Dictionary of Arguments


Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
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Continuants Continuants: temporally extended entities as opposed to events or occurrences. There is a debate about whether continuants themselves can have temporal parts. See also endurantism, perdurantism, ontology, person, four-dimensionalism.

Continuants Armstrong III 79/80
Particulars/Quasi-universals/Armstrong: you could say, "true" particulars have no temporal parts - then it is necessary to introduce properties that have a time index: >quasi-universals. Particulars without temporal parts: are continuants.

Armstrong I
David M. Armstrong
Meaning and Communication, The Philosophical Review 80, 1971, pp. 427-447
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Armstrong II (a)
David M. Armstrong
Dispositions as Categorical States
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (b)
David M. Armstrong
Place’ s and Armstrong’ s Views Compared and Contrasted
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (c)
David M. Armstrong
Reply to Martin
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (d)
David M. Armstrong
Second Reply to Martin London New York 1996

Armstrong III
D. Armstrong
What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983

Continuants Meixner I 49
Def Continuant/Contuants/Meixner: continuants are singular individuals with a time duration that have at most spatial parts - no temporal parts! Therefore no accidents.
>Accidens, >Individuals, >Objects.
((s) then no change is possible).
Identity in time is given anyway, no question about it is possible. - Then a continuant is no individual which has these temporal parts, the accidents.
Cf. >Temporal identity, >Change, >Motion, >Person.

Mei I
U. Meixner
Einführung in die Ontologie Darmstadt 2004

Continuants Simons I 117
Continuant/Broad: a continuant has no temporal parts, only spatial parts. Contrast: event: an event has spatial and temporal parts. Continuant: e.g. human. N.B.: that is why he is able to change. ((s) Otherwise there is the question of whether he remains the same.)
>Temporal identity, >Personal identity.
Contrast: occurrence/Broad: an event cannot change. ((s) A human (continuant) can grow old - an event cannot grow old.)
>Humans, >Events, >Persons.
I 127
Continuants/SimonsVsFour-Dimensionalism: things that can have mass are continuants and they are used in the argument of the Relativity Theory that nothing which has a mass can be accelerated beyond the speed of light. >Four-dimensionalism, >Relativity Theory.
I 173
Continuants/Locke: continuants are constant clusters of matter. They cannot lose or gain any parts (SimonsVsLocke). >J. Locke.
I 175
Temporal Part/continuants/mereology/SimonsVsAll other authors: thesis: even continuants can have temporal parts, i.e. they are not mereologically constant, but mereologically variable. Simons: thesis: continuants can also have an interrupted existence.
>Existence.
I 176
Continuants/Simons: not all continuants have to be material things, e.g. smile, nodes, waves: they are rather disruptions of material things.
I 180
Def coincidence/continuants/Simons: coincidence predicate:
CTD5 a ‹ ›t b ≡ a ‹t ∧ b ‹t a

For a similarity of parts in terms of the mutual inclusion see Identity/Simons.
I 187
Continuant/ChisholmVsAll other authors: thesis: a continuant is mereologically constant. Mereologically variable continuants are not really primary substances, but rather logical constructions of mereologically constant continuants. Organisms are only constructions.
I 305
Event/continuants/Simons: event: here, a formula like "a‹b" is complete. Continuants: we need an additional time index here: ((s) with quantification) "(∃t)[a‹t b]".
I 350
Continuant/Simons: events happen to a person and are called their life (or life story). Context: not all events of a life are causally connected. Solution: genetic identity (gene-identical): i.e. all events involve a single continuant.
I 351
Continuant/temporal relationship/Simons: it is not the continuant, which belongs together, but its life story. HumeVsContinuants, RussellVsContinuants: continuants bring about a reduction to events, they are mere clotheslines. Whether a continuant exists depends on whether there is a life story to it.
I 353
Simons: nothing maintains their continuous existence.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Continuants Stalnaker I 128
Continuant/Stalnaker: e.g. people and physical objects are continuants. These can be thought of with and without temporal parts. They are something that is always quite there - the same thing at different times. Event: an event is not a continuant. Cf. >Event, >Object, >Person.

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003

Counterpart Relation Bigelow I 192
Ramified/branched Time/Possible Worlds/Bigelow/Pargetter: we allow the time to be branched, i.e. to every past there are several futures. We should also allow such development to be possible within one. That is, two parts could have the same origin. Likewise, fusion and temporary joining together of parts. Problem: it is surprising that such parts would then have at least a temporal part in common.
Suppose we meet Jane from another part of the same possible world. Let us look at this:
Counterfactual conditional: if we had not met Jane, she would not have existed.
>D. Lewis, >Possible worlds, >Possible worlds/Lewis, >Counterfactuals, >Counterfactual conditionals.
BigelowVsLewis: according to him, that must be true.
Bigelow/Pargetter: according to us, it is clearly wrong. There must therefore be at least one possible world in which Jane exists and we do not meet her. And this possible world must contain us all and Jane, although there is no connection between us.
LewisVsVs: he would then have to assume any other connection and a corresponding counterfactual conditional: "... an ancestor or descendant of us could have met an ancestor or descendant of her," etc.
BigelowVsLewis: that is still wrong in the questionable world and less plausible than the above counterfactual conditional. This shows the fallacy of the temporal theory.
BigelowVsLewis: he is in a dilemma: either he takes the world-companions-relation as a primitive basic concept or he allows modal basic concepts.
>Basic concepts, >Modalities, >Modal logic.
I 193
Counterpart Relation/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: However, Lewis still relies on a more important relation, the counter-relation: it is also not a good candidate for an unanalyzed basic concept, but nevertheless it also needs modal basic concepts. >Counterparts, >Counterpart theory.
BigelowVsLewis/BigelowVsCounterpart Theory/Bigelow/Pargetter: it also leads to circularity because it presupposes modal concepts. That is, it cannot justify modal logic.
>Circular reasoning.

Big I
J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter
Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990

Endurantism Inwagen Schwarz I 34
Endurantism/Van Inwagen/Schwarz: e.g. caterpillar/butterfly: thesis: there is no insect, nothing that exists beyond the pupation. Recombination/mereology/Schwarz: the existence of temporal parts follows directly from the mereological universalism together with the rejection of the presentism. Then there are also example aggregates from Socrates and the Eiffel Tower (mereological sum). Socrates is a temporal part of it, which at some point ceases to exist, just as e.g. a dried-out lake that fills up again during the rainy season.
Temporal parts/van Inwagen: (van Inwagen 1981)(1) van Inwagen basically rejects temporal parts.
>Mereology, >Parts, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum.
SchwarzVsInwagen: then he has to radically limit the mereological universalism or be a 'presentist'.
Cf. >Perdurantism.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Endurantism Lewis Schwarz I 32
Definition Endurantism/Lewis/Schwarz: (VsPerdurantism): Thesis: Things are wholly present (not only in part) at all times, at which they exist (like Aristotelian universals). >Universals.
LewisVsEndurantism (instead: Mosaic Theory).
Schwarz I 31
Definition Perdurantism/Lewis/Schwarz: the thesis that temporally extended things usually consist of temporal parts. Mosaic/Lewis: Thesis: All truths about our world also about the temporal extent of things, are based on the properties and relationships between spatially extended points.
EndurantismVsLewis: since he has nothing to do with mosaic, this is no argument for him.
LewisVsEndurantism: better argument: intrinsic change: if normal things do not have temporal parts but exist at different times, they cannot be round, nor large, but only round at time t. And that is absurd.
Schwarz I 32
Properties/some authors: certainly, not all property are relational like "being remote" - but could they not be time-relational, ignoring this constant dependency? (Haslanger 1989: 123f,[1], Jackson 1994b, 142f,[2] van Inwagen 1990a, 116[3]). Properties/Lewis: (2004.4) At least abstract geometric objects can simply be round, therefore "round" is not generally a relation to times.
Properties/Endurantism/Johnston: Thesis: one should not relativize the properties, but their instantiations temporally. (Johnston, 1987, §5) E.g. I am now sitting and was sleeping last night.
Others: (Haslanger, 1989): Thesis: time specifications (> time) are adverbial modifications of propositions: For example, I am sitting in the present way and am sleeping last night.
LewisVsJohnston/LewisVsHaslanger: that makes no big difference. These representatives, too, deny that form properties belong directly, simply, and themselves to the things.
Perdurantism/Endurantism/Schwarz: the debate has been settled, both are accusing each other to analyze change away.
Endurantism: is an instantiation of incompatible properties and has nothing to do with change.
Perdurantism: is a timeless instantiation of compatible properties, for example, being straight exactly at t1, being curved at t0, is not a change.
Schwarz: both do not correspond to our intuitions. The change is not that important.
Cf. >Perdurantism.


1.Sally Haslanger [1989]: “Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics”. Analysis, 49: 119–125
— [1994]: “Humean Supervenience and Enduring Things”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
72: 339–359

2. “Metaphysics by Possible Cases”. In [Jackson 1998b] Mind, Method and Conditionals: Selected Essays. London: Routledge

3.“Four-Dimensional Objects”. Noˆus, 24: 245–256. In [van Inwagen 2001]

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Events Kim Schwarz I 132
Event/LewisVsKim: definition: Def Event/Kim: (Kim 1976)(1): a triple of a thing, a time and a property.
LewisVsKim: (1986f(5),196) that is too fragile:
Schwarz I 133
This assigns too many essential properties to events. For example, a football match could have happened a little later or a little different. Or would it have been another game then? Bennett: (1988(4),§23 24) intuitively the question has no sense.
Schwarz: that's not what Lewis is all about. But fragility is what matters when it comes to causes and effects:
Def Fragility/fragile/Event/Lewis/(s): a modified event would not be the same but different. Then modification cannot be expressed at all: "what was modified?
>Identity, >Identification, >Similarity, >Distinctions, >Classification.
Counterfactual analysis: according to it, A causes B if B would not have happened without A.
>Counterfactual conditionals.
Question: under what circumstances would one event have happened (even if it was different) and under what circumstances would it have been replaced by another. This will lead to problems later on.
Cause/effect/Lewis/Schwarz: both are no intuitive event. For example acoustic feedback: here the later temporal parts are caused by the earlier ones. (1986f(5),172f).
>Cause, >Effect.
Similarly: e.g. the temporal parts of persons are linked by causal relationships!
>Temporal identity, >Parts, cf. >Continuants, >Person.
But these temporal parts are not events in the intuitive sense. Causes such as the presence of oxygen in an explosion (ok, as a cause) are also not an event in the everyday sense. (1986d(6),261).
Event/BennettVsLewis/MellorVsLewis/Schwarz: shouldn't Lewis rather speak of "facts"? "that p causes q".
Fact/Schwarz: if you understand them as classes of space-time regions, this is not an alternative, but only a terminological variant.
>Facts, >Space-time regions.

1. Jaegwon Kim [1976]: “Events as Property Exemplifications”. In Myles Brand und Douglas Walton
(ed.), Action Theory, Dordrecht: Reidel, 159–177
4. Jonathan Bennett [1988]: Events and Their Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. D. Lewis [1986f]: Philosophical Papers II . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. D. Lewis [1986d]: “Events”. In [Lewis 1986f]: 241–269

