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Distributional Properties

In Frank Jackson & Graham Priest, Lewisian Themes: The Philosophy of David K. Lewis. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press UK (2004)

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  1. Monism: The Priority of the Whole.Jonathan Schaffer - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):31-76.
    Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?
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  • Parthood.Theodore Sider - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (1):51-91.
    There will be a few themes. One to get us going: expansion versus contraction. About an object, o, and the region, R, of space(time) in which o is exactly located,1 we may ask: i) must there exist expansions of o: objects in filled superregions2 of R? ii) must there exist contractions of o: objects in filled subregions of..
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  • Graded Qualities.Claudio Calosi & Robert Michels - 2025 - Synthese 205 (116).
    The idea that qualities can be had partly or to an intermediate degree is controversial among contemporary metaphysicians, but also has a considerable pedigree among philosophers and scientists. In this paper, we first aim to show that metaphysical sense can be made of this idea by proposing a partial taxonomy of metaphysical accounts of graded qualities, focusing on three particular approaches: one which explicates having a quality to a degree in terms of having a property with an in-built degree, another (...)
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  • The World Just Is the Way It Is.David Builes - 2021 - The Monist 104 (1):1-27.
    What is the relationship between objects and properties? According to a standard view, there are primitive individuals that ‘instantiate’ or ‘have’ various properties. According to a rival view, objects are mere ‘bundles’ of properties. While there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of primitive individuals, there are also a number of challenges that the bundle theorist faces. The goal of this paper is to formulate a view about the relationship between objects and properties that avoids many of the (...)
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  • Lies and deception: an unhappy divorce.Jennifer Lackey - 2013 - Analysis 73 (2):236-248.
    The traditional view of lying holds that this phenomenon involves two central components: stating what one does not believe oneself and doing so with the intention to deceive. This view remained the generally accepted view of the nature of lying until very recently, with the intention-to-deceive requirement now coming under repeated attack. In this article, I argue that the tides have turned too quickly in the literature on lying. For while it is indeed true that there can be lies where (...)
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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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  • Why Does Time Seem to Pass?Simon Prosser - 2011 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (1):92-116.
    According to the B-theory, the passage of time is an illusion. The B-theory therefore requires an explanation of this illusion before it can be regarded as fullysatisfactory; yet very few B-theorists have taken up the challenge of trying to provide one. In this paper I take some first steps toward such an explanation by first making a methodological proposal, then a hypothesis about a key element in the phenomenology of temporal passage. The methodological proposal focuses onthe representational content of the (...)
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  • Nefarious Presentism.Jonathan Tallant & David Ingram - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260):355-371.
    Presentists, who believe that only present objects exist, face a problem concerning truths about the past. Presentists should (but cannot) locate truth-makers for truths about the past. What can presentists say in response? We identify two rival factions ‘upstanding’ and ‘nefarious’ presentists. Upstanding presentists aim to meet the challenge, positing presently existing truth-makers for truths about the past; nefarious presentists aim to shirk their responsibilities, using the language of truth-maker theory but without paying any ontological price. We argue that presentists (...)
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  • Monism and intrinsicality.Kelly Trogdon - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1):127 – 148.
    Amendment of the Witmer, Butchard, and Trogdon (2005) account of intrinsic properties with the aim of neutrality between competing theories of what is fundamental.
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  • A New Framework for Conceptualism.John Bengson, Enrico Grube & Daniel Z. Korman - 2010 - Noûs 45 (1):167 - 189.
    Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and representationalism, demonstrative (...)
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  • Debunking Arguments and Metaphysical Laws.Jonathan Barker - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (7):1829-1855.
    I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what, and about what grounds what—can be used to deflect or neutralize the threat posed by a debunking explanation. I use a well-known debunking argument in the metaphysics of material objects as a case study. Then, after defending the proposed strategy from the charge of question-begging, I close by showing how the proposed strategy can be used by certain (...)
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  • The Right Stuff.Ned Markosian - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (4):665-687.
