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Tensing the copula

Mind 111 (441):1-14 (2002)

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  1. Logical parts.Laurie A. Paul - 2002 - Noûs 36 (4):578–596.
    I argue for a property mereology and for mereological bundle theory. I then apply this theory to the one over many problem (universals) and puzzles concerning persistence and material constitution.
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  • Relativity and Three Four‐dimensionalisms.Cody Gilmore, Damiano Costa & Claudio Calosi - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (2):102-120.
    Relativity theory is often said to support something called ‘the four-dimensional view of reality’. But there are at least three different views that sometimes go by this name. One is ‘spacetime unitism’, according to which there is a spacetime manifold, and if there are such things as points of space or instants of time, these are just spacetime regions of different sorts: thus space and time are not separate manifolds. A second is the B-theory of time, according to which the (...)
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  • The Category of Occurrent Continuants.Rowland Stout - 2016 - Mind 125 (497):41-62.
    Arguing first that the best way to understand what a continuant is is as something that primarily has its properties at a time rather than atemporally, the paper then defends the idea that there are occurrent continuants. These are things that were, are, or will be happening—like the ongoing process of someone reading or my writing this paper, for instance. A recently popular philosophical view of process is as something that is referred to with mass nouns and not count nouns. (...)
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  • Monism.Jonathan Schaffer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    This entry focuses on two of the more historically important monisms: existence monism and priority monism . Existence monism targets concrete objects and counts by tokens. This is the doctrine that exactly one concrete object exists. Priority monism also targets concrete objects, but counts by basic tokens. This is the doctrine that exactly one concrete object is basic, which will turn out to be the classical doctrine that the whole is prior to its parts.
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  • The A-Theory of Time, The B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’.Dean W. Zimmerman - 2005 - Dialectica 59 (4):401-457.
    The paper has two parts: First, I describe a relatively popular thesis in the philosophy of propositional attitudes, worthy of the name ‘taking tense seriously’; and I distinguish it from a family of views in the metaphysics of time, namely, the A-theories (or what are sometimes called ‘tensed theories of time’). Once the distinction is in focus, a skeptical worry arises. Some A-theorists maintain that the difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in terms of what exists: (...)
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  • Relations.Fraser MacBride - 2016 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    In this paper I provide a state of the art survey and assessment of the contemporary debate about relations. After (1) distinguishing different varieties of relations, symmetric from non-symmetric, internal from external relations etc. and relations from their set-theoretic models or sequences, I proceed (2) to consider Bradley’s regress and whether relations can be eliminated altogether. Next I turn (3) to the question whether relations can be reduced, bringing to bear considerations from the philosophy of physics as well as metaphysics. (...)
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  • Weak Location.Antony Eagle - 2019 - Dialectica 73 (1-2):149-181.
    Recently, many philosophers have been interested in using locative relations to clarify and pursue debates in the metaphysics of material objects. Most begin with the relation of exact location. But what if we begin instead with the relation known as weak location – the relation an object x bears to any region not completely bereft of x? I explore some of the consequences of pursuing this route for issues including coincidence, extended simples, and endurance, with an eye to evaluating the (...)
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  • It’s a kind of magic: Lewis, magic and properties.Daniel Nolan - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4717-4741.
    David Lewis’s arguments against magical ersatzism are notoriously puzzling. Untangling different strands in those arguments is useful for bringing out what he thought was wrong with not just one style of theory about possible worlds, but with much of the contemporary metaphysics of abstract objects. After setting out what I take Lewis’s arguments to be and how best to resist them, I consider the application of those arguments to general theories of properties and relations. The constraints Lewis motivates turn out (...)
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  • Aristotelian Endurantism: A New Solution to the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics.J. E. Brower - 2010 - Mind 119 (476):883-905.
    It is standardly assumed that there are three — and only three — ways to solve problem of temporary intrinsics: (a) embrace presentism, (b) relativize property possession to times, or (c) accept the doctrine of temporal parts. The first two solutions are favoured by endurantists, whereas the third is the perdurantist solution of choice. In this paper, I argue that there is a further type of solution available to endurantists, one that not only avoids the usual costs, but is structurally (...)
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  • I—What is a Continuant?Helen Steward - 2015 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 89 (1):109-123.
    In this paper, I explore the question what a continuant is, in the context of a very interesting suggestion recently made by Rowland Stout, as part of his attempt to develop a coherent ontology of processes. Stout claims that a continuant is best thought of as something that primarily has its properties at times, rather than atemporally—and that on this construal, processes should count as continuants. While accepting that Stout is onto something here, I reject his suggestion that we should (...)
