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Personal Identity
Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)
(Text as at 02/10/2014 17:12:29)
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AbstractA number of thought experiments that feature in Chapter 10 seem to fail if perdurantism is true (because the reduplication objections fail). Depending on whether any of these are critical to my arguments, I may need to consider the impact of perdurantism. But this complex area may be a step too far within a fairly limited word-count. I’m also unsure whether it should feature before or after the account of Thought Experiments.
Research Methodology
- Follow this Link1 for a generic statement of how I intend to pursue each Chapter.
- The method is broken down into 12, possibly iterative, stages.
- Follow this Link2 for my progress dashboard on these tasks.
Chapter Introduction
- Any discussion of identity over time – of anything – needs to have some discussion of just what it is for something to persist, and what we take time to be.
- Additionally, as noted in the abstract, depending on our approach to time and persistence, some of the troubling thought experiments that worry us about the persistence of human persons are resolved, though we get nothing for nothing. As is usual in philosophy, a gain here is compensated for by a loss somewhere else. We need to determine these losses, and agree that they are “worth it”.
- Further text to be supplied.
Main Text
- To be supplied.
Links to Books / Papers to be Addressed3
- In this Chapter I will consider the following papers or book chapters (together with some others referenced by these). There are doubtless many more that are relevant and which will be addressed in the course of the thesis, but these are probably sufficient to get us going.
- The references are segregated by sub-topic, as below, but there is much overlap.
- Time:
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Time", Baker
- "Campbell (Joseph Keim), O'Rourke (Michael) & Silverstein (Harry S.) - Time and Identity", Campbell
- "Coope (Ursula) - Time for Aristotle: Physics IV. 10-14", Coope
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Persistence and Time", Hawley
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time", LePoidevin
- "LePoidevin (Robin) & MacBeath (Murray), Eds. - The Philosophy of Time: Oxford Readings in Philosophy", LePoidevin
- "Marshall (Richard) & Callender (Craig) - Craig Callender: Time Lord", Marshall+Callender
- "Markosian (Ned) - Time", Markosian
- "Mellor (D.H.) - Real Time", Mellor
- "Mellor (D.H.) - Real Time II", Mellor
- "Olson (Eric) - The Passage of Time", Olson
- "Prior (Arthur N.) - Papers on Time and Tense", Prior
- "Sattig (Thomas) - The Language and Reality of Time", Sattig
- "Sklar (Lawrence) - Space, Time and Spacetime", Sklar
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - The A-Theory of Time, The B-Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’", Zimmerman
- Persistence:
- Survival5:
- "Baillie (James) - Identity and Survival", Baillie
- "Brennan (Andrew) - Survival", Brennan
- "Bruntrup (Godehard) - 3.5-Dimensionalism and Survival: A Process Ontological Approach", Bruntrup
- "Corcoran (Kevin), Ed. - Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons", Corcoran
- "Ehring (Douglas) - Survival and Trivial Facts", Ehring
- "Flew (Antony) - Three Ways to Survival", Flew
- "Lewis (David) - Survival and Identity", Lewis
- "Matthews (Gareth B.) - Surviving As", Matthews
- "Penelhum (Terence) - Survival and Disembodied Existence", Penelhum
- "Rey (Georges) - Survival", Rey
- "Unger (Peter) - What Matters In Our Survival: Distinctions, Compromises and Limits", Unger
- Endurantism:
- Perdurantism:
- "Heller (Mark) - The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four-Dimensional Hunks of Matter", Heller
- "Hudson (Hud) - A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person", Hudson
- "Hudson (Hud) - The Metaphysics of Hyperspace", Hudson
- "Lewis (David) - On the Plurality of Worlds (Selections)", Lewis
- "McGrath (Matthew) - Four-Dimensionalism and the Puzzles of Coincidence", McGrath6
- "Gilmore (Cody) - Time Travel, Coinciding Objects and Persistence", Gilmore7
- "Oderberg (David) - The Metaphysics of Identity Over Time", Oderberg8
- "Sider (Ted) - Precis of Four-Dimensionalism", Sider
- "Varzi (Achille) - Change, Temporal Parts, and the Argument from Vagueness", Varzi
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Temporal Parts and Supervenient Causation: The Incompatibility of Two Humean Doctrines", Zimmerman
- Exdurantism:
- Many aspects of these papers will need to be either ignored or reserved for other chapters.
- The motivation for these works is as follows:-
The Cut
- There had already been a lot of cutting in the various selections of the original reading list – the reading lists attached to the Notes run on and on – and these items just represent the works in my possession (though I have sought out all that I’ve heard of that look relevant).
- However, the items in the lists following were given some attention, and have been culled – at least temporarily – from the lists above, where they originally appeared. I’ve not always given a reason as I’ve not studied them sufficiently closely. But, you have to draw a line somewhere.
- I’m well aware that the cut has not been sufficiently rigorous. Further items beyond the items below are likely to be culled when I come to process them.
Links to Notes
- Time11,
- Persistence12,
- Persistence_Criteria13,
- Survival14,
- Endurantism15,
- Perdurantism16,
- Exdurantism17.
Final Remarks
- This is work-in-progress18.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 3:
- See the section on Research Methodology for what is to be done with these.
- The author’s surname is repeated in the text to make it easier for me to see what’s going on in the encoded text I work on.
Footnote 4: This might also be useful for perdurantism, or for the logic of identity.
Footnote 5:
- There is some overlap – as far as papers reviewed are concerned – between this Section and the “Does Identity Matter” Section in Chapter 4 (Click here for Note).
- This Chapter focuses on the meaning of “Survival”, while the previous chapter focuses on its relation to Identity, and the importance of identity for survival.
- But, I think they should probably be covered in the same place, and probably not here.
Footnote 6: This looks like an important paper, which rejects the “proofs” of 4D based on the “coincidence” TEs.
Footnote 7: Another important-looking paper, also against perdurantism, along similar lines to the above.
Footnote 8: Oderberg seems to be arguing that Perdurantism is an unwanted consequence of a common-sense notion of persistence.
Footnote 9: I don’t have the paper!
Footnote 10: This is an ethical rather than metaphysical discussion.
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