DOCSLIB.ORG

Parts of Persons Identity and Persistence in a Perdurantist World

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Parts of Persons Identity and Persistence in a Perdurantist World UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Doctoral School in Philosophy and Human Sciences (XXXI Cycle) Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” Parts of Persons Identity and persistence in a perdurantist world Ph.D. Candidate Valerio BUONOMO Tutors Prof. Giuliano TORRENGO Prof. Paolo VALORE Coordinator of the Doctoral School Prof. Marcello D’AGOSTINO Academic year 2017-2018 1 Content CONTENT ........................................................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 1. PERSONAL IDENTITY AND PERSISTENCE...................................................................... 8 1.1. The persistence of persons and the criteria of identity over time .................................. 8 1.2. The accounts of personal persistence: a standard classification ................................... 14 1.2.1. Mentalist accounts of personal persistence ............................................................................ 15 1.2.2. Somatic accounts of personal persistence .............................................................................. 15 1.2.3. Anti-criterialist accounts of personal persistence ................................................................... 16 1.3. The metaphysics of persistence: the mereological account .......................................... 18 1.3.1. Endurantism ............................................................................................................................ 18 1.3.2. Perdurantism ........................................................................................................................... 23 1.3.3. Stage theory............................................................................................................................. 32 1.4. The metaphysics of persistence: the locative account ................................................. 35 1.5. Temporal parts of persons .......................................................................................... 40 1.5.1. What is a temporal part of person? ........................................................................................ 40 1.5.2. Some advantages of an ontology of temporal parts of persons ............................................. 42 1.6. Persons and the diachronic composition question ....................................................... 45 1.7. Perdurantism and mereological essentialism .............................................................. 49 1.8. Lewis and the standard perdurantist account of personal persistence ......................... 52 1.8.1. Unrestricted composition principle and temporal parts ......................................................... 52 1.8.2. Connecting the stages: temporal parts vs temporal counterparts ......................................... 57 1.8.3. Two problems for Lewis’s perdurantist account of personal persistence .............................. 61 1.9. Kinds of perdurantism ................................................................................................ 64 CHAPTER 2. TEMPORAL PARTS OF PERSONS AND THE PRIORITY OF THE WHOLES ................................ 67 2.1. Composition over time and priority relations .................................................................. 68 2.2. Top-down Perdurantism ................................................................................................. 73 2 2.3. Top-Down Perdurantism and classical mereology ........................................................... 78 2.3.1. Priority of the wholes and extensionality ...................................................................................... 79 2.3.2. Priority of the wholes and composition as identity....................................................................... 80 2.3.3. Priority of the wholes and unrestricted composition ................................................................... 86 2.4. Priority, properties, and Humean Supervenience ............................................................ 88 2.5. Some advantages of Top-Down Perdurantism ................................................................ 95 2.5.1. Integral wholes and mere fusions ................................................................................................. 95 2.5.2. Saving “persistence as identity” .................................................................................................. 100 2.5.3. Persistence and sortal-dependence ............................................................................................ 104 2.5.4. On the unity of consciousness ..................................................................................................... 106 CHAPTER 3. MODERATE PERDURANTISMS ............................................................................. 111 3.1. Brute Perdurantism ...................................................................................................... 113 3.1.1. A simple view for perdurantism .................................................................................................. 113 3.1.2. Markosian on brute composition ................................................................................................ 116 3.1.3. Advantages of brute perdurantism and some objections ........................................................... 