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  • On Kinds of Indiscernibility in Logic and Metaphysics.Adam Caulton & Jeremy Butterfield - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (1):27-84.
    Using the Hilbert-Bernays account as a spring-board, we first define four ways in which two objects can be discerned from one another, using the non-logical vocabulary of the language concerned. Because of our use of the Hilbert-Bernays account, these definitions are in terms of the syntax of the language. But we also relate our definitions to the idea of permutations on the domain of quantification, and their being symmetries. These relations turn out to be subtle---some natural conjectures about them are (...)
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  • Perspectival Variance and Worldly Fragmentation.Martin A. Lipman - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1):42-57.
    Objects often manifest themselves in incompatible ways across perspectives that are epistemically on a par. The standard response to such cases is to deny that the properties that things appear to have from different perspectives are properties that things really have out there. This type of response seems worrying: too many properties admit of perspectival variance and there are good theoretical reasons to think that such properties are genuinely instantiated. So, we have reason to explore views on which things can (...)
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  • Parts as counterparts.Aaron Cotnoir - 2013 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (3):228-241.
    Mereological nihilists are faced with a difficult challenge: explaining ordinary talk about material objects. Popular paraphrase strategies involve plurals, arrangements of particles, or fictions. In this paper, a new paraphrase strategy is put forward that has distinct advantages over its rivals: it is compatible with gunk and emergent properties of macro-objects. The only assumption is a commitment to a liberal view of the nature of simples; the nihilist must be willing to accept the possibility of heterogeneous extended simples. The author (...)
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  • Temporal Parts.Katherine Hawley - 2004/2010 - Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.
    Material objects extend through space by having different spatial parts in different places. But how do they persist through time? According to some philosophers, things have temporal parts as well as spatial parts: accepting this is supposed to help us solve a whole bunch of metaphysical problems, and keep our philosophy in line with modern physics. Other philosophers disagree, arguing that neither metaphysics nor physics give us good reason to believe in temporal parts.
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  • How Involved do You Want to be in a Non-symmetric Relationship?Fraser MacBride - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (1):1-16.
    There are three different degrees to which we may allow a systematic theory of the world to embrace the idea of relatedness—supposing realism about non-symmetric relations as a background requirement. (First Degree) There are multiple ways in which a non-symmetric relation may apply to the things it relates—for the binary case, aRb ≠ bRa. (Second Degree) Every such relation has a distinct converse—for every R such that aRb there is another relation R* such that bR*a. (Third Degree) Each one of (...)
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  • Perdurantism, Universalism and Quantifiers.Achille C. Varzi - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2):208-215.
    I argue that the conjunction of perdurantism (the view that objects are temporally extended) and universalism (the thesis that any old class of things has a mereological fusion) gives rise to undesired complications when combined with certain plausible assumptions concerning the semantics of tensed statements.
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  • Tamers, deniers, and me.Michael Della Rocca - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (4):1101-1119.
    This paper critically examines a prominent and perennial strategy—found in thinkers as diverse as Kant and Shamik Dasgupta—of simultaneously embracing the Principle of Sufficient Reason and also limiting it so as to avoid certain apparently negative consequences of an unrestricted PSR. I will argue that this strategy of taming the PSR faces significant challenges and may even be incoherent. And for my purposes, I will enlist a generally derided argument by Leibniz for the PSR which will help us to see (...)
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  • Regress, unity, facts, and propositions.Matti Eklund - 2019 - Synthese 196 (4):1225-1247.
    The problem, or cluster of problems, of the unity of the proposition, along with the cluster of problems that tend to go under the name of Bradley’s regress, has recently again become a going concern for philosophers, after having for some time been regarded as primarily of historical interest. In this paper, I distinguish between the different problems that tend to be brought up under the heading of the unity of the proposition, and between different related regress arguments. I present (...)
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  • The Situationalist Account of Change.Martin Pickup - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics.
    In this paper I propose a new solution to the problem of change: situationalism. According to this view, parts of reality fundamentally disagree about what is the case and reality as a whole is unsettled (i.e. metaphysically indeterminate). When something changes, parts of the world irreconcilably disagree about what properties it has. From this irreconcilable disagreement, indeterminacy arises. I develop this picture using situations, which are parts of possible worlds; this gives it the name situationalism. It allows a B-theory endurance (...)
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  • Second-Order Predication and the Metaphysics of Properties.Andy Egan - 2004 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (1):48-66.