Kim I
J. Kim
Philosophy of Mind 2010


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Events Lewis V 56
Event/Lewis: can consist of parts, so great violations of laws of nature can be distinguished from small ones by the number of parts of complex events, not by "many laws", because always an infinite number of laws are violated when a single one is trespassed - or only one fundamental law violated.
V 166
Event: always correspond to >propositions. - Hence we can use propositions here - e.g. O(e) says that an event e exists (happens), which complies with the description - in a set of possible worlds - But the proposition is not identical to the event - Problem: if no other event than e could fulfil the description, you would need rigid descriptions - which almost never exist - E.g. "Death of Socrates" is non-rigid. Solution: it is not about a sentence F(e), which is true in all and only the worlds in which e happens - Solution: We just need propositions that may have expressions in our language, but not necessarily do - If two events do not occur in exactly the same worlds, this means that there are no absolutely necessary links between the individual events - but then we can have a 1:1 connection between the events and the propositions - counterfactual dependence between events is simply a D between propositions - the counterfactual dependence between propositions corresponds to the causal dependence between events. - Causal dependence/Lewis: we then conclude it from the counterfactual dependence of propositions. - The dependence lies in the truth of counterfactual conditionals. - (> Causality/Hume, >Counterfactual conditional/Lewis.
V 196
Definition Event: bigger or smaller classes of possible spatiotemporal regions - more or less connected by similarity. >Similarity/Lewis, >Possible world/Lewis.
V 240
Event/Lewis: E.g. no event: rapidly converging mathematical consequence - is no quick entity - name ultimately uninteresting - probability theory; its events are propositions or sometimes properties - a theory that allows an unlimited number of Boolean operations can lead to unreal events.
V 243
Definition Event: property of a spacetime region - always contingent - no event occurs in every possible world - an event happens in exactly one (whole) region - E.g. scattered region: sports championships. - E.g. annual event: not an event - an event does not repeat itself - and does not happen in different space-time regions. - The region of the event is the mereological sum of the regions where it happens - to each event corresponds a property of regions - such a property belongs to exactly one region of each possible world where the event happens - Property: is simply a class here.
V 245
Event: two events can happen in the same region (space-time region) - E.g. presence of an electron in an electric field can cause its acceleration. It must be possible that one occurs without the other. Even if some of the laws of nature are violated. For every two events, there is a region in a possible world where one occurs, but not the other. ((s) independence)
Two events never necessarily occur at the same time - there are hardly any conditions for eventness - maybe:
1) Regions are individuals that are parts of possible worlds
2) No region is part of various possible worlds - similar to > Montague.
V 258
Event/mereology/part/partial event/Essence/Lewis: an event can be part of another. - E.g. movement of the left foot is part of walking. Def essential Part/Event: e is an essential part of f iff. f happens in a region, then also e necessarily in a sub-region that is enclosed in the region (implication of an event).
But not necessary: ​​events do not necessarily have their spatiotemporal parts. - E.g. walking could consist of fewer steps.
V 259
Part/Whole/Event: Writing of "rry"/"Larry": counterfactual dependence, but not cause/Effect. - They are not causally dependent - nevertheless "rry" can be causally dependent on the writing of "La" - but not of "Larr" (overlapping). - The whole is not the cause of its parts.
V 260
Event/mereology/Lewis: Thesis: events do not have a simpler mereology that, for example, chairs. A sum of chairs is not itself a chair, but a conference can be a sum of meetings. >Mereology.
E.g. War is the mereological sum of battles - Event/Lewis: should serve as cause and effect - partial event: here the causality is sometimes difficult to determine - Problem: whether a subregion can be determined for a partial event in which it occurs - in simple cases yes.
V 261
Non-event/Causal story/Lewis: Non-events cannot be determined as something isolated - they cannot be the cause. Constancy: is not always a non-event! Constancies are needed in causal explanation.
>Causal explanation/Lewis.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Events Simons I 129
Event/occurrents/Simons: events or processes are like continuants in time, but with temporal parts. No identity conditions can be specified. Continuants cannot be eliminated. Brutus-events cannot be seperated into individual events without reference to Brutus.
I 131
Event/part/mereology/Simons: spatially and temporally extended events may have parts that are neither purely temporal nor purely spatial, e.g. the part of the football match which is attributable to a single player. Range/span/spn(e): a range or span is a spatiotemporal localization. "Being in": means within larger regions. "Covering": means covering exactly the part.
Def spread/spr[e]: a spread is an exact space.
Def spell/sp[e]: spell refers to an exact time. Atomic: if pan and spread = 0. Connected: two events are connected, if their span (consisting of span and spell) are topologically connected.
Def temporal part: the temporal part contains all simultaneously occurring parts of the event (analog spatial part).
Def phase: a phase has temporally related part.
Def disc: a disc is a phase with duration 0.
Def segment: a segment is a spatially related spatial part.
Def section: a section is a segment with expansion 0.
I 134
Sum/event/mereology/Simon: for sums of events, it is different than for sums of objects: if events are causally isolated, they cannot form a sum. However, they can be part of a wider whole (they may have an upper limit). Events do not satisfy the full mereology, but the weaker axioms.
I 182
Product/events/Simons: problem: the products can exist interrupted. E.g. two objects could alternate between overlapping and separateness, e.g. light spots on a screen, e.g. two bodies share at a time certain members, at others times not. Problem: in the latter case the same product may arise again, but with other elements. >Interrupted Existence.
I 183
The change of products requires topological terms.
I 182
Coincidence/events: the lack of extensionality allows only one proof of coincidence instead of uniqueness.
I 281
Event/reduction/reductionism/Forbes/Simons: events are open to a reduction in such a way as continuants are not, therefore, it is questionable whether there are irreducible truths de re about events ((s) that cannot be traced back to anything else). Essentialism: but as events are also real objects, there should also be essential truth about them.
Problem: they are specified by descriptions. Simons: thesis: pro essentialism for events: e.g. the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by principle contains both essentially. E.g. bomb instead of firearm: is a different murder but not with swapped bullets.
I 282
It is essential for an event that it is exactly part of those events, of which it is part at this point of time. Different: four-dimensionalism: it does not obey the essentialism.
I 305
Event/continuants/Simons: event a: here a formula like "a < b" is complete. Continuants: here we need additionally a time index (with quantification): "ž(Et)[a Continuants.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Events Tugendhat I 455
Event/Tugendhat: Events are no states. - Identification of time points by events. - Then the being-red of a leaf is an event. >States, >Individuation, >Identification.
I 456
Then every sentence is (by nominalization of the predicate) a sentence about an event. Question: how can we distinguish these from spatiotemporal objects?
>Extensions, >Intensions.
I 547
Change: the transition from one state to another - change = time sortal: E.g. Earth’s rotation, e.g. flight, e.g. silence. >Sortals, cf. >Universals.
Divisibility: predicates do not include the principles of divisibility and limit. - But change contains as a temporal totality principles for distinguishing temporal parts - changes are countable, temporal objects.
>Change, >Motion.

Tu I
E. Tugendhat
Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Sprachanalytische Philosophie Frankfurt 1976

Tu II
E. Tugendhat
Philosophische Aufsätze Frankfurt 1992

Existence Inwagen Schwarz I 30
Existence/van Inwagen: (1990b, Chap.19)(1) thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
Schwarz I 28ff
Object/thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) thesis: parts only become an object when it is a living creature. After that, there are people, fish, cats but no computers, walls and bikinis. >Mereology, >Parts, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.


1. P. van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Flux Simons I 1
Flux/Chisholm/Simons: problem: people have different parts at different times. This contradicts extensionality: only things with identical parts are identical.
>Extensionality, >Extension, >Process, >Change.
I 2
Modality: problem: e.g. a human could have other parts, as he/she has at the moment and yet could be the same human. >Modalities.
I 118
Flux/mereology: winning and losing parts of objects constitutes the flux. Stock: Cartwright/Chisholm/Heller/Henry/Thomson/Invagen: only objects with temporal parts exist ((s) so no continuants (e.g. humans) but only events (processes) exist). These may change. >Continuants, >Mereology.
Problem: e.g. Tibblles is unequal Tib before the accident, but identical after the accident. Problem: because Tib before equals after the accident, it follows from the transitivity of identity that Tibblles before accident is the same as Tib before the accident. This is a contradiction.
>Tibbles-example.
Solution/Simons: a solution offers the superposition but never the Leibnizean identity, because they differ in characteristics.
>Superposition, >Leibniz-Principle.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Four-Dimensionalism Lewis Schwarz I 25
Four-dimensionalism/Lewis: The time operator shifts the range: E.g., „In 1642 there were no cuckoo clocks“ is like e.g., „there are no cuckoo clocks in Australia“. The sentence about 1642 is true if there are no cuckoo clocks in this area (part of reality). Intrinsic change/time/four-dimensionalism: Problem: e.g., I make the sentence true: "Last night there was someone in my bed" but I am sitting here at the table.
Cf. >Truth maker/Lewis.
Schwarz I 26
Intuitive Answer: (some representatives): Having slept last night is not at all incompatible with being awake now. The things seem to instantiate only incompatible properties, these are in reality merely time-relative. Objects about which we quantify with "last night" are in themselves neither sleeping nor sitting nor anything else. They also have neither shape nor color.
Correct: you are "awake at t" etc.
Properties: According to this view, simple properties are actually relations between strangely featureless things and times.
Cf. >Properties/Lewis.
Time-relative properties/LewisVs: This is unacceptable.
Form/Lewis: A form is a property and not a relation!
Properties, intrinsic/SchwarzVsLewis: Lewis misstated the problem; it is not about intrinsic properties, but about single-digit properties.
Properties/Relation: Question: Whether form predicates express disguised relations similar to e.g. "famous" and "far". It is meaningless to say someone is famous without reference to anything.
Lewis: But I guess it makes sense without reference to anything else to say something is red or round.
Intrinsic change/Lewis: Lösung: Solution: According to the analogy of time and space: e.g., a long wall is high and red in some places, low and gray in others. As a whole, it is neither high nor low, neither red nor gray.
Solution: It is simply composed of different parts.
Schwarz I 27
Change/Lewis: Ordinary things have different properties at different times by being composed of parts with those properties. >Change/Lewis.
Identity/time/temporal identity/Lewis/Schwarz: Problem: Then past things are not strictly identical with present things. The thing that used to be asleep and the thing that is sitting here now are not strictly identical. The different temporal parts are different things after all.(1976b(1)
>Temporal Identity.
MellorVsLewis:That is absurd. When we talk about someone, we are not talking about his parts.
LewisVsVs: E.g., surely the whole man was Hillary on Mt. Everest.
Solution: Hillary has a past temporal part that is on a past part of Everest. Edmund Hillary as a whole meets this condition.
Problem: E.g., Then I am strictly speaking as a whole neither waking nor sitting. But as a whole I am not formless because of that.
Lewis/Solution: I have a complex four-dimensional form. There are always temporal parts which are ignored.
I/Four-dimensionalism/Lewis: "I" often refers only to a single temporal part of me.
Ted Sider: (1996(3), 2001a(4), 188-208): Ted Sider elaborated: Names always refer to temporal parts. I tonight was a temporal counterpart of me now.


1. David Lewis [1976b]: “The Paradoxes of Time Travel”. American Philosophical Quarterly, 13: 145–152. In [Lewis 1986f].
2. David Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. Theodore Sider [1996]: “All the World’s a Stage”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74: 433–453.
4. Theodore Sider [2001a]: Four-Dimensionalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Four-Dimensionalism Quine X 54
Four Dimensionalism/Quine: E.g. a shrinking body tapers into the future, a growing one tapers sharply into the past. That makes tense formation superfluous. It always has to be in the present tense - so you can quantify over objects that never exist simultaneously. ((s) Time slice/(s): is not flat like a slice of a sausage, but a complete body at a point of time.)
XIII 75
Four Dimensionalism/Possibilities/possible objects/Possibilia/Quine: four dimensionalism creates a place in the sun for all future actualities, however unpredictable, but it does not give comfort or help for mere possibilities.
XIII 197
Four Dimensionalism/Change/Quine: it is wrong, as some have claimed, that in four dimensionalism (not Quine's expression) there is no change and instead there is only an eternally static reality. Change: still exists, it is merely embodied (incorporated). It is now simply said that the earlier stages of a body differ from the later ones, just as its upper stages differ from the lower ones. The later stages are just as inaccessible from the earlier ones as the lower ones from the upper ones! ((s) >Facts are not necessary).
Time/Time Use/Tense/Logic/Quine: Time is not present in pure mathematics and logic. If it is brought in, then by predicates like "later than".
Four-Dimensionalism: corresponds to this extension of logical notation by predicates like "later than".
Time/Logic/Time Logic: alternatively one could take time into logic, but this would be very cumbersome and would only be appropriate if one wanted to investigate everyday language.
Time/Time Use/Tense/Logic/Quine: Time is not present in pure mathematics and logic. If it is brought in, then by predicates like "later than".
Four-dimensionalism: corresponds to this extension of logical notation by predicates like "later than".
Time/logic/time logic: alternatively one could take time into logic, but this would be very cumbersome and would only be appropriate if one wanted to investigate everyday language.
Time/Spatialization/Space Time/Quine Dimensionism/Quine: shouldn't one be surprised about relations between things that no longer exist? For example Mark Anton and Cleopatra are both dead, the relation between them existed earlier, even if it no longer exists today.
Question: what about the great-great-grandfather relation? ((s) here always only a part exists).
For example the class of the great generals in history: the elements hardly exist at the same time.
XIII 198
Simplest Solution: to see them all as inhabitants of space-time. As timelessly coexistent. Time/Translation/Quine: we translate by moving into the 4th dimension.
Time/Dimension/Quine: time as the 4th dimension is treated on the same level as the spatial dimensions, but in an important sense it is independent of them:
Space/Quine: here we also distinguish directions between the axes, unlike in time.
N.B.: we can amalgamate time with space by saying e.g. so and so many miles correspond to one hour; we haven't used that yet, but we need it in relativity theory.
Relativity Theory/Space-time/Relativity/third/Quine: For example two piles at a distance of 5 meters: can be described differently by different observers.
Theory of Relativity: here we have spatiotemporal diagonals. It does not allow any measure,
XIII 199
not even over all four dimensions simultaneously, which is analogous to the distance and independent of the velocity of the observer. Interval/Solution/Quine: instead of the distance there can be an interval, but it is different: it can be 0, even if the events are spatially far apart.
Four Dimensionalism/Quine: we maintain it completely independent of relativity.
XIII 221
Square Measure to the Square/Quine: square measure should have four spatial dimensions! Unlike liters per hour: ((s) because now we have to calculate m² x 2!). Fourdimensionality/Quine: For example, if we take time as the fourth dimension, the square of a surface is then
XIII 222
the spatiotemporal size of a cube over time, the temporal equivalent of the edge length, whatever that is. Squares of surfaces/Relativity Theory/Relativity/Einstein/Quine: Example E = mc²:
c: is distance by time
c²: is the square of the distance divided by the square of the time, or surface by square hour.
E = mc² thus equates energy with area tons per square hour.
V 182
Object/Ontology/Quine: great progress: four dimensionalism, four dimensional spatio-temporal objects. We are so body-oriented that we do not take the Evening Star and the Morning Star as phases of Venus either, they are simply Venus and can be referred to with one or the other term depending on the time of day. Similarly:
Example Carnap: Rumber and Titisee: is the same lake, depending on the weather. Example Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
N.B.: they would not be seen as complementary temporal parts of an entire nameless person, but as an identical person with two names.
Four Dimensionalism/Quine: for example, one can identify a battle with the physical object, which consists of the union of the corresponding time segments of all participants.
Or one can make substance terms (mass terms) into singular terms, each naming a diffuse physical object. ((s) Example Putnam: Water: all H2O in the universe).
V 184
Four Dimensionalism/Ontology/Quine: ((s) here still in the classical separation matter/space) the points are replaced by the point moments. For example, purely spatial squares, i.e. squares perpendicular to the time axis, are then identified only instantaneously and not over time. Probably there is still the above time-consuming square, but now oriented as a three-dimensional square parallelepiped of infinite length, parallel to the time axis of space time or someone's time axis.
Vs: 1. inelegance of the double ontology of matter and space.
2. (more severe): invalidity of a theory of absolute position. Without it, an ontology of purely spatial or spatiotemporal manifolds seems inconsistent.
V 185
Solution/Quine: we try to construct the manifolds somehow according to physical objects. Maybe with the help of numbers and measurements, a Point: is then a number triple of real numbers, a space-time point is a quadruple.
Squares etc. are identified as classes of such triples or quadruples according to analytical geometry.
Until then there is no talk of physical objects or physical space. Next step:
Measurement/Measuring: Connection with objects by using pure numbers by measurement.
For example, if you say that four villages are located so that they form the points of a square, you only say something about the relationships between the distances: that four of the six are equal and the other two are also equal.
>Measurements/Quine.
Manifoldness: with this we got rid of the ontology of manifolds, but we are now dealing with much more than physical objects: with numbers, pairs of numbers, triples, quadruples, and classes of such. Thus we have abstract objects. So we still have a double ontology.
Abstract/Quine: but we would have needed the ontology of abstract objects for many purposes anyway:
V 186
E.g. to talk about squares etc. Manifoldness/Quine: these were only single squares, circles, etc.
Form: Forms would be classes of such. Thus objects of higher abstraction.