119 3.2. Nomological Perdurantism ........................................................................................... 124 3.2.1. “The causal concrete” of temporal parts: diachronic composition and laws of nature ............. 124 3.2.2. Advantages of nomological perdurantism and some objections ................................................ 129 3.3. Phenomenal Perdurantism ........................................................................................... 136 3.3.1. Phenomenal continuity: a new mentalist approach to personal persistence ............................. 137 3.3.2. Phenomenal continuity and temporal parts ............................................................................... 140 3.3.3. Advantages of phenomenal perdurantism and some objections ............................................... 144 3.4. Quinean Perdurantism ................................................................................................. 153 3.4.1. Non-natural (but still objective) persistence ............................................................................... 153 3.4.2. Advantages of Quinean perdurantism and some objections. ..................................................... 159 3.5. The moderate showdown ............................................................................................. 164 CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................................... 168 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 174 3 Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my supervisors Giuliano Torrengo and Paolo Valore for their help and support throughout the research and writing of this thesis. Without their help and suggestions this thesis would not be the standard that it is, and the arguments in it would be much worse than they are. From the very beginning of my doctoral carreer to the last days before the submission, they constantly encouraged me in pursuing my project, both spending many hours discussing with me some of the most puzzling issues of my research, and showing their trust in my work. Your support has been incredibly helpful, and I am especially grateful to both of you. I would like to thank Achille Varzi for extensive discussions on my project during my visiting term at Columbia University of New York during the Fall Semester 2017/2018 (I suspect I owe him the whole idea of focusing on mereological issues when dealing with a perdurantist account of personal persistence, as well as of inquiring the relation between mereological and dependence issues – which is the central issue of chapter 2 of my thesis). Also, I would like to thank Kristie Miller and Thomas Sattig, who served as reviewers of my thesis, for very insightful comments. I would like to thank each and every colleague of the PhD School in Philosophy and Human Sciences of the University of Milan, starting from the ones that three years ago moved the first steps with me on this important path: Simona Azzan, Flavio Baracco, Roberta Bonanno, Eugenio Petrovich, Emiliano Tolusso, Daria Vitasovic. We shared a lot of things, from reading groups to lunches, from discussions to difficulties that drove someone of us almost to give up. We went through a lot of things, and things have not always been easy, but being together helped us moving forward and now that we are close to the end, we can say that we did it. Among the colleagues of the other years, I would like to thank especially Luca Bianchin, Daniele Cassaghi, Sasha D’Ambrosio, Bianca Falcioni, Ivan Malara, Giorgio Masellis, Michele Meroni, Jessica Murano, Sonia Rezzonico, Ivan Severi and Laura Volpi. I am sure any of you know how much I owe her, and I wish you all the best for your future. I will miss you. Also, I would like to thank all members of the Centre for Philosophy of Time for creating the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Haecceitism, Chance
    HAECCEITISM, CHANCE, AND COUNTERFACTUALS Boris Kment Abstract. Anti-haecceitists believe that all facts about specific individuals—such as the fact that Fred exists, or that Katie is tall—globally supervene on purely qualitative facts. Haecceitists deny that. The issue is not only of interest in itself, but receives additional importance from its intimate connection to the question of whether all fundamental facts are qualitative or whether they include facts about which specific individuals there are and how qualitative properties and relations are distributed over them. Those who think that all fundamental facts are qualitative are arguably committed to anti-haecceitism. The goal of this paper is to point out some problems for anti-haecceitism (and therefore for the thesis that all fundamental facts are qualitative). The article focuses on two common assumptions about possible worlds: (i) Sets of possible worlds are the bearers of objective physical chance. (ii) Counterfactual conditionals can be defined by appeal to a relation of closeness between possible worlds. The essay tries to show that absurd consequences ensue if either of these assumptions is combined with anti-haecceitism. Then it considers a natural response by the anti-haecceitist, which is to deny that worlds play the role described in (i) and (ii). Instead, the reply continues, we can introduce a new set of entities that are defined in terms of worlds and that behave the way worlds do on the haecceitist position. That allows the anti-haecceitist to formulate anti-haecceitist friendly versions of (i) and (ii) by replacing the appeal to possible worlds with reference to the newly introduced entities.
