Can I be an Instantaneous Stage and yet Persist Through Time?
Author
Editor
- Martin Jönsson
Summary, in Swedish
Abstract in Undetermined
An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, 2001; Hawley, 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.
An alternative to the standard endurance/perdurance accounts of persistence has recently been developed: the stage theory (Sider, 2001; Hawley, 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.
Department/s
Publishing year
2008
Language
English
Pages
78-82
Publication/Series
Procedings of the 2008 Lund-Rutgers Conference, Lund Philosophy Reports 2008:1
Document type
Conference paper
Publisher
Lund University (Media-Tryck)
Topic
- Philosophy
Keywords
- persistence
- stage theory
- temporal counterparts
- predication
- Leibniz’s Law
Conference name
The 2008 Lund-Rutgers Conference
Conference date
2008-01-30 - 2008-01-31
Conference place
Sweden
Status
Published