    Problems about the accidental properties of properties motivate us--force us, I think--not to identify properties with the sets of their instances. If we identify them instead with functions from worlds to extensions, we get a theory of properties that is neutral with respect to disputes over counterpart theory, and we avoid a problem for Lewis's theory of events. Similar problems about the temporary properties of properties motivate us--though this time they probably don't force us--to give up this theory as well, (...)
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  • The problem of change.Ryan Wasserman - 2006 - Philosophy Compass 1 (1):48–57.
    Our world is a world of change. Children are born and grow into adults. Material possessions rust and decay with age and ultimately perish. Yet scepticism about change is as old as philosophy itself. Heraclitus, for example, argued that nothing could survive the replacement of parts, so that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Zeno argued that motion is paradoxical, so that nothing can alter its location. Parmenides and his followers went even further, arguing that the (...)
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  • Mereological Explanation and Time Travel.Nikk Effingham - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2):333-345.
    I have previously argued in a paper with Robson that a particular time travel scenario favours perdurantism over endurantism on the grounds that endurantists must give up on the Weak Supplementation Principle. Smith has responded, arguing that the reasons we provided are insufficient to warrant this conclusion. This paper agrees with that conclusion (for slightly different reasons: that even the perdurantist has to give up on the Weak Supplementation Principle) but argues that the old argument can be supplanted with a (...)
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  • Relativity and Degrees of Relationality.Jack Spencer - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (2):432-459.
    Some well-known metaphysical arguments against relativism rest on the claim that relativity somehow must be accompanied by relationality. I argue otherwise, and trace the consequences for some prominent disputes between relativists and absolutists.
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  • Presentism and the Problem of Cross-Time Relations.Rafael De Clercq - 2006 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2):386 - 402.
    Presentism is the view that only present entities exist. Recently, several authors have asked the question whether presentism is able to account for cross-time relations, i.e., roughly, relations between entities existing at different times. In this paper I claim that this question is to be answered in the affirmative. To make this claim plausible, I consider four types of cross-time relation and show how each can be accommodated without difficulty within the metaphysical framework of presentism.
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  • The Meta-Problem of Change.Thomas Hofweber - 2009 - Noûs 43 (2):286 - 314.
    The problem of change plays a central role in the metaphysics of time and material objects, and whoever does best in solving this problem has a leg up when it comes to choosing a metaphysics of time and material objects. But whether this central role of the problem of change in metaphysics is legitimate is not at all clear. This is so in part since it is not clear what the problem of change is, and why it is a problem (...)
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  • The Disappearance of Change: Towards a Process Account of Persistence.Anne Sophie Meincke - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (1):12-30.
    This paper aims to motivate a new beginning in metaphysical thinking about persistence by drawing attention to the disappearance of change in current accounts of persistence. I defend the claim that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which results from neglecting the constructive role of change for persistence. Neither of the two main competing views, perdurantism and endurantism, captures the idea of persistence as an identity through time. I identify the fundamental ontological reasons for this, namely the shared commitment (...)
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  • Identity over time.Andre Gallois - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Traditionally, this puzzle has been solved in various ways. Aristotle, for example, distinguished between “accidental” and “essential” changes. Accidental changes are ones that don't result in a change in an objects' identity after the change, such as when a house is painted, or one's hair turns gray, etc. Aristotle thought of these as changes in the accidental properties of a thing. Essential changes, by contrast, are those which don't preserve the identity of the object when it changes, such as when (...)
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  • Three Arguments from Temporary Intrinsics.M. Eddon - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (3):605-619.
    The Argument from Temporary Intrinsics is one of the canonical arguments against endurantism. I show that the two standard ways of presenting the argument have limited force. I then present a new version of the argument, which provides a more promising articulation of the underlying objection to endurantism. However, the premises of this argument conflict with the gauge theories of particle physics, and so this version of the argument is no more successful than its predecessors. I conclude that no version (...)
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  • Temporal parts and timeless parthood.Eric T. Olson - 2006 - Noûs 40 (4):738–752.
    What is a temporal part? Most accounts explain it in terms of timeless parthood: a thing's having a part without temporal qualification. Some find this hard to understand, and thus find the view that persisting things have temporal parts--fourdimensionalism--unintelligible. T. Sider offers to help by defining temporal parthood in terms of a thing's having a part at a time. I argue that no such account can capture the notion of a temporal part that figures in orthodox four-dimensionalism: temporal parts must (...)
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  • The problem(s) of change revisited.Tobias Hansson - 2007 - Dialectica 61 (2):265–274.