    [Show full text]
  • Reply to Stone on Counterpart Theory and Four-Dimensionalism Antony Eagle
    reply to stone on counterpart theory 159 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAANALAnalysis0003-26382007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.April 200767215962Original ArticlesAntony Eagle REPLY TO STONE ON COUNTERPART THEORY Reply to Stone on counterpart theory and four-dimensionalism Antony Eagle In a recent article, Jim Stone argues that counterpart theory and four- dimensionalism are incompatible (Stone 2005). His arguments carry no obvious weight against the stage view defended by Sider (2001). Nor do they undermine the more vulnerable combination of the worm view and counterpart theory – or so I shall argue. Stone considers a space-time worm A which is a bronze statue of a unicorn throughout its entire existence, from t1 to t10 (scenario I). Since the bronze could survive being melted down while the statue could not, there is a (distinct) situation (scenario II), where A is melted down, and recast at t11. Stone claims that in II A both does and does not have more temporal parts than it has in scenario I, in virtue of the bronze counterparts of A surviving but the statue-shaped counterparts of A failing to survive. As it stands, this argument is invalid: if eternalism is true, the bronze in scenario II is not identical to A, since it is true throughout II that the Analysis 67.2, April 2007, pp. 159–62. © Antony Eagle 160 antony eagle bronze B outlives the worm A. Dialectically, since eternalism is likely to be held for independent reasons by the four-dimensionalist, Stone’s argu- ment has no force. Moreover, according to the counterpart theorist, A does not exist in II; at best, some counterpart of A exists in that scenario.
    [Show full text]
  • Experience and the Passage of Time∗
    Experience and the Passage of Time∗ Bradford Skow 1 Introduction Some philosophers believe that the passage of time is a real phenomenon. And some of them find a reason to believe this when they attend to features of their conscious experience. In fact this “argument from experience” is supposed to be one of the main arguments for passage. What exactly does this argument look like? Is it any good? There are in fact many different arguments from experience. I am not sure I understand them all. In this paper I want to talk about the three most interesting arguments that I do understand.1 I am going to argue that all three of them fail. ∗Published in Philosophical Perspectives 25: Metaphysics (2011), pp.359-387. 1I will not say anything about A. N. Prior’s “Thank Goodness That’s Over” argument (Prior 1959) because it is not an argument from experience (even though it is often said to be). Here is Prior’s argument: I can be glad that my ordeal is over without being glad that my ordeal is earlier than this thought or that my ordeal is earlier than 12 noon. But the latter two propositions are the propositions that some opponents of passage (the ones Prior knew) identified with the proposition that my ordeal is over. Prior concluded that the object of my propositional attitude is a proposition that only proponents of passage believe in. Phenomenal experience does not play an important role in this argument. True, there is some distinctive phenomenal “feel” that (sometimes? usually? always?) occurs when I am glad about something.
    [Show full text]
  • Persistence, Vagueness, and Location
    PERSISTENCE, VAGUENESS, AND LOCATION Antony Eagle University of Adelaide, antonyeagle.org Forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophy I will discuss two arguments in favor of perdurance. The first is Sider’s argument from vagueness.1 Sider regards this argument as “one of the most powerful” in favor of perdurantism. I make the observation – obvious once made, but I am unable to find it elsewhere in the literature – that endurantists have principled grounds to claim that the argument is unsound (§§I–III). Having made this observation, I use it to emphasize a somewhat neglected difference between endurantists and perdurantists with respect to their views on material objects (§IV). These views, in the case of endurantists, lead to a further, less than conclusive but nevertheless interesting argument against endurantism – the anti-fundamentality argument – which I discuss in the second half of the paper (§§V–VI). I. THE ARGUMENT FROM VAGUENESS To begin, some terminology. An assignment is a (possibly partial) function from times to a set of entities existing at each time; a D-fusion of an assignment is an entity that is, at each time for 1 Theodore Sider, Four-Dimensionalism: an Ontology of Persistence and Time (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), at §4.9.3. 1 which the assignment is defined, constituted by the fusion of the members of the set which is the value of the assignment at that time; a minimal D-fusion of an assignment is a D-fusion which exists only at the times for which the assignment is defined.2 In these terms, Sider’s argument aims to establish this conclusion: (U) “every assignment has a minimal D-fusion”.3 U swiftly entails the existence of temporal parts, because the singleton assignment {⟨�, �⟩} is well- formed for any � existing at �, and so has a minimal D-fusion – an entity which is the fusion of � at � and exists only at �, which meets Sider’s widely agreed criteria for being a temporal part of � at �.4 Note how important the word ‘minimal’ is in U.