    This paper argues for including stuff in one's ontology. The distinction between things and stuff is first clarified, and then three different ontologies of the physical universe are spelled out: a pure thing ontology, a pure stuff ontology, and a mixed ontology of both things and stuff. Eleven different reasons for including stuff in one's ontology are given. Then five objections to positing stuff are considered and rejected.
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  • Self‐Differing, Aspects, and Leibniz's Law.Donald L. M. Baxter - 2018 - Noûs 52:900-920.
    I argue that an individual has aspects numerically identical with it and each other that nonetheless qualitatively differ from it and each other. This discernibility of identicals does not violate Leibniz's Law, however, which concerns only individuals and is silent about their aspects. They are not in its domain of quantification. To argue that there are aspects I will appeal to the internal conflicts of conscious beings. I do not mean to imply that aspects are confined to such cases, but (...)
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  • Presentism and Truthmaking.Ben Caplan & David Sanson - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (3):196-208.
    Three plausible views—Presentism, Truthmaking, and Independence—form an inconsistent triad. By Presentism, all being is present being. By Truthmaking, all truth supervenes on, and is explained in terms of, being. By Independence, some past truths do not supervene on, or are not explained in terms of, present being. We survey and assess some responses to this.
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  • Illusions of gunk.J. Robert G. Williams - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):493–513.
    Worlds where things divide forever ("gunk" worlds) are apparently conceivable. The conceivability of such scenarios has been used as an argument against "nihilist" or "near-nihilist" answers to the special composition question. I argue that the mereological nihilist has the resources to explain away the illusion that gunk is possible.
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  • Beatrice Edgell’s Myth of the Given.Uriah Kriegel - 2024 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32 (3):587-605.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ “myth of the given” had a momentous influence on 20th-century epistemology, putting under pressure the internalist foundationalism so prominent in early analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that the core themes in Sellars’ argument are anticipated in the work of the London philosopher and psychologist Beatrice Edgell (1871-1948). Indeed, in some respects Edgell’s argument against the myth of the given is even more compelling than Sellars’. The paper logically reconstructs and historically contextualizes Edgell’s line of argument, as (...)
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  • Against monism.Theodore Sider - 2007 - Analysis 67 (1):1–7.
    Jonathan Schaffer distinguishes two sorts of monism. Existence monists say that only one object exists: The World. Priority monists admit the existence of The World’s parts, but say that their features are derivative from the properties of The World. Both have trouble explaining the features of statespace, the set of possibilities available to The World.
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  • Identity, Discernibility, and Composition.Donald L. M. Baxter - 2014 - In Aaron J. Cotnoir & Donald L. M. Baxter, Composition as Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 244-253.
    There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is (...)
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  • Endurantism and Perdurantism.Nikk Effingham - 2012 - In Robert Barnard & Neil Manson, Continuum Companion to Metaphysics. Continuum Publishing. pp. 170.
    An introduction to the theories of endurantism and perdurantism, and persistence more broadly.
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  • A tale of two simples.Joshua Spencer - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 148 (2):167 - 181.
    A material simple is a material object that has no proper parts. Some philosophers have argued for the possibility of extended simples. Some have even argued for the possibility of heterogeneous simples or simples that have intrinsic variations across their surfaces. There is a puzzle, though, that is meant to show that extended, heterogeneous simples are impossible. Although several plausible responses have been given to this puzzle, I wish to reopen the case against extended, heterogeneous simples. In this paper, I (...)
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  • Composition as identity: pushing forward.Einar Duenger Bohn - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 18):4595-4607.
    In this paper, I present the thesis of Composition as Identity as I think it should be understood, and reply to some objections to it. My aim is not to argue that CAI is true, but to show how CAI can be true, and push the debate forward in the direction I think it must and should go in light of some new objections.
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  • Ostrich presentism.Giuliano Torrengo - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 170 (2):255-276.
    Ostrich presentists maintain that we can use all the expressive resources of the tensed language to provide an explanation of why true claims about the past are true, without thereby paying any price in terms of ontology or basic ideology. I clarify the position by making a distinction between three kinds of explanation, which has general interest and applicability. I then criticize the ostrich position because it requires an unconstrained version of the third form of explanation, which is out of (...)