Quine I
W.V.O. Quine
Word and Object, Cambridge/MA 1960
German Edition:
Wort und Gegenstand Stuttgart 1980

Quine II
W.V.O. Quine
Theories and Things, Cambridge/MA 1986
German Edition:
Theorien und Dinge Frankfurt 1985

Quine III
W.V.O. Quine
Methods of Logic, 4th edition Cambridge/MA 1982
German Edition:
Grundzüge der Logik Frankfurt 1978

Quine V
W.V.O. Quine
The Roots of Reference, La Salle/Illinois 1974
German Edition:
Die Wurzeln der Referenz Frankfurt 1989

Quine VI
W.V.O. Quine
Pursuit of Truth, Cambridge/MA 1992
German Edition:
Unterwegs zur Wahrheit Paderborn 1995

Quine VII
W.V.O. Quine
From a logical point of view Cambridge, Mass. 1953

Quine VII (a)
W. V. A. Quine
On what there is
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (b)
W. V. A. Quine
Two dogmas of empiricism
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (c)
W. V. A. Quine
The problem of meaning in linguistics
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (d)
W. V. A. Quine
Identity, ostension and hypostasis
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (e)
W. V. A. Quine
New foundations for mathematical logic
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (f)
W. V. A. Quine
Logic and the reification of universals
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (g)
W. V. A. Quine
Notes on the theory of reference
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (h)
W. V. A. Quine
Reference and modality
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VII (i)
W. V. A. Quine
Meaning and existential inference
In
From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge, MA 1953

Quine VIII
W.V.O. Quine
Designation and Existence, in: The Journal of Philosophy 36 (1939)
German Edition:
Bezeichnung und Referenz
In
Zur Philosophie der idealen Sprache, J. Sinnreich (Hg) München 1982

Quine IX
W.V.O. Quine
Set Theory and its Logic, Cambridge/MA 1963
German Edition:
Mengenlehre und ihre Logik Wiesbaden 1967

Quine X
W.V.O. Quine
The Philosophy of Logic, Cambridge/MA 1970, 1986
German Edition:
Philosophie der Logik Bamberg 2005

Quine XII
W.V.O. Quine
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York 1969
German Edition:
Ontologische Relativität Frankfurt 2003

Quine XIII
Willard Van Orman Quine
Quiddities Cambridge/London 1987

Mereology Chisholm Simons I 187
Chisholm/mereology/Simons: Chisholm's mereology is based on the basic notion of "<<" ("real part") rather than "<"("real or improper part"). Moreover, he does not assume the existence of arbitrary sums. He does not clearly distinguish between expressions for temporal and nontemporal parts. >Mereology/Simons, >Terminology/Simons.

Chisholm I
R. Chisholm
The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981
German Edition:
Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992

Chisholm II
Roderick Chisholm

In
Philosophische Aufsäze zu Ehren von Roderick M. Ch, Marian David/Leopold Stubenberg Amsterdam 1986

Chisholm III
Roderick M. Chisholm
Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989
German Edition:
Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004


Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Mereology Lewis Schwarz I 79f
Mereology: quantities are not the sums of their elements - sum of a single thing A is A the thing itself - but the singleton set {A} is never identical with A. >Singleton, >Unit set.

IV 44
Counterpart/Couples/Mereology/Lewis: Example twin brothers Dee and Dum in the actual world. Their pair can be seen as a mereological sum. The couple as mereological sum is a possible individual, not a quantity. Then the counterpart theory can be applied without modification.

V 258
Event/Mereology/Logic/Part/Logical Relation/Lewis: we have seen that an event in one sense can be part of another event. 1. then, as I suggest, they have a mereology like they all have classes: the parts of classes are the subclasses. (>Subsets).
2. in another sense they have another mereology: regions can be spatiotemporal parts of other regions. Events are classes of regions, the mereology of the elements transfers to the classes, in the sense that events can also be spatiotemporal parts of each other.
V 260
Def Overlap/Event/Mereology/Lewis: two events overlap when they have an event as a common part. An atomistic event has no events except itself as part. Def mereological sum/event/mereology/Lewis: an event e is the mS of events f1,f2... then and only if e overlaps all and only those events that overlap at least one of the fs.
Principles/Mereology/Event/Lewis: Question: are the principles here
a) the same as that of the unlimited mereology of individuals, in which individual individuals always have a different individual as their sum? Or is it
b) the limited mereology of e.g. chairs, in which several chairs rarely or never have another chair than their sum? (>subset/>Sets.
Lewis: Thesis: Events have a more accessible mereology than e.g. chairs:
For example a war can be a mereological sum of battles,
For example, a conference the sum of its meetings.
But we leave open whether events, however diverse, must always have other events as parts. It depends on whether one allows unlimited sums, so that there is no limit to how large and non-uniform an event may be, or whether one demands a certain unity for it (limited mereological sum).
Perhaps the sum provides a property that is formally suitable for regions, but not an event. This is hard to decide. Our events should serve as causes and effects.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Objects (Material Things) Chisholm I 257
Res/Aquinas/Duns Scotus: "thing", transcendental, convertible with the beings (ens). Brentano: Reism (late): abstractions, universals, negations, facts, forms, fictions: are not things. >Ontology/Brentano.

Hedwig, Klaus. Brentano und Kopernikus. In: Philosophische Ausätze zu Ehren Roderick M. Chisholm Marian David/ Leopold Stubenberg (Hg), Amsterdam 1986
---
Simons I 2
Chisholm: Thesis: (appearing) things (appearances) are logical constructions of objects for which the mereological essentialism applies. - Flux: Problem: changing objects cannot be regarded as identical with themselves according to the extensional mereology - Solution/Chisholm: thesis the actual are mereologically constant and the phenomena again logical constructions from immutable objects - VsChisholm: other solution: processes (with temporal parts ) instead of objects (continuants). >Continuants.
Simons I 120
Object/Thing/Object/Chisholm: Thesis: "Mereological constancy": objects in the original sense: - entia per se: cannot change - in the derived sense: entia per alio: subject to the flux, but only by being consulted successively through different entia per se, which differ in their parts. >Mereology/Simons, >Terminology/Simons.

Chisholm I
R. Chisholm
The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981
German Edition:
Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992

Chisholm II
Roderick Chisholm

In
Philosophische Aufsäze zu Ehren von Roderick M. Ch, Marian David/Leopold Stubenberg Amsterdam 1986

Chisholm III
Roderick M. Chisholm
Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989
German Edition:
Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004


Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Objects (Material Things) Inwagen Schwarz I 28ff
Object/thing/van Inwagen: (1990b(1)) thesis: parts only become an object when it is a living creature. After that, there are people, fish, cats but no computers, walls and bikinis. Object/thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions do parts form a whole? Under all! For any thing there is always a thing that they put together. (That is the definition of mereological universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we count in our everyday world as an independent thing? That we do not consider some aggregates as everyday things does not mean that these aggregates do not exist. (However, they exceed the normal domains of our normal quantifiers). But these limitations vary from culture to culture. It is not reality that is culture-dependent, but the part of reality that has been noticed. (1986e(2), 211 213, 1991:79 81).
>Mereology, >Parts, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: if only living creatures could form real objects, evolution could not begin.
LewisVsInwagen: no criterion for "living creatures" is so precise that it could draw a sharp cut.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: for him this is no problem: the conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic accuracy to which aggregates "living creatures" applies (1986e, 212)(3). LewisVsInwagen: for him, this explanation is not available: for him, the border between living creatures and non-living creatures is the border between existence and non-existence. If it is vague what a living creature is, then existence is also vague.
Existence/van Inwagen: (1990b, Chap. 19)((1)) thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsInwagen: (1991(3), 80f, 1986e(2), 212f): if one already said "there is", then the game is already lost: if one says, "something exists to a lower degree".
Def existence/Lewis: existence simply means to be one of the things that exist.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Objects (Material Things) Lewis V XIII
Thing/time/particular/permanent/Lewis: permanent individual things consist of temporal parts, which are combined by various types of continuity - ((s) continuants are not mentioned here). Cf. >continuants, >temporal identity, >personal identity, >change.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Parts Inwagen Schwarz I 34
Endurantism/Van Inwagen/Schwarz: e.g. caterpillar/butterfly: thesis: there is no insect, nothing that exists beyond the pupation. Recombination/mereology/Schwarz: the existence of temporal parts follows directly from the mereological universalism together with the rejection of the presentism. Then there are also e.g. aggregates from Socrates and the Eiffel Tower (mereological sum). Socrates is a temporal part of it which at some point ceases to exist, just as e.g. a dried-out lake that fills up again during the rain season.
Temporal Parts/van Inwagen: (van Inwagen 1981)(7): van Inwagen basically rejects temporal parts.
SchwarzVsvan Inwagen: then he must radically limit the mereological universalism or be a presentist.
Perdurantism/Lewis/Schwarz: Lewis pleads for its contingency.
Question/Schwarz: what should be contingent? Should there be possible worlds where the ordinary things have no temporal parts? Or should specific things be atomic in time and never change their form? Lewis seems to allow only the latter.
Schwarz I 34
Temporal Parts/mereology/Schwarz: but if one accepts aggregates from Socrates and the Eiffel Tower, one could still deny that Socrates himself has temporal parts. Lewis: Lewis also does not assert that necessarily everything that exists over time consists of temporal parts (1986f(1),x,1986e(2),205,1994(3) §1) VsStowe: temporal parts are not intended to provide an analysis of the enduring existence.
Lewis: (1083d(4), 76, similar Armstrong 1980(5), 76): e.g. a child, Frieda1 suddenly disappears, while another child, Frieda2, suddenly appears. This may contradict the laws of nature, but it is logically possible.
Schwarz I 35
Perhaps no one notices anything. And there is nothing to notice. Vs: this is not convincing.
EndurantismVs: endurantism cannot accept the premises.
Van InwagenVs: Frieda1 and Frieda2 cannot exist strung together, and yet remain different (2000(6), 398).
>Mereology, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.


1. David Lewis [1986f]: Philosophical Papers II . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. David Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. David Lewis [1994a]: “Humean Supervenience Debugged”. Mind, 103: 473–490.
4. David Lewis [1983d]: Philosophical Papers I . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. David Armstrong [1980]: “Identity Through Time”. In Peter van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause, Dordrecht: Reidel.
6. Peter van Inwagen [2000]: “Temporal Parts and Identity across Time”. The Monist , 83: 437–459.
7. Peter van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137. In [van Inwagen 2001].

