How to Endure (original) (raw)
Related papers
Identity Through Time: One Last Run for the Ordinary View
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1983
XT is not without reason, though I would argue that it is without argument, that various philosophers have been driven to advocate mereological essentialism and concomitantly to reject the view that physical objects persist, in any ordinary sense, through changes in their parts. Mereolog ical essentialism, roughly the view that the parts of a physical object are essential to it, stands in radical contrast to what we might call the Ordinary View, roughly that physical objects can, and do, undergo mereological change.^ Even brief reflection on a typical persistence problem, that of the Ship of Theseus for exam ple, is often sufficient to persuade us that the Ordinary View may be misguided or, worse yet, based on a mere illusion, no matter how well-established. Rendered vulnerable by challenges to the Ordinary View, a view Wiggins calls a "datum so fundamental and so deeply entrenched" [7], we may fall prey to mereological essentialism. Even Chisholm, the most enthusiastic and articulate of its recent proponents, is willing to concede that it is a doctrine we entertain in defeat rather than in victory. Nevertheless, the advocate of mereological essentialism is hardly in an enviable position: we must be persuaded not only that he can solve the puzzles raised by problems like that of the Ship of Theseus, but also that whatever he offers as a substitute for a theory of persistence is ultimately accountable to the "fundamental datum" to which Wiggins refers. The theory formulated by Chisholm in Person and Object [3] seems to me to fail on each of these scores. It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to explain why I think so. Rather, I intend to give the Ordinary View one last run. There are important reasons for doing so: (i) our doubts about persistence typically arise from consideration of "problem cases". As a result, there is a tendency to ignore what the Ordinary View amounts to in ordinary cases. Without a clear handle on the ordinary cases, it is hard to determine precisely what causes the difficulties in the problem cases; (ii) Given that we aren't clear as to what causes the difficulties in the problem cases, it is a fortiori difficult to assess the extent to which alternative accounts (e.g., mereological essentialism) dispense with them; (iii) If the Ordinary View is indeed lifeless, it deserves a proper burial. Common sense rests comfortably on the bottom line. If we are to abandon it, it should be by reason of argument
The Doctrine of Act and Potency is the Key to an Adequate Understanding of Persistence in Identity
Revista Opinião Filosófica
The question "why should I treat my workmate the same if she is not the same person we employed?" remains a funny but crucial question. For if individuals change over time, why should we treat them the same? While some philosophers argue that there is no persistence in identity, others say that there is persistence in identity, and they propose properties like body, name, memory, and psychological connectedness as those essential properties that persist over time. This paper looks critically at some of these positions and would argue that they are all insufficient to account for persistence in identity for various reasons, but the main reason is that they ascribe personal identity to things that are either changeable or can be lost. This paper suggests that to understand the property that persists over time and how and why it persists over time, there must be an in-depth understanding of the doctrine of act and potency proposed by Aristotle. This paper also explains why th...
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2003
Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity (simpliciter) as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the causal commitments of identity-over-time become a mystery. We will begin by formulating the two widely held doctrines and our puzzle more fully and more carefully. Then, the remainder of the paper will be devoted to analyzing views one might adopt that could minimize the tension.
Eternalism and the Temporal Content of Persistence
Philosophia Naturalis, 2012
... 4.1) he requires for the three-dimensional enduring object (and for the three-dimensional parts of a perduring one) only “maximal achronal” (i. e., maximal spacelike) hypersurfaces that need not to be flat, and also Ian Gibson and Oliver Pooley (2006) stress several times that ...
Aristotle's alternative to enduring and perduring: lasting
Ancient Philosophy Today: Dialogoi, 2022
Although Aristotle does not explicitly address persistence, his account of persisting may be derived from a careful consideration of his account of change. On my interpretation, he supposes that motions are mereological unities of their potential temporal parts-I dub such mereological unities 'lasting'. Aristotle's persisting things, too, are lasting, I argue. Lasting things are unlike enduring things in that they have temporal parts; and unlike perduring things in that their temporal parts are not actual, but rather are potential. Lasting, that is Aristotle's persisting, is thus a distinctive alternative to enduring and perduring. I assess this alternative showing it to be attractive.
(2017), "The Transcendentist Theory of Persistence," The Journal of Philosophy, 114:2, 57-75.
The Journal of Philosophy, 2017
This paper develops a endurantist theory of persistence. The theory is built around one basic tenet, which concerns existence at a time – the relation between an object and the times at which that object is present. According to this tenet, which I call transcendentism, for an object to exist at a time is for it to participate in events that are located at that time. I argue that transcendentism is a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful. It is semantically grounded, insofar as a semantic analysis of our temporal talk favors it over rivals. It is metaphysically fruitful, insofar as the theory of persistence that can be built around it – the transcendentist theory of persistence, to give it a name – requires neither temporal parts nor the problematic commitments to which all extant forms of endurantism are committed, such as the possibility of extended simples or multilocation.
On What We are and How We Persist
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2014
This article defends novel approaches to what we are and how we persist. First it is claimed that we have disjunctive persistence conditions: we can persist by way of either biological continuity or psychological continuity. Then it is claimed that we are neither human beings nor persons essentially. Rather, we are essentially bio-psycho-continuers, a concept to be explained along the way. A variety of objections are considered and found wanting.
Persistence: a matter of identity?
2016
After two years of reading and writing about four dimensionalism, I still do not feel finished! I have learned a lot, though, and this is not merely due to reading, but also widely due to the many people I have met, listened and talked to throughout the last few years. Firstly, I want to thank my supervisor Øystein Linnebo for positive supportive guidance, informative suggestions and ideas. I have always felt uplifted and positive about my thoughts and progress after our talks. There is no doubt that this essay would not be what it is without these conversations. Secondly, I would like to thank Quentin and Elena for conversations about Theodore Sider's book Four Dimensionalism, as well as our lecturer Ephraim Glick for insights into the topics of three and four dimensionalism. Our semester together gave me a fantastic foundation for my dissertation. Another important person in the start of my work was my first and temporary supervisor Professor Olav Gjelsvik. Thank you for guidance on my topic and first draft. I also want to give a big thanks to Jørgen Dyrstad, Sivert Thomas Ellingsen, Mariona Sturm, Julie Lauvsland and Margrete Haldorsen Nygaard for reading and commenting on my text. Your suggestions have contributed to raising the quality of my essay.