    [Show full text]
  • Comments on Sider's Four Dimensionalism
    Sally Haslanger MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy [email protected] 12/30/03 Comments on Sider I. Introduction Congratulations to Ted on the APA Prize. Ted’s book Four Dimensionalism is an impressive piece of work, and it is an honor to be included in this session. The book is a paradigm of systematic work in analytic metaphysics. It demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of a variety of debates over time, persistence, material constitution, as well as a sensitivity to background issues concerning methodology in metaphysics. It is a significant accomplishment. I’ll start by giving a very brief summary of Sider’s position and will identify some points on which my own position differs from his. I’ll then raise four issues, viz., how to articulate the 3-dimensionalist view, the trade-offs between Ted’s stage view of persistence and endurance with respect to intrinsic properties, the endurantist’s response to the argument from vagueness, and finally more general questions about what’s at stake in the debate. I don’t believe that anything I say raises insurmountable problems for Sider’s view; and in fact, I’m sure he’s in a better position to defend his view more convincingly than I’m able to defend mine. However, there is plenty worth discussing further. Sider defends what he calls “four dimensionalism,” but we should start by being clear how he understands this position.1 He defines “four dimensionalism” as “an ontology of the material world according to which objects have temporal as well as spatial parts.” (xiii) So the thesis of four-dimensionalism Sider is interested in is a thesis about objects and their parts.
    [Show full text]
  • Duration, Temporality and Self
    Duration, Temporality and Self: Prospects for the Future of Bergsonism by Elena Fell A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire 2007 2 Student Declaration Concurrent registration for two or more academic awards I declare that white registered as a candidate for the research degree, I have not been a registered candidate or enrolled student for another award of the University or other academic or professional institution. Material submitted for another award I declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award and is solely my own work Signature of Candidate Type of Award Doctor of Philosophy Department Centre for Professional Ethics Abstract In philosophy time is one of the most difficult subjects because, notoriously, it eludes rationalization. However, Bergson succeeds in presenting time effectively as reality that exists in its own right. Time in Bergson is almost accessible, almost palpable in a discourse which overcomes certain difficulties of language and traditional thought. Bergson equates time with duration, a genuine temporal succession of phenomena defined by their position in that succession, and asserts that time is a quality belonging to the nature of all things rather than a relation between supposedly static elements. But Rergson's theory of duration is not organised, nor is it complete - fragments of it are embedded in discussions of various aspects of psychology, evolution, matter, and movement. My first task is therefore to extract the theory of duration from Bergson's major texts in Chapters 2-4.
    [Show full text]
  • Counterfactuals and Antirealism
    ISSN 2664-4002 (Print) & ISSN 2664-6714 (Online) South Asian Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Abbreviated Key Title: South Asian Res J Human Soc Sci | Volume-1 | Issue-1| Jun-Jul -2019 | Short Communication Counterfactuals and Antirealism Panayot Butchvarov* The University of Iowa USA *Corresponding Author Panayot Butchvarov Article History Received: 12.07.2019 Accepted: 24.07.2019 Published: 30.07.2019 Abstract: There could be no causal connections in the world because if there were there would be counterfactual facts, and there are no such facts. Cognition of the world must employ counterfactual statements, roughly of the form “If p were true, then q would be true,” but obviously there are no counterfactual facts. Keywords: cognition, antirealism, causality, counterfactual The ways to antirealism Metaphysical antirealism is seemingly incredible but, paradoxically, also self-evident. It seems self-evident insofar as it says that if there is a world that we do not and cannot cognize (Kant‟s “things-in-themselves”) then we can ignore it, and if there is a world that we do or at least can cognize (Kant‟s “things-for-us”) then it can only be the world as we do or can cognize it. So the world we do cognize seems, in a sense, dependent on our cognition of it. (We may think of cognition as the capacity for knowledge, and of knowledge as the successful exercise of that capacity.) Metaphysical antirealism is not solipsistic – it‟s about what we, not what I, do or can cognize. For cognition of a world, unlike cognition of a toothache but like cognition of physics, mathematics, geography, or history, is inseparable from others‟ cognition – from the common language we speak to most of the views we espouse.