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Parts Millikan I 283
Temporal part/Millikan: the temporal part is a momentary or almost momentary three-dimensional object. >Mereology.
I 284
Analogously, you can split an object into time slices. >Fourdimensionalism.
Just as with spatial parts, two temporal parts of a whole can never be identical. Otherwise they could not be distinguished.
Identity/Self-Identity/Unity/Uniformity/Millikan: to be identical with oneself, a thing must never exemplify a principle of uniformity. E.g. also a very loosely held sheep herd is always this herd itself.
Temporal identity: also plays no role in the question of self-identity: no one believes that an object state to t1 would be the same as to t2.
>Temporal identity.
Unity/Object/Thing/Millikan: nevertheless, we need principles of uniformity to approach objects as such. Thus, it is about the question as to which relation must have the states S1 and S2 in order to be valid as states of the same thing.
I 285
Identity/unity/Millikan: thus questions of the identity of a thing do not seem to be separated from questions of the principles of uniformity. >Identity/Millikan, >Unity/Millikan.
Problem: there are often different ways to summarize parts into a whole. Here we must ask which category the whole is to belong to.
Self-Identity/Sameness/Millikan: slef-identity then appears relative to the category to which a thing should belong.
Problem: is the water surface S1 part of the same water mass as water surface S2? Such questions are not fully defined. We need principles to summarize parts. The relations between the parts can also be more or less loose.
I 286
And that has nothing to do with the identity of the whole! Whole: can also be specified by a mere list. This would identify the whole without mentioning the relations of the parts at all. And the self-identity of the whole would not be dependent on the strength of the cohesion of the parts at all.
Temporal/spatial: so far the analogy between temporal and spatial parts seems to apply.
Cf. >Part-of-relation.

Millikan I
R. G. Millikan
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987

Millikan II
Ruth Millikan
"Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967
In
Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005

Perdurantism Lewis Schwarz I 31
Definition Perdurantism/Lewis/Schwarz: the thesis that temporally extended things usually consist of temporal parts.
Schwarz I 32
Definition Endurantism/Lewis/Schwarz: (VsPerdurantismus): Thesis: Things are wholly present (not only in part) at any time they exist (like Aristotelian universals). LewisVsEndurantism (instead: Mosaic theory). Cf. >Endurantism, >Continuants.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Process/Flux Simons I 124f
Flux/Heraclitus/ChisholmVsQuine: Quine needs spatial and temporal extension on the same level Chi: not every sum of flux stages is a flux process. We have to say what conditions a sum must satisfy to be a flow process.
>Mereological sum.
Problem: that in turn presupposes continuants: shore, observers, absolute space or an introduction of "is co-fluvial with".
>Continuants.
This could only be explained circularly by "is the same river as". Thus, the four-dimensionalism has not eliminated all singular or general terms that denote continuants.
SimonsVsQuine: one does not bath in a flux stage but in the whole flux.
Error: it is wrong trying to change the subject to leave the predicate unchanged.
I125
Time-stage/flux-stages/SimonsVsFour-Dimensionalism: stages can be misleading: e.g. a Philip stage is not drunk, but the whole man. One does not bath in a flux stadium. A consequent description in four-dimensionalism is only achieved by higher beings. For us, this is not decidable. Terminology: process ontology equals four-dimensionalism here. Simons: this is not impossible, only the language is different. >Four-dimensionalism.
I 127
SimonsVsFour-Dimensionalism: four-dimensionalism is a convenient representation of the Minkowski-space, but representation is not an ontological argument. >Minkowski-space.
I 126
Process/Geach/Simons: a process has all its properties timeless, that means, what has different properties, are the temporal parts and not the whole process. Hence, there is no change, e.g. like the poker which is hot on one end and cold at the other. >Timelessness.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Quasi-Universals Armstrong III 79/80
Quasi-universals/particulars/Armstrong: you could say, "true" particulars do not have temporal parts - then it is necessary to introduce properties that have a time index: Quasi-U -> partic. without temporal parts: continuant. >Continuants.
III 100
Def Quasi-Universals/Armstrong: e.g. fruit in >Smith's garden: apple or banana, then elephant or cherry then nothing ... or ... - must be introduced so that laws of nature can remain relations between universals. Def Quasi-universal/Armstrong: a quasi-universal is no universal because of reference to individual cases. - It is no particular because it is repeatable. - We need a law for quasi-universals. - Quasi-universals would satify Aristotle s "predicable of many things."

Armstrong I
David M. Armstrong
Meaning and Communication, The Philosophical Review 80, 1971, pp. 427-447
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Armstrong II (a)
David M. Armstrong
Dispositions as Categorical States
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (b)
David M. Armstrong
Place’ s and Armstrong’ s Views Compared and Contrasted
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (c)
David M. Armstrong
Reply to Martin
In
Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996

Armstrong II (d)
David M. Armstrong
Second Reply to Martin London New York 1996

Armstrong III
D. Armstrong
What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983

Ship of Theseus Millikan I 287
Ship of Theseus/terminology/Millikan: S0: the original Sn: the ship, newly built from new parts.
Sr: the renovated ship ((s) intermediate stage).
All three are ship stages.
I 287
Question: was the whole permanent whole, of which Sn was a part, the same permanent whole like that, of which S0 was a part? Or correspondingly with Sr and S0? Solution/Millikan: a solution can only be given if the principle is established before, according to which the unit (uniformity) is to be determined.
Problem: it seems clear that both Sn and Sr cannot be parts of the same whole. Because they exist at the same time in different places.
Problem: For example, three water surfaces S1, S2, S3, if they are designed in a way that it is unclear whether S1 and S2 are part of the same lake and correspondingly also for S1 and S3, it would be inconceivable that it would be completely clear at the same time, that S2 and S3 were not part of the same lake.
N.B.: Is there perhaps an asymmetry at the end between temporal and spatial parts?
Ship of Theseus: Sn and Sr cannot be stages of the same ship because they exist simultaneously but have different properties and occupy different spatial parts composed of different collections of matter, etc.
Identity/Leibniz/Millikan: his undisputed principle excludes that Sn and Sr are the same ship.
Unity/Uniformity/Millikan: whatever principle we choose here, it seems that it should rule out that different temporal parts could exist at the same time.
Separation/Millikan: i.e. a separation should not preserve both parts equally, as in an amoeba.
Unit/Millikan: a corresponding principle must maintain the Leibniz principle of the identity of the indistinguishable.
Problem: the principle simply says that a thing must have the same properties as it does itself. It does not say that a part must have the same properties as another part.
Ship of Theseus: then Sn and Sr could be simultaneous but spatially distant parts.
Spatial/temporal/Millikan: it is rather the principle of uniformity (not the one of identity) that requires that objects have only one position at a time.
Mereology/Unity/Uniformity/Millikan: we often break this principle when we say that the same thing still exists when it is broken or decomposed into its parts.
Definition/thing/object/Millikan: nevertheless, we need the principle of uniformity to define objects at all.
Seperation/Millikan: a ban on division would have nothing to do with the principle of identity.
I 289
Ship of Theseus/Millikan: Whether we say that newly built ship or the ship built from the original parts would be the right ship, is in the end only a verbal question of the principles of uniformity that we want to apply. On the other hand:
Identity/Millikan: Questions of identity are objective questions that are not only decided by the language use.
>Language behavior.
Unity/Uniformity/Millikan: is a question of used descriptions.
>Description.
Separation/fusion/identity in time/temporal/Millikan: are actually questions of the chosen (conventional) principles of unity. (Uniformity)
Identity/Objectivity/Millikan: Questions of identity are objective questions in which one can be confused about what to think, not merely what one is to say.
Temporal identity/Millikan: temporal identity is not more problematic than spatial identity.
>Identity/Millikan, >Temporal identity.

Millikan I
R. G. Millikan
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987

Millikan II
Ruth Millikan
"Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967
In
Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005

Terminology Stalnaker Schwarz I 30
Def Perdurantism/Schwarz: thesis: timely extended things are usually composed of temporal parts.
Schwarz I 31
Def Endurantism/Schwarz: (VsPerdurantism): thesis: things are completely (not only partially) present at any time at which they exist (like Aristotelian universals). Perdurantism: perdurantism can perceive objects as four-dimensional, extended both in time and space. Endurantism: endurantism can also assume that objects have temporal parts, e.g. a football game.
Stalnaker I 135f
Vague Identity/Stalnaker: e.g. there are two fish restaurants Bookbinder's - only one can be identical with the original one. Endurantism: problem: B0: (the original one) is then an ambiguous name. Perdurantism: here perdurantism is unique.
Stalnaker I 81
Def Individualbegriff/Stalnaker: The individual concept is a function of possible worlds on individuals.
Stalnaker I 91
Def weak supervenience/Stalnaker: Weak supervenience is found within a possible world. Strong Supervenience/Stalnaker: strong supervenience is found within one or in several. Global Supervenience/Stalnaker: Global supervenience is when any two possible worlds that are B indistinguishable are also A indistinguishable. Global Supervenience: Global supervenience must be improved. So it is not even sufficient for weak supervenience.
I 124
Def Identity/Possible World Relative/Stalnaker: identity is always the binary relation whose extension in any possible world w is the set of pairs such that d is in the domain of w.
I 267
Def minimal subject/terminology/Stalnaker: a minimal subject is Ex anything that is a representative, something that receives, stores, or transmits information.
I 192
Def kontingent a priori/zwei-dimensionale Semantik/Stalnaker: Kontingent a priori ist eine Aussage mit einer kontingenten sekundären Intension, aber einer notwendigen primären. Def notwendig a posteriori: umgekehrt: Notwendig a posteriori sind notwendige sekundäre Intensionen, kontingente primäre. Pointe: Keine Proposition ist selbst kontingent a priori oder notwendig a posteriori. Es gibt nur verschiedene Weisen, in denen notwendige und kontingente Propositionen mit Aussagen assoziiert sind.
Def Charakter/Kaplan: Charakter ist gleich Bedeutung. Er ist die Funktion von möglichen (Gebrauchs-) Kontexten auf Referenten.
I 212
Def Local Descriptivism/Lewis/Stalnaker: local descriptivism is simply a way of explaining one part of speech by another. ((s) According to Lewis and Stalnaker, this is the only way).
I 9
Def Property/Stalnaker: (a) thin/sparse definition: a trait is a way individuals can be grouped.
b) richer definition/Stalnaker: (more robust): A trait is something upon which (in relation to which) individuals are grouped.
I 103
Def Fundamental property/Stalnaker: a fundamental property must provide for distinctions between individuals that could not otherwise be explained.
I 154f
Def essential identity/Stalnaker: all things x and y that are identical are essentially identical, i.e. identical in all possible worlds in which the thing exists.
I 34
Def Implication/Proposition/Stalnaker: (here): A implies B gdw. a set consisting of A and a contradiction of B is inconsistent.
I 50
Def doxastically accessible/Lewis: Doxastically accessible means being compatible with other beliefs and knowledge.
I 16
Def C-Intension/Jackson: A C-intension is c(x) expressed by u in x. Def A-intension/Jackson: The A-intension is determined by the propositional thought alone.
Def necessary a posteriori statement: A necessary a posteriori statement is a statement with a necessary C-intension and a contingent A-intension.
Def contingent a priori statement: a contingent a priori statement is conversely one with a necessary A-intension and a contingent C-intension.
I 205
Def two-dimensional propositional intents/Stalnaker: a two-dimensional propositional intents is a function with two arguments, a centered world and a possible world. Its value is a truth value (WW). Def A-intentions/primary intension/primary sentence intension/stalnaker: an A-intention is a function with one argument, one centered world. Its value is a truth value.
Def C-Intension/Secondary Intension/Secondary Sentence Intension/Stalnaker: A C-Intension is a function with an argument and a possible world. Its value is a truth value.
I 15
Def Metaphysics/Stalnaker: metaphysics concerns the distinctions that must be made between possibilities.
I 43
Def Liberal Platonism/LP/Terminology/Stalnaker: (early thesis): If practice is legitimate, (inferences, etc.) then we are really making assertions and semantics really tells us what the assertions say.
I 61f
Def Proposition/Stalnaker: a proposition is no more than a subregion, or subset of possible worlds. Def assertion/Stalnaker: asserting a proposition is nothing more than locating the real world in that subset.
Def true-relative-to-x: To say a proposition is true relative to a world x is to say that the world x is in the subset (of possible worlds) that the proposition constitutes.
Def true simpliciter: "True simpliciter" means to say that the real world is in this subset (of possible worlds constituting the proposition).

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Time Bigelow I 192
Branched Time/Possible Worlds/Bigelow/Pargetter: we allow the time to be branched, i. e. there are several futures for each past. We should also allow something like this to be possible for development within one. That is, two parts could have the same origin. Also fusion and temporary joining of parts. >Mereology, >Cause, >Origin.
Problem: it is surprising that such parts would have to have at least one temporal part in common.
For example, suppose we meet Jane from another part of the same possible world. Let's consider the
Counterfactual conditional: if we had not met Jane, she would not have existed.
>Counterfactual conditional.
BigelowVsLewis: according to him it must be true
Bigelow/Pargetter: according to us it is obviously wrong. There must therefore be at least one possible world in which Jane exists and we do not meet her. And this possible world must then contain all Janes and us, even though there is no connection between us.
LewisVsVs: he would then have to accept any other connection and corresponding counterfactual conditional: "... an ancestor or descendant of ours could have met an ancestor or descendant of her" etc.
BigelowVsLewis: this is still wrong in the world in question and less plausible than the above mentioned counterfactual conditional. This shows the falseness of temporal theory.
>Possible worlds/Lewis, >Counterpart theory/Lewis.
BigelowVsLewis: he is in a dilemma: either he takes the world companion relation as a primitive basic concept or he allows modal basic concepts.
>Cross world identity.
I 193
Counterpart relation/GR/Lewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: Lewis still counts on a more important relation, the counterpart relation: it is not a good candidate either for an unanalysed basic concept, and yet it also needs modal basic terms. >Counterpart relation, >Basic concepts.
BigelowVsLewis/BigelowVsCounterpart Theory/Bigelow/Pargetter: it also leads to circularity because it requires modal concepts.
>Circular reasoning, >Modalities.
This means that it cannot justify the modal logic.
>Modal logic.