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  • Ross Cameron’s The Moving Spotlight.Theodore Sider - 2017 - Analysis 77 (4):788-799.
    According to Ross Cameron's version of the moving spotlight theory of time, (1) Past and future entities exist; (2) the properties and relations they have are those they have now; but nevertheless (3) there are no fundamental past- or future-tensed facts; instead, tensed facts are made true by fundamental facts about the possession of temporal distributional properties and facts about how old things are. I argue that the account isn't sufficiently distinct from the B-theory to fit the usual A-theorist's tastes (...)
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  • Spatial Reasoning and Ontology: Parts, Wholes, and Locations.Achille C. Varzi - 2007 - In Marco Aiello, Ian Pratt-Hartmann & Johan van Benthem, Handbook of Spatial Logics. Springer Verlag. pp. 945-1038.
    A critical survey of the fundamental philosophical issues in the logic and formal ontology of space, with special emphasis on the interplay between mereology (the theory of parthood relations), topology (broadly understood as a theory of qualitative spatial relations such as continuity and contiguity), and the theory of spatial location proper.
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  • Time for Distribution?Jonathan Tallant & David Ingram - 2012 - Analysis 72 (2):264-270.
    Presentists face a familiar problem. If only present objects exist, then what 'makes true' our true claims about the past? According to Ross Cameron, the 'truth-makers' for past and future tensed propositions are presently instantiated Temporal Distributional Properties. We present an argument against Cameron's view. There are two ways that we might understand the term 'distribute' as it appears. On one reading, the resulting properties are not up to the task of playing the truth-maker role; on the other, the properties (...)
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  • A topological theory of fundamental concrete particulars.Daniel Giberman - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (10):2679-2704.
    Fundamental concrete particulars are needed to explain facts about non-fundamental concrete particulars. However, the former can only play this explanatory role if they are properly discernible from the latter. Extant theories of how to discern fundamental concreta primarily concern mereological structure. Those according to which fundamental concreta can bear, but not be, proper parts are motivated by the possibilities that all concreta bear proper parts and that some properties of wholes are not fixed by the properties of their proper parts. (...)
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  • II—L. A. Paul: Categorical Priority and Categorical Collapse.L. A. Paul - 2013 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1):89-113.
    I explore some of the ways that assumptions about the nature of substance shape metaphysical debates about the structure of Reality. Assumptions about the priority of substance play a role in an argument for monism, are embedded in certain pluralist metaphysical treatments of laws of nature, and are central to discussions of substantivalism and relationalism. I will then argue that we should reject such assumptions and collapse the categorical distinction between substance and property.
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  • Aspects and the Alteration of Temporal Simples.Donald L. M. Baxter - 2016 - Manuscrito 39 (4):169-181.
    ABSTRACT According to David Lewis, alteration is "qualitative difference between temporal parts of something." It follows that moments, since they are simple and lack temporal parts, cannot alter from future to present to past. Here then is another way to put McTaggart's paradox about change in tense. I will appeal to my theory of Aspects to rebut the thought behind this rendition of McTaggart. On my theory, it is possible that qualitatively differing things be numerically identical. I call these differing, (...)
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  • Taking monism seriously.David M. Cornell - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2397-2415.
    Monism is the view that there is only a single material object in existence: the world. According to this view, therefore, the ordinary objects of common sense—cats and hats, cars and stars, and so on—do not actually exist; there is only the world. Because of this, monism is routinely dismissed in the contemporary literature as being absurd and obviously false. It is simply obvious that there is a plurality of material things, thus it is simply obvious that monism is false, (...)
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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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  • Presentism and Distributional Properties.Jonathan Tallant & David Ingram - 2012 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman, Oxford Studies in Metaphysics volume 7. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 305-314.
    Ross Cameron proposes to reconcile presentism and truth-maker theory by invoking temporal distributional properties, instantiated by present entities, as the truth-makers for truths about the past. This chapter argues that Cameron's proposal fails because objects can change which temporal distributional properties they instantiate and this entails that the truth-values of truths about the past can change in an objectionable way.