    Two recurrent arguments levelled against the view that enduring objects survive change are examined within the framework of the B-theory of time: the argument from Leibniz's Law and the argument from Instantiation of Incompatible Properties. Both arguments are shown to be question-begging and hence unsuccessful.
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  • Prioritizing platonism.Kelly Trogdon & Sam Cowling - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (8):2029-2042.
    Discussion of atomistic and monistic theses about abstract reality.
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  • (1 other version)Multiple Constitution.Nicholas K. Jones - 2015 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 9. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 217-261.
    This paper outlines a novel solution to the problem of the many and a conception of ordinary objects that implies it. The solution is that many collections of particles can simultaneously constitute a single object. The proposed conception of ordinary objects maintains that they are fundamentally subjects of change: the changes an object is able to survive explain its constitution.
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  • Are There Occurrent Continuants? A Reply to Stout’s “The Category of Occurrent Continuants”.Riccardo Baratella - 2020 - Dialectica 74 (3).
    Processes are occurrents that were, are, or will be happening. They endure or they perdure, i.e. they are either “fully” present at every time they happen, or they rather have temporal parts. According to Stout (2016), they endure. His argument assumes that processes may change. Then, Stout argues that, if something changes, it endures. As I show, Stout’s Argument misses its target. In particular, it makes use of a notion of change that is either intuitive but illegitimate or technical but (...)
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  • Balls and All.Daniel Nolan - 2014 - In Shieva Kleinschmidt, Mereology and Location. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-116.
    This paper describes a plausible view of the nature of physical objects, their mereological connections to each other, and their relation to spacetime. As well as being parsimonious, the view provides a plausible context for denying all of the following: (1) A theory that objects endure through time (and do not have temporal parts, as normally conceived) cannot claim that material objects are identical to space-time regions they occupy. (2) At least one of the family of mereological connections (part-whole, overlap (...)
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  • ‘Wholly Present’ Defined.Thomas M. Crisp & Donald P. Smith - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2):318–344.
    Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would be (...)
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  • In defence of spatially related universals.Cody Gilmore - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3):420-428.
    Immanent universals, being wholly present wherever they are instantiated, are capable of both multi-location and co-location. As a result, they can become involved in some bizarre situations, situations whose contradictory appearance cannot be dispelled by any of the relativizing maneuvers familiar to metaphysicials as solutions to the problem of change. Douglas Ehring takes this to be a fatal problem for immanent universals, but I do not. Although the old relativizing maneuvers don't solve the problem, I propose a new one that (...)
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  • Naming the stages.Achille C. Varzi - 2003 - Dialectica 57 (4):387–412.
    Standard lore has it that a proper name is a temporally rigid designator. It picks out the same entity at every time at which it picks out an entity at all. If the entity in question is an enduring continuant then we know what this means, though we are also stuck with a host of metaphysical puzzles concerning endurance itself. If the entity in question is a perdurant then the rigidity claim is trivial, though one is left wondering how it (...)
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  • Worms, Stages, and Sometimes Neither: A Contextualist Semantics for Four-Dimensionalism.Andrew Russo & Martin Montminy - manuscript
    We argue that four-dimensionalists should adopt a contextualist semantics, according to which ordinary speakers’ judgments may concern person-stages, person-segments or person-worms, depending on the context. We explain how context helps select the boundaries of the temporal parts we refer to or quantify over and show that contextualism offers the best treatment of ordinary predications and ordinary counting judgments. Contextualism implies an error theory; however, we explain why this error theory is less problematic than those entailed by the worm and stage (...)
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  • Time and Simple Existence.Giuliano Torrengo - 2012 - Metaphysica 13 (2):125-130.
    Sceptics about substantial disputes in ontology often argue that when two philosophers seem to disagree on a quantified claim, they are actually equivocating on the notion of existence that they are using. When temporal elements play a central role, as in the debate between presentists and eternalists, the hypothesis of an equivocation with respect to existence acquires more plausibility. However, the anti-sceptic can still argue that this hypothesis is unjustified.
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  • Photographic Representation and Depiction of Temporal Extension.Jiri Benovsky - 2012 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (2):194-213.
    The main task of this paper is to understand if and how static images like photographs can represent and/or depict temporal extension (duration). In order to do this, a detour will be necessary to understand some features of the nature of photographic representation and depiction in general. This important detour will enable us to see that photographs (can) have a narrative content, and that the skilled photographer can 'tell a story' in a very clear sense, as well as control and (...)
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  • Priority Perdurantism.Jeremy W. Skrzypek - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1555-1580.