Big I
J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter
Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990

Time Simons I 90f
Interval/time interval/mereology/van Benthem/Needham/Simons: interval is a term of time and terms of temporal intervals. Needham: an interval is temporal betweenness. Benthem: the term "interval" is part of time organization.
>Time, >Parts, >Temporal identity.
I 117
Object/thing/everyday language/time/existence/modification/terminology/Simons: we say, an ordinary material object lasts in time (enduring in time) but it is not extended in time (developing, extending, extended in time ). Cf. >Endurantism, >Perdurantism.
Participants in the race (continuants) have no temporal parts. The race has temporal parts.
I 178
Time/Simons: we assume time as being dense and empty and not relativized onto events. >Events.
Singular Term: the singular term is also not temporally relativized. Identity predicate: the identity predicate is not time relativized (unlike the existence predicate).
>Singular terms.
Time relativized is written as follows: "true-to-t".
Points in time themselves are not relativized temporal.
>Spacetime points.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Time Travel Lewis V 67
Time Travel/Lewis: thesis: it is possible. - The paradoxes are merely curiosities. - They involve a discrepancy between time and time. Problem: how can the same event (departure and arrival) be separated by two time distances with different length.
Wrong: to postulate several time dimensions.
For the time traveler would not be able to find his comrades on a surface.
V 69
Solution: separation of external time and personal time of the traveler, as measured by his clock. - No matter what happens to the clock - we do not want to define time operationally, but functionally. - I.e. the clock is infallible by definition.
V 70
Functional role in the event pattern of time traveler. - E.g. his hair is growing, but that is not time, but only the same role as in normal life. - It is the personal time of the traveler - this is sufficient to transfer the temporal vocabulary. >Functional role/Lewis.
V 71
Time travel: the life of the traveler is like a railway track: e.g. a place 2 miles east might as well be a place 9 miles west. E.g. loop: the track crosses an earlier section of itself once - external time: unique encounter - personal time: repeated - Event: separated in the personal time, united in the external time.
Time Traveler: is not there twice in full person, but in two full states. - (> Person state).
Problem: What unites these states?
Different problem: if the time travel is instantaneous, there is a break in the time line. - Then there are two people and none of them is the time traveler.
V 73
Time travel/Causality: 1) the time travel requires personal identity and thus causal continuity. - Thus reverse direction.
>Personal identity.
The direction of counterfactual dependence and causation is controlled by the direction of other asymmetries of time, so reverse causality and thus causal loops cannot be excluded.
That does not mean that the loop as a whole is the cause or can be explained.
>Counterfactual dependence.
Problem: information transfer. - E.g. if the information must be transmitted first to build the time machine, there is no solution.
The person and person-states of the time travel have to be defined simultaneously. - Otherwise, they will be assumed to be mutually circular.
V 74f
For the journey we only need three-dimensional space without time as a fourth dimension.
V 75f
Time travel/Grandfather paradox: the past cannot be changed, because moments cannot be split into temporal parts which could be reversed. Murdering of the grandfather is either contained timelessly in the past or it is timelessly not contained.
Wrong: Original and new past: instead: one and the same thing is localized twice (like railroad crossing in eight-shaped railway track).
So a killing during time travel is a contradiction: both killing and not killing. But past is no particular character. - Also present and future are unchangeable, because their moments have no temporal parts.
"Can"/capability: is ambiguous: a monkey cannot speak Finnish, because of its anatomy, I can’t speak it, but I have not learned it.
Narrower and broader set of facts.
Murdering of the grandfather is possible because of narrow set: everything you need for murder. - But no more set: father-son relation, the end of life of the grandfather, etc.
Branched time: (branching after the murder of the grandfather) no solution, because the past is not changed.
It is consistent that the grandfather is alive and dead, but in different branches, but there are not two events.
>Event/Lewis.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Totality Inwagen Schwarz I 28ff
Wholes/object/thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) thesis: parts only become an object when it is a living creature. After that, there are people, fish, cats but no computers, walls and bikinis. Object/thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions do parts form a whole? Under all! For any thing there is always a thing that they put together (That is the definition of mereological universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we count in our everyday world as an independent thing? That we do not consider some aggregates as everyday things does not mean that these aggregates do not exist. (However, they exceed the normal domains of our normal quantifiers). But these limitations vary from culture to culture. It is not reality that is culture-dependent, but the part of reality that has been noticed. (1986e(2), 211-213, 1991:79-81).
>Mereology, >Part-of-relation, >Temporal parts, >Mereological sum, >Ontology.
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: if only living creatures could form real objects, evolution could not begin.
LewisVsInwagen: no criterion for "living creatures" is so precise that it could draw a sharp cut.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: for him this is no problem: the conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic accuracy to which aggregates "living creatures" applies (1986e(2), 212). LewisVsInwagen: for him, this explanation is not available: for him, the border between living creatures and non-living creatures is the border between existence and non-existence. If it is vague what a living creature is, then existence is also vague.
Existence/van Inwagen: (1990b(1), Chap. 19): thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsInwagen: (1991(3), 80f, 1986e(2), 212f): if one already said "there is", then the game is already lost: if one says, "something exists to a lower degree".
Def existence/Lewis: existence simply means to be one of the things that exist.
>Existence.


1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press.
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell.
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell.

Inwagen I
Peter van Inwagen
Metaphysics Fourth Edition


Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Universe Esfeld I 231 ~
Block Universe/Esfeld: existence is not relative to time/place: but the objective relations before/after are. Existence contains only events, not things. An object has spatial, but not temporal parts. An event has both spatial and temporal parts. Esfeld: only objects can be at rest/in motion. >Ontology, >Events, >Objects, >Motion, >Continuants, >Temporal identity, >Parts.

Es I
M. Esfeld
Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002


The author or concept searched is found in the following 16 controversies.
Disputed term/author/ism Author Vs Author
Entry
Reference
Chisholm, R.M. Simons Vs Chisholm, R.M. Chisholm II 166
SimonsVsChisholm/SimonsVsBrentano: thesis: Chisholm inherited a mereological essentialism by Brentano with which I do not agree. But I will use these ideas to give a slightly different interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Wittgenstein himself was not so clear with respect to facts as it seems. Self-Criticism: self-criticism is a mess of facts and complexes.
There are worlds between the later Wittgenstein and Brentano, but there are contacts between Brentano and the Tractatus.
---
Simons I 1
Extensional Mereology/Simons: extensional mereology is a classical theory. Spelling: CEM.
Individuals Calculus/Leonard/Goodman: (40s): another name for the CEM is an individual calculus. This is intended to express that the objects of the part-whole relation belong to the lowest logical type (so they are all individuals, both a whole and a part are individuals).
VsCEM: 1. The CEM claims the existence of sums as individuals for whose existence we have no evidence beyond the theory.
Vs: 2. The whole theory is not applicable to most things in our lives.
Vs: 3. The logic of the CEM has not the resources to deal with temporal and modal terms: e.g. temporal part, substantial part, etc.
Simons: these are all external critiques but there is an internal critique: that comes from the extensional mereology.
Extensional Mereology: thesis: objects with the same parts are identical (analogous to set theory).
Problem:
1. Flux: e.g. people have different parts at different times.
I 2
2. Modality/extensional mereology: problem: e.g. a man could have other parts than he actually has and still be the same person. (s) The extensionality would then demand together with the Leibniz identity that all parts are essential. This leads to mereological essentialism.
Chisholm/mereological essentialism/Simons: Chisholm represents the mereological essentialism. Thesis: no object can have different parts than it actually has.
Vs: it is a problem to explain why normal objects are not modally rigid (all parts are essential).
Solution/Chisholm: thesis: (appearing) things (appearances) ((s) everyday things) are logical structures made of objects for which the mereological essentialism applies.
Flux/mereology/Simons: problem/(s): according to the CEM changing objects may not be regarded as identical with themselves.
1.
Solution/Chisholm: thesis: the actual objects are mereologically constant and the appearances again logical constructions of unchanging objects. SimonsVsChisholm: the price is too high.
2.
Common solution: the common solution is to replace the normal things (continuants) through processes that themselves have temporal parts.
SimonsVs: hence, the extensionality cannot be maintained. Such four-dimensional objects fail on the modal argument.
CEM/event/Simons: in the case of events the extensional mereology is applicable. It is also applicable in classes and masses.
Classes/masses/Simons: these are non-singular objects for which the extensionality applies.
Part/Simons: a part is ambiguous, depending on whether used in connection with individuals, classes or masses.
Extensionality/mereology/Simons: if extensionality is rejected, we are dealing with continuants.
I 3
Continuants/Simons: continuants may be in flux. Extensionality/Simons: if extensionality is rejected, more than one object can have exactly the same parts and therefore several different objects can be at the same time in the same place.
I 175
Temporal Part/continuants/mereology/SimonsVsAll/SimonsVsChisholm: thesis: continuants can also have temporal parts! That means that they are not mereologically constant but mereologically variable. Continuants/Simons: thesis: continuants do not have to exist continuously. This provides us with a surprising solution to the problem of the Ship of Theseus.
I 187
SimonsVsChisholm: if Chisholm is right, most everyday things, including our organism, are only logical constructions.
I 188
Strict Connection/separateness/SimonsVsChisholm: the criterion for strict connection is unfortunately so that it implies that if x and y are strictly connected, but not in contact, they can be separated by the fact that a third object passes between them what per se is not a change, also not in their direct relations to each other. Problem: when this passing is only very short, the question is whether the separated sum of the two which was extinguished by the third object is the same that exists again when the third object has disappeared. If it is the same, we have a discontinued existing sum.
Chisholm: Chisholm himself asks this question with the following example: a castle of toy bricks will be demolished and built again with the same bricks.
I 189
Chisholm: thesis: it is a reason to be dissatisfied with the normal ontology, because it just allows such examples. SimonsVsChisholm: but Chisholm's own concepts just allowed us the previous example.
Topology/Simons: yet there is no doubt that it is useful to add topological concepts such as touching or to be inside of something to the mereology.
I 192
Def succession/Chisholm:
1.
x is a direct a-successor of y to t ' = Def (i) t does not start before t’
(ii) x is an a to t and y is a y to t’
(iii) there is a z so that z is part of x to t and a part of y to t’ and in every moment between t’ and t including, z is itself an a.
Simons: while there will be in general several such parts. We always choose the largest.
w: is the common part in it, e.g. in altering a table.
SimonsVsChisholm: problem: w is not always a table.
ChisholmVsVs: claims that w is indeed a table: if we cut away a small part of the table, what remains is still a table.
Problem: but if the thing that remains is a table because it was already previously there then it was a table that was a real part of a table!
I 193
SimonsVsChisholm: the argument is not valid! E.g.: Shakespeare, Henry IV, Act IV Scene V: Prince Hal considers: if the king dies, we will still have a king, (namely myself, the heir). But if that person is a king, then, because he had previously been there, then he was a king who was the eldest son of a king. ((s) This is a contradiction because then there would have been two kings simultaneously.)
Simons: this point is not new and was already highlighted by Wiggins and Quine (not VsChisholm).
I 194
Change/transformation/part/succession/SimonsVsChisholm: it seems, however, that they are not compatible with the simple case where a at the same time wins and loses parts. E.g. then a+b should be an A-predecessor of a+c and a+c an A-successor of a+b. But that is not allowed by the definition, unless we know that a is an A all the time, so that it connects a+b and a+c in a chain. But this will not usually be the case.
And if it is not the case, a will never ever be an A!
SimonsVsChisholm: so Chisholm's definitions only work if he assumes a wrong principle!
Succession/entia successiva/SimonsVsChisholm: problem: that each of the things that shall "stand in" (for a constant ens per se to explain the transformation) should themselves be an a in the original sense (e.g. table, cat, etc.) is counterintuitive.
Solution/Simons: the "is" is here an "is" of predication and not of constitution (>Wiggins 1980, 30ff).
Mereological Constancy/Simons: thesis: most things, of which we predict things like e.g. "is a man" or "is a table" are mereologically constant. The rest is easy loose speech and a play with identity.
E.g. if we say that the man in front of us lost a lot of hair in the last year we use "man" very loosely.
Chisholm: we should say, strictly speaking, that the man of today (stands for) who today stands for the same successive man has less hair than the man who stood for him last year.
SimonsVsChisholm/WigginsVsChisholm: with that he is dangerously close to the four-dimensionalism. And especially because of the following thesis:
I 195
To stand in for/stand for/entia successiva/Chisholm: thesis: "to stand in for" is not a relation of an aggregate to its parts. Sortal Concept/Simons: the question is whether sortal concepts that are subject to the conditions that determine what should count at one time or over time as a thing or several things of one kind are applicable rather to mereologically constant objects (Chisholm) or variable objects (Simons, Wiggins).
SimonsVsChisholm: Chisholm's thesis has the consequence that most people mostly use their most used terms wrongly, if this is not always the case at all.
I 208
Person/body/interrupted existence/identity/mereology/Chisholm/Simons: our theory is not so different in the end from Chisholm's, except that we do not accept matter-constancy as "strictly and philosophically" and oppose it to a everyday use of constancy. SimonsVsChisholm: advantage: we can show how the actual use of "ship" is related to hidden tendencies to use it in the sense of "matter-constant ship".
Ship of Theseus/SimonsVsChisholm: we are not obligated to mereological essentialism.
A matter-constant ship is ultimately a ship! That means that it is ready for use!
Interrupted Existence/substrate/Simons: there must be a substrate that allows the identification across the gap.
I 274
SimonsVsChisholm: according to Chisholm's principle, there is no real object, which is a table, because it can constantly change its microstructure ((s) win or lose atoms). Chisholm/Simons: but by this not the slightest contradiction for Chisholm is demonstrated.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

