how things persist dec 2004

[...]... perdurance theory do not deny that objects persist, but they claim that persistence through time is much like extension through space They challenge the ‘commonsense’ of endurance theory As we will see, perdurance and endurance theories account differently for many features of the world how things change, how we refer to persisting things, and how and whether persistence can be a vague matter Perdurance... account of persistence is true will quickly spread outwards, committing us to conventionalism about a wide range of matters If there is a fact of the matter about how things persist, how can we find out what it is? As in many fields of human enquiry, claims in metaphysics are rarely susceptible to direct proof or disproof, and nor are they amenable to direct perceptual checks—we can’t deduce how things persist. .. there are no genuine objective facts to be discovered in this realm, that how things persist depends upon how we think about the world, rather than anything about the world itself One idea is that questions of persistence in specific cases may be in some sense conventional For example, it may simply be up to us to decide the persistence conditions for such objects as pieces of turf and guitars, and... the issues I have already raised how do things change, and what changes an object can survive? Is there more to the world than a collection of moment-by-moment facts? Can persistence sometimes be a vague matter, or a matter of convention? Can there be more than one thing in a place at a time? How do we manage to refer to and keep track of persisting things? No account of persistence is completely straightforward,... more conservative and you will both acquire and lose both memories and skills Yet these changes are all changes in you—you persist through momentous change, just as the book persists through less drastic change Amidst the flux, persisting things are centres of stability How do things persist? To find out about the causal processes which sustain your life, enabling you to survive from day to day, we might... about the persistence and existence of material objects, except by physically manipulating the world There is, however, a less radical way of spelling out the idea that the persistence conditions of material objects may be a matter of definition, decision, or stipulation This is to suppose that it is at least partly a matter of definition, decision, or stipulation how we divide up the world into persisting... straightforward, truistic account of how things persist We can choose between different theories of persistence only by assessing their performance across a whole range of tasks First, let’s see how these theories account for change 1.2 Change and Perdurance Bananas ripen, your heart pumps, the book acquires a coffee stain According to perdurance theorists, the way things change over time is very like... might argue that spatial extension and persistence through time are not analogous in the way that perdurance theory supposes, or we might argue that perdurance theory cannot account for some aspect of the way things persist, or we might argue that endurance theory is clear and coherent, and should be accepted because it fits with our commonsense ideas about how things persist We will encounter arguments... appropriate to persisting objects (or ‘continuants’), there is a perfectly good atemporal notion of parthood which is appropriate to processes (and, perhaps, to abstract objects) The sense in which persisting things have parts is quite different from that in which processes have parts Endurance theorists need not suppose that all persisting things change their parts, only that to be a persisting thing... thus you have all persisted So far, so good We can 10 Sameness and Difference go on to ask whether things persist through time in anything like the way in which they spread out through space You, the book, and the rock all take up space how do you manage this? Again, we could consult a physicist to find out what forces keep objects from imploding, or ask an evolutionary biologist how humans have come . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" HOW THINGS PERSIST How do things persist? Are material objects spread out through time just as they are spread out through space? Or is temporal persistence quite different from. theories account differ- ently for many features of the world how things change, how we refer to persisting things, and how and whether persistence can be a vague matter. Perdurance theory initially. changes in you—you persist through momentous change, just as the book persists through less drastic change. Amidst the flux, per- sisting things are centres of stability. How do things persist? To find