    In this paper, I introduce a version of perdurantism called Priority Perdurantism, according to which perduring, four-dimensional objects are ontologically fundamental and the temporal parts of those objects are ontologically derivative, depending for their existence and their identity on the four-dimensional wholes of which they are parts. I argue that by switching the order of the priority relations this opens up new solutions to the too-many-thinkers problem and the personite problem – solutions that are more ontologically robust than standard maximality (...)
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  • The rotating discs argument defeated.Jeremy Butterfield - 2006 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57 (1):1-45.
    The rotating discs argument against perdurantism has been mostly discussed by metaphysicians, though the argument of course appeals to ideas from classical mechanics, especially about rotation. In contrast, I assess the RDA from the perspective of the philosophy of physics. I argue for three main conclusions. The first conclusion is that the RDA can be formulated more strongly than is usually recognized: it is not necessary to ‘imagine away’ the dynamical effects of rotation. The second is that in general relativity, (...)
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  • The Relativistic Invariance of 4D Shapes.Claudio Calosi - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 50:1-4.
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  • (1 other version)Bringing back intrinsics to enduring things.Andrea C. Bottani - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4813-4834.
    According to David Lewis, the argument from temporary intrinsics is ‘the principal and decisive objection against endurance’. I focus on eternalist endurantism, discussing three different ways the eternalist endurantist can try to avoid treating temporary intrinsics as relational. Two of them, generally known as ‘adverbialism’ and ‘SOFism’, are familiar and controversial. I scrutinize them and argue that Lewis’ scepticism about them is well founded. Then, I sketch a further, to some extent new, version of eternalist endurantism, where the key idea (...)
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  • Experience, time, objects, and processes.Jack Shardlow - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):696-716.
    We regularly talk of the experience of time passing. Some theorists have taken the supposed phenomenology of time passing to provide support for metaphysical accounts of the nature of time; opposing theorists typically granted that there is a phenomenology of time passing while seeking to dispute that any metaphysical conclusions about time can be drawn from this. In recent debates theorists have also begun to dispute that there is a phenomenology of time passing – plausibly, if there is not, then (...)
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  • In defense of essentialism.L. A. Paul - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):333–372.
    If an object has a property essentially, it has that property in every possible world according to which it exists.2 If an object has a property accidentally, it does not have that property in every possible world according to which it exists. Claims about an object’s essential or accidental properties are de re modal claims, and essential and accidental properties are de re modal properties. Take an object’s modal profile to specify its essential properties and the range of its accidental (...)
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  • Spatial Experience and Special Relativity.Brian Cutter - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (9):2297-2313.
    In recent work, David Chalmers argues that “Edenic shapes”—roughly, the shape properties phenomenally presented in spatial experience—are not instantiated in our world. His reasons come largely from the theory of Special Relativity. Although Edenic shapes might have been instantiated in a classical Newtonian world, he maintains that they could not be instantiated in a relativistic world like our own. In this essay, I defend realism about Edenic shape, the thesis that Edenic shapes are instantiated in our world, against Chalmers’s challenge (...)
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  • (1 other version)Truthmakers and Predication.Daniel Nolan - 2008 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 4:171-192.
    To what extent do true predications correspond to truthmakers in virtue of which those predications are true? One sort of predicate which is often thought to not be susceptible to an ontological treatment is a predicate for instantiation, or some corresponding predication (trope-similarity or set-membership, for example). This paper discusses this question, and argues that an "ontological" approach is possible here too: where this ontological approach goes beyond merely finding a truthmaker for claims about instantiation. Along the way a version (...)
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  • Partial Resemblance and Property Immanence.Paul Audi - 2018 - Noûs 53 (4):884-903.
    Objects partially resemble when they are alike in some way but not entirely alike. Partial resemblance, then, involves similarity in a respect. It has been observed that talk of “respects” appears to be thinly‐veiled talk of properties. So some theorists take similarity in a respect to require property realism. I will go a step further and argue that similarity in intrinsic respects (partial intrinsic resemblance) requires properties to be immanent in objects. For a property to be immanent in an object (...)
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  • Identity, Individuation and Substance.David Wiggins - 2012 - European Journal of Philosophy 20 (1):1-25.
    The paper takes off from the problem of finding a proper content for the relation of identity as it holds or fails to hold among ordinary things or substances. The necessary conditions of identity are familiar, the sufficient conditions less so. The search is for conditions at once better usable than the Leibnizian Identity of Indiscernibles (independently suspect) and strong enough to underwrite all the formal properties of the relation.It is contended that the key to this problem rests at the (...)
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