Chisholm I
R. Chisholm
The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981
German Edition:
Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992

Chisholm II
Roderick Chisholm

In
Philosophische Aufsäze zu Ehren von Roderick M. Ch, Marian David/Leopold Stubenberg Amsterdam 1986

Chisholm III
Roderick M. Chisholm
Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989
German Edition:
Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004
Chisholm, R.M. Meixner Vs Chisholm, R.M. I 49
Def continuant/Meixner: temporal, singular individuals that have at most spatial parts. No temporal parts! Therefore no accidentals. Temporal Parts/Meixner: but many individuals have temporal parts, the accidentals!
Individual/Modern Ontology/Meixner: (VsChisholm?) many modern ontologists however support the thesis that all existing individuals have temporal parts. According to this, a material individual is not at the same time in two different places, but also not as a whole at different times in the same place! ((s) The individual then changes constantly, from one point in time to another point in time, i.e. it is not the same in two consecutive moments. (>Lewis: "fragile").
"Four-Dimensionalism"/Meixner: the thesis that individuals consist of three spatial and one temporal dimension. MeixnerVs.
Irrespective of dimensions one can also say: all individuals have spatiotemporal parts, this applies in every reference system! And in each reference system, spatiotemporal parts can again be divided into spatial and temporal parts.
I 49/50
Theory of relativity: merely suggests four-dimensionalism, but by no means implies it! Temporal Parts/Meixner: we as individuals have no temporal parts! Only our life stories have temporal parts.
We do not say "he stretched from... to," but "he lived from... to..."
We do not say "an earlier phase of me was a craftsman"; but "in an earlier phase of my life I was a craftsman".
When we die, we die as whole individuals, it is not just the last temporal phase that dies.
For example, the object X exists to t1 and is F. But this is not an identity of X and F, but the exemplification of F by X.
((s) have/be: having a property is not identity with the property.)
And X also exists to t2, but not F.
VsMeixner: If now the three-dimensionalism would be correct, then both, X to t1 and X to t2 would be identical with X. Consequently, X to t1 and X to t2 would be identical with each other!
But they are not identical, because X is F at one time and not F at the other.
MeixnerVs: Solution: from the assumption of three-dimensionalism it does not follow that X is identical with
X to t1 or X to t2 would be identical! Although X is present as an individual as a whole, it is different from X to t1 as well as from X to t2, because these entities do not exist differently than X at several points in time.

Mei I
U. Meixner
Einführung in die Ontologie Darmstadt 2004
Counterpart Theory Plantinga Vs Counterpart Theory Black I 57
Counterpart Theory/C.Th./PlantingaVsLewis/PlantingaVsCounterpart Theory: (1974(1), p. 115 f, 1987(2), p. 209): According to Lewis, strictly speaking all things would then have all their properties essentially, because there are no possible worlds in which they themselves (not just any placeholders) have different properties. E.g. if it was one degree colder today, we would all not exist, because then a different possible world would be real, and none of us would be there. Kripke similar:
KripkeVsCounterpart Theory/KripkeVsLewis: E.g. if we say "Humphrey could have won the election," according to Lewis we are not talking about Humphrey, but about someone else. And he could not care less. (Kripke 1980(3), 44 f).

1. Alvin Plantinga [1974]: The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. Alvin Plantinga [1987]: “Two Concepts of Modality: Modal Realism and Modal Reductionism”. Philosophical
Perspectives, 1: 189–231
3. Saul A. Kripke [1980]: Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell


Schwarz I 100
Properties/VsCounterpart Theory/Schwarz: if we reject counterparts and temporal parts, we have to conceive all properties as masked relations to times and possible worlds. Then there are obviously many more fundamental relations.
Stalnaker I 117
Identity/Stalnaker: ...these examples remind us of what an inflexible relation identity is. Our intuitions about the flexibility of possibilities contradict this rigid constitution of identity. Counterpart Theory/C.Th./Stalnaker: tells us "Relax!". We should introduce a more flexible relation for the cross-world identity that allows intransitivity and asymmetry.
Counterpart Theory/Stalnaker: the 3rd motivation for them is the one that is closest to the phenomena and makes the least metaphysical presuppositions.
Vs: actualism and the representative of a primitive thisness may have difficulty with that.
I 118
PlantingaVsCounterpart Theory/Nathan SalmonVsCounterpart Theory/Stalnaker: Counterpart Theory/Plantinga/Salmon: can be divided into two doctrines: 1) Metaphysical Thesis: that the realms of different possible worlds do not overlap ((s) >Lewis: "Nothing is in two worlds").
2) Semantic Thesis: that modal predicates should be interpreted in terms of counterparts instead of in terms of the individuals themselves.
Ad 1): seems to suggest an extreme essentialism, according to which nothing could have been different than it actually is.
Extreme Essentialism/Plantinga: would the thesis that "~if a leaf had dropped a day earlier in the mountains of the Northern Cascades in October 1876 than it actually did, I would either be non-existent, or a person who is different from me. And that is certainly wrong". (Plantinga 1974)(4).
can ad 2): Can the semantic part of the doctrine solve that?

4. Alvin Plantinga [1974]: The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Plantinga/Salmon: it cannot. It can only mask the metaphysical consequences.

Plant I
A. Plantinga
The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) Revised ed. Edition 1979

Black I
Max Black
"Meaning and Intention: An Examination of Grice’s Views", New Literary History 4, (1972-1973), pp. 257-279
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, G. Meggle (Hg) Frankfurt/M 1979

Black II
M. Black
The Labyrinth of Language, New York/London 1978
German Edition:
Sprache. Eine Einführung in die Linguistik München 1973

Black III
M. Black
The Prevalence of Humbug Ithaca/London 1983

Black IV
Max Black
"The Semantic Definition of Truth", Analysis 8 (1948) pp. 49-63
In
Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003
Endurantism Lewis Vs Endurantism Schwarz I 32
Def Endurantism/Schwarz: (Vs Perdurantism): Thesis: Things are present as a whole (and not in parts) at all times in which they exist (like Aristotelian universalia). LewisVsEnduantism (instead: Mosaic theory).
Mosaic/Lewis: Thesis: All truth about our world as well as the temporal expansion of things are based on characteristics and relations between spatial-temporal expanded points.
Endurantism VsLewis: This is not argument for him since he is not interested in mosaic theory.
LewisVsEndurantism: better argument: intrinsic change: If normal things do not have temporal parts, but exist at different times, they can be neither round nor big, but only round in t. And this would be absurd.
Characteristics/some authors: surely, not all characteristics are relational like "to be far away", but they can at least be relational in time, although we ignore this perpetual present dependence. (Haslanger 1989(1):123f, Jackson 1994b(2),142f, van Inwagen 1990a(3), 116).
Characteristics/Lewis: (2004(4),4) at least abstract geometric objects can simply be round, therefore "round" is not a general relation to time.
Characteristics/Endurantism/Johnston: Thesis: not only characteristics, but their instantiations should be relativized in the area of time. (Johnston, 1987(5),§5)
e.g. I am now sitting, and was sleeping last night.
Others: (Haslanger, 1989)(1): Thesis: Time designations (> time/Lewis) are adverbial modifications of propositions, e.g. I am now sitting this way, and was sleeping this way last night.
LewisVsJohnston/LewisVsHaslanger: This is not a great difference. These representatives deny as well that form characteristics arrive to the things in a direct, simple way and on their own.
Perdurantism/Endurantism/Schwarz: The debate has reached a dead end, both parties accuse the other of analyzing transformation away.
Endurantism: To instantiate incompatible characteristics has nothing to do with transformation.
Perdurantism: Temporal instantiation, e.g. straight for t1, bent for t0, shall not be a transformation.
Schwarz: Both goes against our intuition. Transformation is attributed too much importance.
Schwarz I 33
Perdurantism/Schwarz: pro: Intrinsic transformation is no problem for presentism since the past is now only fiction, but the following should make temporal parts attractive for the presentist as well: the surrogate four-dimensionalist needs to construct his ersatz times differently. Instead of primitive essences which surface in strictly identical different ersatz times, temporal ersatz parts could be introduced which will form the essences, and on their associated characteristics it will depend on whether it is an ersatz Socrates or not (as an example). Part/LewisVs Endurantism: can also be temporal in everyday's language, e.g. a part of a film or a soccer game. E.g. part of a plan, parts of mathematics: not spatial. It is not even important whether the language accepts such denotations. Temporal would also exist if we could not designate them.



1. Sally Haslanger [1989]: “Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics”. Analysis, 49: 119–125
2. Frank Jackson [1994a]: “Armchair Metaphysics”. In John O’Leary Hawthorne und Michaelis Michael
(ed.), Philosophy in Mind, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 23–42.
3. Peter van Inwagen [1990a]: “Four-Dimensional Objects”. Noˆus, 24: 245–256. In [van Inwagen 2001]
4. D. Lewis [2004a]: “Causation as Influence”. In [Collins et al. 2004], 75–107.
5. Mark Johnston [1987]: “Is There a Problem About Persistence?” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, Suppl. Vol., 61: 107–135

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Endurantism Stalnaker Vs Endurantism I 135
Vague identity/time/possible world/poss.w./Stalnaker: I ask with some examples for temporal and for cross world identity whether Salmon refuted vague identity with his argument. E.g. in Philadelphia, there are two prominent fish restaurants named "Bookbinder's". They compete with each other.
B1: "Bookbinder’s classic fish restaurant"
B2: "The old original Bookbinder's".
B0: The original, only restaurant from 1865.
Today's two restaurants may go back to the old and have a entangled history.
Question: does Salmon's argument show,
I 136
that there must be a fact (about the history) that decides on which restaurant is the original? One thing is clear: B1 unequal B2.
Transitive identity/transitivity/Stalnaker: then due to the transitivity of the identity B0 = B1 and B0 = B2 cannot exist at the same time.
Semantic indeterminacy/Stalnaker: but one is tempted to say that there is a certain semantic indeterminacy here.
Question: can we reconcile this with Salmon's argument (SalmonVsVague identity)?
Stalnaker: I think we can do so.
Perdurantism/perduration/Stalnaker: e.g. if we say the name "B0" dates back to the time of 1865 when there was a certain restaurant "Bookbinder's" this is the most natural way.
Endurantism/enduration/Stalnaker: e.g. but we can also say B0 is one of the today existing two restaurants "Bookbinder’s".
StalnakerVsEndurantism.
Endurantism/Stalnaker: here it is similar to vague descriptions: example "B0" is ambiguous! It is unclear whether he refers to B1 or to B2. (Indefinite reference).
Perdurantism/Stalnaker: here the reference is clear. ((s) Because the original restaurant does not exist anymore. B0 therefore clearly means the original restaurant because it cannot be confused with one of the two today existing) Also, of course "B1" and "B2" are unambiguous.
Question: given Salmon's argument: how can it then be indefinite if B0 = B2?
Stalnaker: that just depends on if we understand continuants as endurant or perdurant.
continuant/perdurantism/endurantism/Stalnaker:
Perdurantism/Stalnaker: can understand continuants e.g. as four-dimensional objects (four dimensionalism) which are extended in time exactly as they are extended in space. Then the example of the restaurants corresponds to the example of buildings (see above).
Example buildings: the indeterminacy is there explained by the indeterminacy of the concept "building". One building is maybe a part of another.
Example restaurants: according to this view each has a temporal part in common with the original. It is indeterminate here which of the temporal parts is a restaurant and which is a composition of multiple temporal parts of different restaurants.
I 137
Therefore, it is indefinite to which of these different entities "B0" refers (indefinite reference). Perdurantism/continuant/Stalnaker: one might think, but we have a specific reference, like in the example of the building through a demonstrative with a ostension: when we say "this building". But that does not work with the perdurantistic conception of restaurants. ((s) As an institution, not as a building. This should be perdurant here that means not all temporal parts are simultaneously present and anyway not as material objects).
Four dimensionalism/Stalnaker: therefore has two possible interpretations: perdurantistic (here) and endurantistic (see below).
Endurantism/four dimensional/four dimensionalism/continuant/Stalnaker: some authors: thesis: continuants have no temporal parts like events. That means they are at any moment with all their (only spatial) parts present. Nevertheless, they exist in time.
LewisVsEndurantism: (Lewis 1986a, 203) this view uses the terms "part" and "whole" in a very limited sense.
StalnakerVsLewis: that may not be quite so because the representatives acknowledge that some things e.g. football matches, wars, centuries indeed have temporal parts.
Endurantism/Stalnaker: even if the whole thing is an obscure doctrine some intuitions speak for it. I will neither defend nor fight him.
Endurantism: example restaurants:
In 1865 there is only one restaurant "Bookbinder's" there are no other candidates for this description. Even if our criterion for "restaurant" is unclear.
It seems that we have a definite reference for an endurant thing B0.
Also for the today existing restaurant B1 we seem to have definite reference.
Salmon/Stalnaker: if we accept his argument again, there must then be a fact which decides whether B0 is identical to B1 or not?
StalnakerVs: here the semantic indeterminacy may be subtle but it still exists. We show this like that:
Identity in time/Stalnaker: example statue/clay: yesterday there was the pile, today the statue, so both can not be identical. They have different historical properties. This known argument does not require four dimensionalism.
Four dimensionalism/statue/clay/Stalnaker: statue and pile as four dimensional objects: here only parts of them exist today.
Endurantism/statue/clay/Stalnaker: if we say both - Statue and pile - are at today "fully present" (it would have to be explained how) Salmon's argument still shows that both are (now) different. The argument does not depend on the fact that they have different parts. It requires only that they have different historical properties.
Endurantism/Stalnaker: example restaurants: suppose the concept Restaurant is indefinite. After some arbitrary clarifications B0 = B1 will be, after others B0 = B2.
Disambiguation/Stalnaker: then B0 has after some disambiguations temporal properties it would not have after other disambiguations.
Semantic indeterminacy/reference/StalnakerVsSalmon, Nathan: the reference of "B0" is then dependent on the way of our arbitrary assumptions for disambiguation.
SalmonVsStalnaker/Stalnaker: accuses me of some inconsistencies but I have shown indeterminacy of reference while Salmon refers to indeterminacy of identity between certain objects.