    [Show full text]
  • Naturalness, Intrinsicality, and Duplication
    Naturalness, Intrinsicality, and Duplication Theodore Sider Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts. Committee: Phillip Bricker (chair), Fred Feldman, Edmund Gettier, Angelika Kratzer May 1993 Acknowledgments I would like to thank various people for their verbal and written comments on earlier stages of this dissertation. Of course, none of these people are re- sponsible for the views I express. I am indebted to Mark Aronszajn, Lynne Baker, David Braun, Earl Conee, David Cowles, Max Cresswell, David Den- by, Fred Feldman, Richard Feldman, Edmund Gettier, Larry Holm, Ned Markosian, Deborah Modrak, and R. Cranston Paull. I am especially indebted to my dissertation director, Phillip Bricker. He consistently gave me excellent comments and helped me to see more mistakes than I care to remember. For whatever there is of value in this dissertation, he deserves much of the credit. i Abstract This dissertation explores the concepts of naturalness, intrinsicality, and du- plication. An intrinsic property is had by an object purely in virtue of the way that object is considered in itself. Duplicate objects are exactly similar, considered as they are in themselves. The perfectly natural properties are the most fundamental properties of the world, upon which the nature of the world depends. In this dissertation I develop a theory of intrinsicality, naturalness, and duplication and explore their philosophical applications. Chapter 1 intro- duces the notions, gives a preliminary survey of some proposed conceptual connections between the notions, and sketches some of their proposed ap- plications. Chapter 2 gives my background assumptions and introduces no- tational conventions. In chapter 3 I present a theory of naturalness.
    [Show full text]
  • The Philosophy and Physics of Time Travel: the Possibility of Time Travel
    University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well Honors Capstone Projects Student Scholarship 2017 The Philosophy and Physics of Time Travel: The Possibility of Time Travel Ramitha Rupasinghe University of Minnesota, Morris, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/honors Part of the Philosophy Commons, and the Physics Commons Recommended Citation Rupasinghe, Ramitha, "The Philosophy and Physics of Time Travel: The Possibility of Time Travel" (2017). Honors Capstone Projects. 1. https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/honors/1 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Philosophy and Physics of Time Travel: The possibility of time travel Ramitha Rupasinghe IS 4994H - Honors Capstone Project Defense Panel – Pieranna Garavaso, Michael Korth, James Togeas University of Minnesota, Morris Spring 2017 1. Introduction Time is mysterious. Philosophers and scientists have pondered the question of what time might be for centuries and yet till this day, we don’t know what it is. Everyone talks about time, in fact, it’s the most common noun per the Oxford Dictionary. It’s in everything from history to music to culture. Despite time’s mysterious nature there are a lot of things that we can discuss in a logical manner. Time travel on the other hand is even more mysterious.