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  • Monism and statespace: a reply to Sider.David Cornell - 2013 - Analysis 73 (2):230-236.
    According to Existence Monism, there is only one concrete object in existence—the world. This view is to be contrasted with Existence Pluralism, which posits multiple concrete objects. In a recent Analysis paper, Sider (Analysis 2007; 67:1–7) presents arguments against Existence Monism claiming that there are evident features of statespace, which the monist is at a loss to explain. Given that the pluralist can give plausible and satisfying explanations of these features, we have good reason to favor pluralism over monism, or (...)
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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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  • (1 other version)What is a fourdimensionalist to do about temporally extended properties?Katarina Perovic - 2018 - European Journal of Philosophy 27 (2):441-452.
    European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.
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  • The Trinity and Extended Simples.Martin Pickup - 2016 - Faith and Philosophy 33 (4):414-440.
    In this paper, I will offer an analogy between the Trinity and extended simples that supports a Latin approach to the Trinity. The theoretical tools developed to discuss and debate extended simples in the literature of contemporary analytic metaphysics, I argue, can help us make useful conceptual distinctions in attempts to understand what it could be for God to be Triune. Furthermore, the analogy between extended simples and the Trinity might surprise some who find one of these at least plausibly (...)
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  • Refining Four-Dimensionalism.Shieva Kleinschmidt - 2017 - Synthese 194 (11):4623-4640.
    Current formulations of Four-Dimensionalism may be objected to on grounds that they are too inflexible: the formulations do not seem to allow for enough variety in the views they are paired with. For instance, Kit Fine has noted that formulations of Four-Dimensionalism in terms of instantaneous parts may be too demanding for Four-Dimensionalists who believe nothing is instantaneous. And Trenton Merricks has argued that one can think something persists four-dimensionionally without taking it to have proper temporal parts, and claims that (...)
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  • Kantian Monism.Uriah Kriegel - 2012 - Philosophical Papers 41 (1):23-56.
    Let ‘monism’ be the view that there is only one basic object—the world. Monists face the question of whether there are also non-basic objects. This is in effect the question of whether the world decomposes into parts. Jonathan Schaffer maintains that it does, Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč that it does not. In this paper, I propose a compromise view, which I call ‘Kantian monism.’ According to Kantian monism, the world decomposes into parts insofar as an ideal subject under ideal (...)
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  • Supertropestantivalism.Daniel Giberman - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 71 (4):pqaa080.
    According to the identity version of spacetime supersubstantivalism, material objects are numerically identical to spacetime regions. While the view has been commended for its parsimony and concordance with physics, it has not properly been assessed in light of the metaphysics of properties. The present essay fills this void by discerning several subspecies of identity supersubstantivalism, corresponding to various property ontologies. Finding them all wanting, the essay develops and defends a novel brand of supersubstantivalism based on the trope ontology. On this (...)
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  • Who’s afraid of reverse mereological essentialism?David S. Oderberg - 2023 - Philosophical Studies:1-22.
    Whereas Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the parts of an object are essential to it, Reverse Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the whole is essential to its parts. Specifically—since RME is an Aristotelian doctrine—it is a claim not about objects in general but about substances. Here I set out and explain RME as it should be understood from the perspective of the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, as well as proposing a kind of master argument for believing it. A number of (...)
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  • Hearing objects and events.Nick Young - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (11):2931-2950.
    Through hearing we learn about source events: events in which objects move or interact so that they vibrate and produce sound waves, such as when they roll, collide, or scrape together. It is often claimed that we do not simply hear sounds and infer what event caused them, but hear source events themselves, through hearing sounds. Here I investigate how the idea that we hear source events should be understood, with a focus on how hearing an event relates to hearing (...)
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  • Monism and Gunk.Jacek Brzozowski - 2016 - In Mark Jago, Reality Making. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK. pp. 57-74.
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  • A Theory of Creation Ex Deo.Michael Tze-Sung Longenecker - 2022 - Sophia 61 (2):267-282.
