanks to Florian Fischer, Cord Friebe, Thomas Müller and Thorben Petersen for their valuable comments and criticism concerning a previous version of this paper. All remaining errors are my responsibility.
This essay argues that, on a Davidsonian account of truth and predication, supplemented by a Davidson-appropriate account of tense, Lewis’ version of Heraclitus’ problem, the “problem of temporary intrinsics,” is dissolved. The relevant half of Leibniz’ Law, that if A=B, then any feature of A is a feature of B, is upheld on a Davidsonian account just as well as on Lewis’ account. Without truth-makers, an enduring object can have a curriculum vitae that is unchanged throughout its existence. Given that modal truths about an object change over time, the catalog of those changes, included in the CV, will distinguish statues from the lumps they are made of.
Philosophia Naturalis, 2012
The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By "logical equivalence" I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that and have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about "what there is". In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as in the case of the presentism/eternalism debate, one can be both a perdurantist and an endurantist, depending on which linguistic framework is preferred.
Endurantism and Perdurantism: An Ongoing Debate
2002
My view that the "temporally qualified 3-D versus 4-D spacetime" distinction has nothing whatever to do with the "continuant versus occurrent" distinction. To me, the former is a mere modeling (and logic) choice. The latter is an important (though tricky) classification of actual content. Pat Hayes: That, I think, is characteristic of the perdurantist, often misdescribed as 4-D, view of things (which I myself find congenial, as you know.) To an endurantist, however, the continuant/occurrent distinction is much more fundamental and basic, on a par with the abstract/physical distinction. FL: The important thing for occurrents is change. The important thing for continuants is that which gets changed (or not). (The usual "identity criteria" dirge applies to both.) FL: An "event" most primitively is just some change in something. A change is any difference in something at different times. PH: Ah, there indeed speaks a true perdurantist. But Fritz, ask yourself: what kind of thing is that 'something' that has differences at different times? FL: Identity criteria (by convention) settle this. PH: Yes, I agree that is the most useful way to encode this discussion within a perdurantist viewpoint. But I also recognize that this point of view isn't really acceptable to a confirmed dyed-in-the-wool endurantist, who would regard this entire framework of putting together fake (as it would seem to them) 'continuants' by using identity criteria to assemble the right collection of 'slices' (which they would not even recognize as meaningful entities) as bogus and confused, and as approaching the entire discussion backwards. And since the occurrent/continuant distinction is one that is made primarily by endurantists, so that this is in a sense their technical vocabulary. FL: If some authority requires endurantism (3-D) to define them, I'll use different words. I say that 3-D vs. 4-D modeling should be irrelevant to distinguishing events from objects (where a sneeze is an event and a nose is an object). Events involve, or are, changes in objects. Whether we use 3-D or 4-D, we still need this distinction. PH: Please don't identify endurantism with '3-D modelling'. (Maybe you didn't intend to.) PH: Look, everyone agrees that there are (intuitive) objects that typically last for a while and which undergo changes in which their properties change, and things that are PH: Actually I'm not sure I fully agree with your last claim, however. Maybe I'm a more thoroughgoing perdurantist than some others, but I would rather like to get rid of the sharp object/event distinction. I think it is less useful than it seems to be. Many entities seem to be neither object nor event, but to have aspects of both; or maybe, can be looked at in either way, while being the same thing (flames, waves, weather phenomena, etc.); FL: Agreed; that's what I meant by event-constellations. These are not single or primitive changes, but large, spatially extended, temporally extended complexes of interrelated sub-events, participants, etc. PH: Well, I wouldn't normally think of a flame as large, having many parts, etc.; or indeed of an ocean wave, for that matter. Seems to me that very small things indeed can often be thought of as both object-like and event-like (e.g., photons) FL: At a gross enough level of granularity they can be deemed simple events (localized changes) or moving objects. PH: The essential descriptive apparatus for talking about physical relationships between spatiotemporal entities applies equally well to anything with a spatiotemporal boundary, i.e. to objects and events together. So while the distinction is often useful, I wouldn't say it was fundamental or absolute. FL: Yes. For event-constellations it must be a matter of some convention. PH: But I recognize that endurantists would disagree: they think of it as one of the most basic distinctions possible in describing the temporal physical world. FL: For simple changes (as opposed to the thing changed) I think the distinction is fundamental, in 3-D and in 4-D. PH: I disagree. I don't think it is fundamental anywhere, but it is often pragmatically useful in medium-sized everyday life. FL: By "change" in 4-D I mean only a difference in properties of two parts of a timeworm at different positions in the temporal dimension, not that timeworms move. Chris Welty: Note that an event can be something that causes properties to stop changing. PH: True. Or to alter their rate of changing, etc. (Sound of whip cracking.) FL: Ok, since we've agreed what "change" means in a 4-D model, no future protests "There's no change in 4-D!" will be instructive. PH: Since we are here discussing two different perspectives, I'm not sure if you are using the terms (like 'change') intuitively, or with the technical meaning from one of those perspectives. FL: A timeworm that is a perfect, uniform, straight, endless cylinder aligned along the temporal dimension has no such "change". CW: But the shape of the worm is just an artifact of its 3-D position and shape over time. Such a cylinder could easily have changing properties over time. PH: That is true, and Fritz and I have been careless. Think of the worm as having many colors, for example. FL: Indeed a 4-D cylindrification (in the Cylindric Algebra sense (Feldman, 1990)) of any 3-D shape along the time dimension has no such "change". CW: Right-but that's only the shape. What about the color, age, etc. These could be properties of different sections. PH: Right. In fact, age is a necessary property of different sections, right? (I thought you might like to see me using a modality for a change.) CW: You got it! PH: So a "change" here is a kind of kink, or maybe an alteration in cross-section, of the timeworm. But that isn't what an endurantist would think of as a change. PH: I think that to assume that these terms have the relatively weak meanings that they acquire when mapped into a different ontological framework (that an endurantist would reject out of hand) is really not doing the terms justice. It is a bit like an atheist wiping his nose on an altar cloth, and then professing to be puzzled at the rage expressed by one of the faithful, on the grounds that altar cloths are only cloths. I would agree in a purely intellectual sense; but I would also recognize that the rage might well be justified. CW: I don't think any strong argument against having an event/object distinction in a 4-D view was made. Pat seems to be arguing against it as a distinction at all. Part of the basis of his argument, of course, is that no self-respecting perdurantist would view the distinction as meaningful.