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003
Extensionality Rescher Vs Extensionality Simons I 113
Identity/individual/whole/part/extensional mereology/RescherVsExtensionality: (Rescher 1955): the extensional property that implies that wholeness is identical when they have the same parts excludes those "part-whole" relations in which the organization (being ordered, (s) internal structure) is involved. For example, different sentences may consist of the same sentences.
Identity Condition/Simons: "...if they have the same parts" is thus ambiguous.
Simons: the Rescher Sense corresponds to SF13.

SF13 (z)[z ≤ x ≡ z ≤ y] ⊃ x = y.

Individual/Partial/Identity condition/SimonsVsRescher: but he also has something like SF12 under his axioms, although at the same time he argues that "part" does not need to be reflexive, while our two relations "<" and ">" are indeed reflexive.
Simons: one can put it this way: ((s) holistic):
Some individuals exist only because other individuals exist, namely their parts. These are the sums.
SimonsVsRescher: for example different sentences from the same words: the example is unfortunate because it speaks of what could be instead of what is. Thus he has already accepted the reference to abstract types instead of concrete tokens.
Mereology/Simons: but we are not talking about the mereology of abstract entities, but of concrete tokens. Let us assume, for example, plastic pieces that are shaped like words. In a box there are tokens of the word "cardinals" and tokens of the word "multiply". Thus a sum of these two can exist as long as they are in the box, but no sentence. ((s) thus sum unequal to sentence!).
Now we can form sentences:
1. "Multiply Cardinals": this could mean: a) one imperative to mathematicians, b) another to the Pope.
Sum/Rescher/Simons: cannot be the same as the sentence, because the sum already existed before in the box. Now we can make a new sentence out of the same words:
2. "Cardinals multiply": "cardinals multiply" (a) because the Pope is active, or b) the cardinals: ba): in mathematics, bb) otherwise).
Vs: one could argue that these sentence exist at different times. Thus the representative of extensionalism has a way to introduce temporal parts.
I 114
Solution/Simons: assuming the plastic words are semicircular, then one can make both sentences at the same time. PPP/Simons: the example is not necessarily a refutation of PPP, and SCT71

PPP Ez[z << x] u (z)[z << x] ⊃ z < y

SCT71 (Ez)[z << x] v (Ez)[z << y ] ⊃. (z)[z << x ≡ z << y] ⊃ x = y

because it is not completely wrong to say that one sentence also contains the fragment "nals mult", but the other does not!
RescherVsExtensionality/Simons: for a counter-example in its style we need two individuals who are not identical, although they all have parts in common. So that their difference is a question of the relations between the parts. ((s) Structure, intensional).
For example, the Robinson family can be the same as the basketball team Robinson at a time. But we shouldn't identify either of them.
Similarly, for example, the Building Committee can have the same members as the Personnel Committee.

Resch I
Nicholas Rescher
The Criteriology of Truth; Fundamental Aspects of the Coherence Theory of Truth, in: The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford 1973 - dt. Auszug: Die Kriterien der Wahrheit
In
Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977

Resch II
N. Rescher
Kant and the Reach of Reason: Studies in Kant’ s Theory of Rational Systematization Cambridge 2010

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Four-Dimensionalism Geach Vs Four-Dimensionalism Simons I 126
GeachVsFour Dimensionalism: in it there can be timeless variation, but no change! Def Change/Geach/Simons: consists in that an object at first has one property (accident) and then another. Process/Simons: has all its features timelessly, i.e. what has different properties are the temporal parts. That is no longer change, E.g. that the fire hook is hot on one end and cold at the other. (McTaggart 1921-7, §315-16).

Gea I
P.T. Geach
Logic Matters Oxford 1972

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Four-Dimensionalism Chisholm Vs Four-Dimensionalism Simons I 120
Object/Thing/Chisholm: Thesis: "mereological constance objects in the original sense: entia per se: cannot change. Objects in the derived sense:
Entia per alio: are subject to flux, but only in the sense that they are successively constituted by different entia per se, which differ in their parts.
Continuants/Chisholm: he does not deny them! Rather ChisholmVsFour-Dimensionalism (because of his ontology of temporal objects).
Simons I 124
Event/occurrents/Ontology/Chisholm/Simons: Chisholm disproves three arguments for the ontology of events (occurrences): (Chisholm 1976, Appendix A) 1. Argument of spatial analogy: there is a great disanalogy between space and time: a thing cannot be in two different places at the same time, but a thing can be in the same place at two different times.
ChisholmVs: this is not conclusive, a defender of temporal parts can argue against it. But then he can use this argument to argue for his thesis without circularity.
2. Argument of change (change): for example, how can Philip be drunk once and sober once? For him, both are contradictory together.
ChisholmVsFour-Dimensionalism/Solution: instead of saying a time stage of Philip is (timelessly) drunk, we simply say in everyday language: he was drunk last night and is now sober.
Either we use grammatical times as in everyday language, or we relativize our predicates to the time ((s) "have-at-t", "be-at-t").
3. Argument of the river (not "flux-argument"): Example
River/QuineVsHeraclitus: Quine uses the temporal extension of the river on the same level as the spatial extension.
ChisholmVsQuine: not every sum of river stages is a river process.
I 125
Solution/Chisholm: we have to say what conditions a sum has to meet to be a river process. ChisholmVsQuine: Problem: this again requires continuants: (river banks, human observers) or a theory of absolute space or the introduction of a technical term ((s) predicate) "is cofluvial with").
Problem: this can only be understood in terms of "is the same flux as". So circular.
VsFour-Dimensionalism/VsProcess-Ontology: he did not succeed in eliminating all singular or general terms that denote continuants.
Process-Ontology/Four-Dimensionalism/SimonsVsProcess-Ontology: all representatives except Whitehead speak with a "split tongue" when it comes to concrete examples.
Continuants/Quine: says he can "reconstruct them four-dimensionally". "Describe them as new".
Reconstruction/Redescription/SimonsVsQuine: when something is rewritten, it gets a new description. Reconstruction is strictly speaking a discarding. So continuants must then disappear from our ontology and something else must take their place.
Problem: thus, it is misleading to speak of river stages or cat stages. E.g. not one Philip stage is drunk, but the whole person is. For example, one does not bathe in one river stage, but in the whole river.
Error: it cannot be right to change the subject and leave the predicate unchanged, and think you still have a true sentence! Similarly:
Four-Dimensionalism/Cartwright: (1975,p. 167) "four dimensional objects have different careers".
SimonsVsCartwright: only continuants like generals or opera singers have careers. Four-dimensional objects have no career, they are at best a career.
Problem: if continuants are to disappear from ontology, then there is nothing that can be a career. That is talking with a "split tongue": you cannot enjoy the advantages of the old entities if you abolish them. Four-Dimensionalism needs a whole new way of speaking (unfamiliar, contrary to everyday language).
Whitehead/Simons: is the only one who can do this and it is literally obscure.
I 126
Process-Ontology/Simons: all this does not show their impossibility, only their alien nature. We must not only adopt continuants, but also events that involve them, especially changes of continuants. SimonsVsProcess-Ontology/SimonsVsVsFour-Dimensionalism: that the space-time requires the task of continuants is not so sure and rather depends on the circumstances. Certainly, Minkowski diagrams simply represent time as another (equal) dimension.
I 127
Argument/Simons: it is not a conclusive argument to derive an ontology from a convenient representation.

Chisholm I
R. Chisholm
The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981
German Edition:
Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992

Chisholm III
Roderick M. Chisholm
Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989
German Edition:
Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Inwagen, P. van Lewis Vs Inwagen, P. van V 195
Individuation/Redundant Causation/Peter van Inwagen: Thesis: An event, which actually happens as a product of several causes, could not have happened had if it had not been the product of these causes. The causes could also not have led to another event. Analogy to individuation of objects and humans because of their causal origins.
LewisVsInwagen:
1. It would ruin my analysis to analyze causation in terms of counterfactual dependence. ((s) Any deviation would be a different event, not comparable, no counterfactual conditionals applicable.) 2. It is prima facie implausible: I am quite able to legitimately establish alternative hypotheses how an event (or an object or a human being) was caused.
But then I postulate that it was one and the same event! Or that one and the same event could have had different effects. >Events/Lewis.
(Even Inwagen postulates this.)
Plan/LewisVsInwagen: implies even more impossibilities: Either all my plans or hypotheses are hidden impossibilities or they do not even deal with particular event. >Planning.

V 296
Vs weak determinism/VsCompatibilism/van InwagenVsLewis: (against wD which I pretend to represent): e.g. Suppose of reductio that I could have lifted my left hand although determinism would be true.
Then follows from four premises, which I cannot deny, that I could have created a wrong conjunction HL from a proposition H of a moment in time before my birth, and a certain proposition about a law L.
Premise 5: If yes, I could have made L wrong.
Premise 6: But I could not have made L wrong. (Contradiction.)
LewisVInwagen: 5 and 6 are both not true. Which one of both is true depends on what Inwage calls "could have made wrong". However, not in everyday language, but in Inwagen's artificial language. But it does not matter as well what Inwagen means himself!
What matters is whether we can actually give sense to it, which would make all premises valid without circularity.
Inwagen: (oral) third meaning for "could have made wrong": only iff the actor could have arranged the things in such a way that both his action and the whole truth about the previous history would have implied the wrongness of the proposition.
Then premise 6 states that I could not have arranged the things in such a way to make me predetermined to not arrange them.
Lewis: But it is not instructive to see that compatibilism needs to reject premise 6 which is interpreted that way.
V 297
Falsification/Action/Free Will/Lewis: provisory definition: An event falsifies a proposition only when it is necessary that the proposition is wrong when an event happens. But my action to throw a stone is not going to falsify the proposition that the window which is on the other end of the trajectory will not be broken. The truth is that my action creates a different event which would falsify the proposition.
The action itself does not falsify a law. It would only falsify a conjunction of antecedent history and law.
The truth is that my action precedes another action, the miracle, and the latter falsifies the law.
feeble: let's say I could make a proposition wrong in a weak sense iff I do something. The proposition would be falsified (but not necessarily because of my action, and not necessarily because of an event which happened because of my action). (Lewis per "Weak Thesis". (Compatibilism)).
strong: If the proposition is falsified, either because of my action or because of an event that was caused because of my action.

Inwagen/Lewis: The first part of his thesis is strong, regardless of whether we advocate the strong or the weak thesis:
Had I been able to lift my hand, although determinism is true and I have not done so, then it is both true - according to the weak and strong sense- that I could have made the conjunctions HL (propositions about the antecedent history and the laws of nature) wrong.
But I could have made proposition L wrong in the weak sense, although I could not have done it wrong in the strong sense.
Lewis: If we advocate the weak sense, I deny premise 6.
If we advocate the strong sense, I deny premise 5.
Inwagen: Advocates both position by contemplating analogous cases.
LewisVsInwagen: I do believe that the cases are not analogous. They are cases in which the strong and the weak case do not diverge at all.
Premise 6/Inwagen: He invites us to reject the idea that a physicist could accelerate a particle faster than light.
LewisVsInwagen: But this does not contribute to support premise 6 in the weak sense.

V 298
Since the rejected assumption is that the physicist could falsify a law of nature in the strong sense. Premise 5/Inwagen: We should reject the assumption here that a traveller could falsify a conjunction of propositions about the antecedent history and the history of his future travel differently than a falsification of the non-historic part.
LewisVsInwagen: Reject the assumption as a whole if you would like to. It does not change anything: premise 5 is not supported in the strong sense. What would follow if a conjunction could be falsified in such a strong sense? Tht the non-historic part could be thus falsified in the strong sense? This is what would support premise 5 in the strong sense.
Or would simply follow (what I believe) that the non-historic part can be rejected in the weak sense? The example of the traveller is not helpful here because a proposition of future travels can be falsified in both weak as strong sense.