    The idea that God creates out of Himself seems quite attractive. Many find great appeal in holding that a temporally finite universe must have a cause, but I think there’s also great appeal in holding that there’s pre-existent stuff out of which that universe is created—and what could that stuff be but part of God? Though attractive, the idea of creation ex deo hasn’t been taken seriously by theistic philosophers. Perhaps this is because it seems too vague—‘could anything enlightening be (...)
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  • Presentism, Truthmakers and Distributional Properties.Phil Corkum - 2014 - Synthese 191 (14):3427-46.
    Presentists face a challenge from truthmaker theory: if you hold both that the only existing objects are presently existing and that truth supervenes on being, then you will be hard pressed to identify some existent on which a given true but traceless claim about the past supervenes. One reconciliation strategy, advocated by Cameron (2011), is to appeal to distributional properties so to serve as presently existing truthmakers for past truths. I argue that a presentist ought to deny that distributional properties (...)
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  • Anything I Can Do (With Respect to Truthmaking), You Can Do Better (or Just As Well): Truthmaking and Non-Presentist Dynamism.Kristie Miller - 2017 - Philosophical Issues 27 (1):184-203.
    Let us call non-presentist dynamism any view according to which (a) a single moment of time is objectively present and (b) which time is objectively present changes and (c) objectively non-present times exist, and at least some of these are occupied by objects, events, or properties. Non-presentist dynamism has an advantage over presentist dynamism—the view that only present objects, properties, and events exist, and that which objects, properties and events there are, changes—in the truthmaking arena. Presentists have trouble finding plausible (...)
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  • Physicalism and sparse ontology.Kelly Trogdon - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 143 (2):147-165.
    Discussion of reductive and non-reductive physicalism formulated in a priority monist framework.
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  • What is priority monism? Reply to Kovacs.Damiano Costa - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Priority monism is the view that the cosmos is the basic concrete entity on which each of its parts depend. Kovacs has recently argued that none of the classical notions of dependence could be used to spell out priority monism. I argue that four notions of dependence – namely rigid existential dependence, generic existential dependence, explanatory dependence, and generalised explanatory dependence – can indeed be used to spell out priority monism, and specify the conditions under which this is possible.
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  • On the Properties of Composite Objects.Michael J. Duncan - manuscript
    What are the properties of composite objects, and how do the properties of composite objects and the properties of their proper parts relate to one another? The answers to these questions depend upon which view of composition one adopts. One view, which I call the orthodox view, is that composite objects are numerically distinct from their proper parts, individually and collectively. Another view, known as composition as identity, is that composite objects are numerically identical to their proper parts, taken together. (...)
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  • (1 other version)What is an Ersatz Part?Kristie Miller & Johann Hariman - 2017 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 94 (4):524-551.
    _ Source: _Page Count 28 This paper develops four proposals for explicating the notion of an ersatz part. It then evaluates each proposal with respect to a number of jobs for which ersatz parts are posited. We argue that each of the four notions of ersatz parthood do better with respect to some jobs, and worse with respect to others. Thus, we think, it’s horses for courses: which notion of ersatz part one chooses will be sensitive to which metaphysical project (...)
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  • Extended Simples and the Argument from Heterogeneity.Michael J. Duncan - manuscript
    Perhaps the most commonly discussed argument against the possibility of extended simples is the argument from heterogeneity. The argument states that, if extended simples are possible, then extended simples which exhibit intrinsic qualitative variation across space (or spacetime) are also possible [Premise 1]. But, the argument goes, it is impossible for an extended simple to exhibit intrinsic qualitative variation across space (or spacetime) [Premise 2]. Thus, extended simples are impossible. I argue that there is a serious problem with the argument (...)
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  • Einstein Vs. Bergson: An Enduring Quarrel on Time.Alessandra Campo & Simone Gozzano (eds.) - 2021 - Boston: De Gruyter.
    This book brings together papers from a conference that took place in the city of L'Aquila, 4–6 April 2019, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the earthquake that struck on 6 April 2009. Philosophers and scientists from diverse fields of research debated the problem that, on 6 April 1922, divided Einstein and Bergson: the nature of time. For Einstein, scientific time is the only time that matters and the only time we can rely on. Bergson, however, believes that scientific time (...)
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