    [Show full text]
  • Bergsoniana, 1
    Bergsoniana 1 | 2021 Reassessing Bergson Bergsonian Answers to Contemporary Persistence Questions Florian Fischer Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/bergsoniana/448 DOI: 10.4000/bergsoniana.448 ISSN: 2800-874X Publisher Société des amis de Bergson Electronic reference Florian Fischer, “Bergsonian Answers to Contemporary Persistence Questions”, Bergsoniana [Online], 1 | 2021, Online since 01 July 2021, connection on 14 September 2021. URL: http:// journals.openedition.org/bergsoniana/448 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/bergsoniana.448 Les contenus de la revue sont mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. BERGSONIAN ANSWERS TO CONTEMPORARY PERSISTENCE QUESTIONS Florian FISCHER Introduction Time is one of the central topics of contemporary analytic philosophy, and Henri Bergson is one of the most important philosophers of time, but still Bergson plays virtually no role in the contemporary analytic debate about time. In contrast to his poor reception,1 Henri Bergson has a lot to offer analytic philosophy, as I will argue. More precisely, I will illustrate what the debates about persistence and ontology of time might gain from incorporating Bergsonian ideas. To do so, I will first investigate persistence, i.e., existence through time. The focal point of the contemporary analytic debate is how to conceptualise change without letting the involved incompatibilities lead to a logical contradiction. This can be called a horizontal way of posing the question, namely, how to reconcile two incompatible properties had by one entity at two points in time. Bergson famously asserted that objects are ontologically secondary, mind- dependent abstractions from an underlying dynamic reality.
    [Show full text]
  • Four-Dimensionalism, Eternalism, and Deprivationist Accounts of the Evil of Death
    Synthese https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03393-0 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Four-dimensionalism, eternalism, and deprivationist accounts of the evil of death Andrew Brenner1 Received: 22 June 2021 / Accepted: 28 August 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021 Abstract Four-dimensionalists think that we persist over time by having different temporal parts at each of the times at which we exist. Eternalists think that all times are equally real. Deprivationists think that death is an evil for the one who dies because it deprives them of something. I argue that four-dimensionalist eternalism, conjoined with a standard deprivationist account of the evil of death, has surprising implications for what we should think about the evil of death. In particular, given these assumptions, we will lack any grounds for thinking that death is an evil for some individuals for whom we would antecedently expect it to be an evil, namely those individuals who cease to exist at death. Alternatively, we will only have some grounds for thinking that death is an evil for certain individuals for whom we might antecedently be more inclined to think death is not an evil, namely those individuals who survive death, in the sense that they continue to exist after death. Keywords Death · Evil of death · Four-dimensionalism · Eternalism · Perdurantism · Stage theory 1 Introduction According to four-dimensionalism, things which persist over time do so by hav- ing temporal parts at each of the times at which they exist. Four-dimensionalism is almost always conjoined with an eternalist temporal ontology, according to which past, present, and future things are equally real.
    [Show full text]
  • Travelling in Time: How to Wholly Exist in Two Places at the Same Time
    Travelling in Time: How to Wholly Exist in Two Places at the Same Time 1 Introduction It is possible to wholly exist at multiple spatial locations at the same time. At least, if time travel is possible and objects endure, then such must be the case. To accommodate this possibility requires the introduction of a spatial analog of either relativising properties to times—relativising properties to spatial locations—or of relativising the manner of instantiation to times—relativising the manner of instantiation to spatial locations. It has been suggested, however, that introducing irreducibly spatially relativised or spatially adverbialised properties presents some difficulties for the endurantist. I will consider an objection according to which embracing such spatially relativised properties could lead us to reject mereology altogether in favour of a metaphysics according to which objects are wholly present at every space-time point at which they exist. I argue that although such a view is coherent, there are some good reasons to reject it. Moreover, I argue that the endurantist can introduce spatially relativised or adverbialised properties without conceding that objects lack spatial parts. Such a strategy has the additional advantage that it allows the endurantist not only to explain time travel, but also to reconcile our competing intuitions about cases of fission. The possibility of travelling back in time to a period in which one’s earlier self or one’s ancestors exist, raises a number of well-worn problems (Grey, 1999; Chambers, 1999; Horwich, 1975 and Sider, 2002). In this paper I am concerned with only one of these: how is it that an object can travel back in time to meet its earlier self, thus existing at two different spatial locations at one and the same time? Four-dimensionalists have an easy answer to this question.
    [Show full text]