Can I be an instantaneous stage and yet persist through time?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Can I be an instantaneous stage and yet persist through time?

AU - Hansson Wahlberg, Tobias

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, T. Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Hawley, K. How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to this theory, a persisting object is identical with an instantaneous stage (temporal part). On the basis of Leibniz’s Law, I argue that stage theorists either have to deny the alleged identity (i.e., give up their central thesis) or hold that stages are both instantaneous and continuants. I subsequently show that, although stage theory is flexible enough to accommodate the latter claim, the cost for accommodating it is an excessive proliferation of persistence concepts.

AB - An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, T. Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Hawley, K. How Things Persist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). According to this theory, a persisting object is identical with an instantaneous stage (temporal part). On the basis of Leibniz’s Law, I argue that stage theorists either have to deny the alleged identity (i.e., give up their central thesis) or hold that stages are both instantaneous and continuants. I subsequently show that, although stage theory is flexible enough to accommodate the latter claim, the cost for accommodating it is an excessive proliferation of persistence concepts.

KW - Persistence - Stage theory - Temporal counterparts - Predication - Leibniz’s Law

U2 - 10.1007/s12133-008-0036-9

DO - 10.1007/s12133-008-0036-9

M3 - Article

VL - 9

SP - 235

EP - 239

JO - Metaphysica

JF - Metaphysica

SN - 1437-2053

IS - 2

ER -