Schwarz I 28
Object/Lewis/Schwarz: Material things are accumulations or aggregates of such points. But not every collection of such points is a material object. Taken together they are neither constituting a cat nor any other object in the customary sense.
e.g. The same is valid for the aggregate of parts of which I am constituted of, together with the parts which constituted Hubert Humphrey at the beginning of 1968.
Thing: What is the difference between a thing in the normal sense and those aggregates? Sufficient conditions are difficult to find. Paradigmatic objects have no gaps, and holes are delimited from others, and fulfill a function. But not all things are of this nature, e.g. bikes have holes, bikinis and Saturn have disjointed parts. What we accept as a thing depends from our interests in our daily life. It depends on the context: e.g. whether we count the back wall or the stelae of the Holocaust Memorial or the screen or the keyboard as singly. But these things do also not disappear if we do not count them as singly!
Object/Thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) Thesis: Parts will constitute themselves to an object if the latter is a living being. So, there are humans, fishes, cats, but not computers, walls and bikinis.
Object/Thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions:
1. Under what conditions parts will form themselves to a whole? Under all conditions! For random things there is always a thing which constitutes them. ((s) This is the definition of mereological Universalism).
2. Which of these aggregates do we call a singly thing in daily life? If certain aggregates are not viewed as daily things for us does not mean that they do not exist.(However, they go beyond the normal realms of our normal quantifiers.) But these restrictions vary from culture to culture. As such, it is not reality that is dependent on culture, but the respective observed part of reality (1986e(2), 211 213, 1991(3):79 81).
LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: If only living things can form objects, evolution could not have begun. ((s) But if it is not a problem to say that living beings originated from emergentism, it should also not be a problem to say "objects" instead.)
LewisVsInwagen: no criteria for "living being" is so precise that it can clearly define.
Schwarz I 30
Lewis: It is not a problem for him: Conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic precision for which aggregates "living being" is accurate. (1986e(2), 212) LewisVsvan Inwagen: This explanation is not at his disposal: For him the distinction between living being and not a living being is the distinction between existence and non-existence. If the definition of living being is vague, the same is valid for existence as well.
Existence/Van Inwagen: (1990b(1). Kap.19) Thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence.
LewisVsvan Inwagen: (1991(3),80f,1983e(2),212f): If one already said "there is", then one has lost already: if one says that "something exists to a lesser degree".
Def Existence/Lewis: Simply means to be one of the things that exist.h

Schwarz I 34
Temporal Parts/van Inwagen: (1981)(4) generally rejects temporal parts. SchwarzVsInwagen: Then he must strongly limit the mereological universalims or be a presentist.

Schwarz I 227
Modality/LewisVsInwagen: There are no substantial modal facts: The existence of possibilities is not contingent. Information about this cannot be obtained.

1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press
2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell
3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell
4. P. van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Kim, Jaegwon Lewis Vs Kim, Jaegwon V 249
Character/Naming/Event/Lewis: one could think that the following is sufficient: "the F en from A to T". f is the property expressed by the predicate f,
a is the individual designated by A,
t is the time denoted by T.
The designations do not have to be rigid! >Rigidity.
"Constitutive triple." (Kim, "Causation, Nomic Subsumption and the Conept of Event", 1973)(1)
Furthermore, the occurrence of the event is somehow connected to the fact that the property f belongs to the individual a to t.
Property/Question: how does a property belong to an individual to t? Perhaps because it really is a characteristic of time sections or a relation of individuals at times.
LewisVs: then it would be all too easy to attribute a character simply by setting up a triple. I.e. "the F-en from A to T" denotes the event, so that it is necessary, if and only if f belongs to a to t. ((s) For example, it rains necessarily on Tuesday if it is necessary that it rains Tuesday). >Events/Lewis.
LewisVsKim: this does not satisfy the needs of counterfactual analysis of causation. Sometimes an event can actually be caused by a constitutive property,
V 250
an individual and a time can be substantially specified. But not in general for events that we call by naming.
Problem: if the being is too rich, it is too fragile. It's hard to modify without destroying it. It cannot occur anywhere except in its constitutive time. Our everyday causes and effects are more robust.
((s) it would be incomprehensible to have an individual, which can only occur once in one place at a time, because one would have no language use for it, i.e. the meaning of something that only occurs once cannot be determined by predicates, which can also be assigned to other things, if these predicates are to come essentially only to this individual.
Schwarz I 132
Event/LewisVsKim: definition: Def Event/Kim: (Kim 1976)(2): a triple of a thing, a time and a property.
LewisVsKim: (1986f(5),196) that is too fragile:
Schwarz I 133
This assigns too many essential properties to events. For example, a football match could have happened a little later or a little different. Or would it have been another game then? Bennett: (1988(4),§23 24) intuitively the question has no sense.
Schwarz: that's not what Lewis is all about. But fragility is what matters when it comes to causes and effects:
Def Fragility/fragile/Event/Lewis/(s): a modified event would not be the same but different. Then modification cannot be expressed at all: "what was modified?
Counterfactual analysis: according to it, A causes B if B would not have happened without A. Question: under what circumstances would one event have happened (even if it was different) and under what circumstances would it have been replaced by another. This will lead to problems later on.
Cause/effect/Lewis/Schwarz: both are no intuitive event. For example acoustic feedback: here the later temporal parts are caused by the earlier ones. (1986f(5),172f). Similarly: e.g. the temporal parts of persons are linked by causal relationships! (see above 2.3). But these temporal parts are not events in the intuitive sense. Causes such as the presence of oxygen in an explosion (ok, as a cause) are also not an event in the everyday sense. (1986d(6),261).
Event/BennettVsLewis/MellorVsLewis/Schwarz: shouldn't Lewis rather speak of "facts"? "that p causes q".
Fact/Schwarz: if you understand them as classes of space-time regions, this is not an alternative, but only a terminological variant.


1. Jaegwon Kim [1973]: “Causes and Counterfactuals”. Journal of Philosophy, 70: 570–572
2. Jaegwon Kim [1976]: “Events as Property Exemplifications”. In Myles Brand und Douglas Walton
(ed.), Action Theory, Dordrecht: Reidel, 159–177
4. Jonathan Bennett [1988]: Events and Their Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. D. Lewis [1986f]: Philosophical Papers II . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. D. Lewis [1986d]: “Events”. In [Lewis 1986f]: 241–269

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Lewis, D. Bigelow Vs Lewis, D. I 91
Perfectly natural property/PNP/BigelowVsLewis: even that is black magic, if such classes are compared with heterogeneous classes; our theory of universals avoids it.
I 192
Possible worlds/Poss.w./Lewis/BigelowVsLewis: Problem: it is surprising that such parts would then at least have to have a temporal part together. (see above) E.g. assuming we meet Jane from a different part of the same possible world Let’s consider the counterfactual conditional/Co.co.: if we had not met Jane, she would not have existed. BigelowVsLewis: according to him, this must be true Bigelow/Pargetter: according to us, it is clearly wrong. There must therefore be at least one possible world where Jane exists and we do not meet her. And this possible world would have to contain all of us and Jane, even though there is no connection between us.
I 197
Representation/Bigelow VsLewis: E.g. assuming there are twins in the real world (actual world), Dum and Dee, who are absolutely identical, but could have been different. That means that in other possible worlds there are twins, Tee Dum and Tee Dee, who differ more from one another, but are sufficiently similar to ours to be accepted as a counterpart. Then it is possible that a counter part,e.g. Tee Dum is more similar to Dum, than Tee Dee Dee is to Dee. Lewis: his theory implies that of the non-actual twins Tee Dee is more similar, and so he is Dees’s counterpart, which we also hope. Problem: Tee Dee is also closer to Dum than any of his world companions, so that he is also a counterpart of Dum. Tee Dee is the counterpart of both Dee and Dum, and Tee Dum is cp of neither of them! And the fact that Tee Dum cannot be a c.p. is due to the properties of his brother and has nothing to do with its own intrinsic properties. BigelowVsLewis: nevertheless, it is not plausible to say that, because that is equivalent to the modal statement that one of the twins could not have been different if the other one had not been different as well. This is unacceptable.
I 199
Rivals theory/VsLewis/Bigelow/Pargetter: the rival theory asserts, thesis: that the counterparts are in fact numerically identical to the corresponding individual in the actual world. The rival theory uses the relation of numerical identity.

Big I
J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter
Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990
Lewis, D. Blackburn Vs Lewis, D. Schwarz I 57
Counterpart/cp/RosenVsLewis/BlackburnVsLewis: the counterpart theory turns our emotional attachment to the counterfactual facts into a mystery. Why should we, worry about things that happen to other people in other universes? LewisVsVs/Schwarz: why should we care about the elements of maximum consistent sentence quantities or the counterfactual properties of abstract facts?
Counterfactual/Bennett/Schwarz: one reason why the K interests us is that we want to avoid future mistakes. (Bennett, 1988(1), 62).
Existence/SchwarzVsLewis: imprecise formulation: for Lewis Humphrey only exists in the real world, but in a broader sense - as a cp - he exists in many possible worlds, of course.
KripkeVsLewis/PlantingaVsLewis: deny that there are possible worlds which include Humphrey as a real part.
Kris McDaniel/Schwarz: is the only one who ever claimed that the possible worlds e.g. contain Humphrey as a real spatio-temporal part. (2004)(2).


1. Jonathan Bennett [1988]: Events and Their Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. Kris McDaniel [2004]: “Modal Realism with Overlap”. Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
82: 137–152

Blckbu I
S. Blackburn
Spreading the Word : Groundings in the Philosophy of Language Oxford 1984

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Mereology Verschiedene Vs Mereology Schwarz I 34
Temporal Parts/Mereology/Schwarz: but if you accept aggregates from Socrates and the Eiffel Tower, you could still deny that Socrates itself has temporal parts. Lewis: does not even claim that necessarily everything that exists over time consists of temporal parts (1986f(1),x,1986e(2),205,1994(3) §1) VsStowe: temporal parts should not provide an analysis of temporal existence.
Lewis: (1083d(4),76,similar to Armstrong 1980(5),76): Example: one child, Frieda1 suddenly disappears, while another child, Frieda2 suddenly appears. This may contradict the laws of nature, but it is logically possible.
Schw I 35
Maybe nobody notices anything. And there would be nothing to notice. Vs: that is not convincing.
Endurantism Vs: cannot accept the premises at all.
van InwagenVs: Frieda1 and Frieda2 cannot exist in such a row and yet remain different. (2000(6),398)
Schwarz I 36
Thing/EndurantismVsLewis/VsMereology: the objects are not the mereological sum of their parts, because the sum and the parts exist even if the things themselves do not exist (e.g. if they are disassembled or broken). Vs: then the term "part" is not used exactly. The scattered parts are then no longer parts, because the (disassembled) bicycle does not exist at that time.
Solution/Lewis: Part of the bicycle is only a past temporal part of the gearshift. Personal identity, temporal identity: we too are not identical with any aggregate of molecules, because we constantly exchange many of them with the metabolism. (1988b(7), 195).


1. David Lewis [1986f]: Philosophical Papers II . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. David Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell
3. David Lewis [1994a]: “Humean Supervenience Debugged”. Mind, 103: 473–490.
4. David Lewis [1983d]: Philosophical Papers I . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. David Armstrong [1980]: “Identity Through Time”. In Peter van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause,
Dordrecht: Reidel
6. Peter van Inwagen [2000]: “Temporal Parts and Identity across Time”. The Monist , 83: 437–459.
7. David Lewis [1988b]: “Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe”. Analysis, 48: 65–72





Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005
Mill, J. St. Cartwright Vs Mill, J. St. I 38
Objective probability/VsCartwright: It might be objected that the partitioning on irrelevant factors would do no damage, once all factors are fixed. "True prob"/Cartwright: = objective prob? Relative frequency/RelFreq/Cartwright: is not the same as objective prob. Simpson’s Paradox/Solution/VsCartwright: We can certainly always find a third factor, but normally we do are not dealing with finite frequencies, but with objective prob. Objective prob/VsCarwright: if you do not extract it from finite data, no apparent correlations will come about.
I 60
Vector addition/Cartwright: according to this view, two forces (gravitational force, or electromagnetic force) are produced, but none of them exists. Composition of forces/Causes/MillVsCartwright: he would deny that both do not exist: According to him, both exist as part of the resulting effect. E.g. two forces in different directions. "Partial forces". CartwrightVsMill: there are no "partial forces". Events may have temporal parts, but there are no parts of the kind that Mill describes, e.g. one northwards and one eastwards, with the object not moving neither north nor east, but to the northeast. I 59 CartwrightVsMill: Problem: then it is vital for the laws to have the same form, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the composition. And that’s not possible! It is not possible if the laws are intended to describe the actual behavior of concrete object.
I 70
Def Super-Law/Explanation/Law/Circumstances/Terminology/Mill/Cartwright: in the case of E.g. Coulomb’s law and the law of gravity, we can simply put an increasingly complex antecedent in front of it to grasp the situation and thus explain what is happening. Mill: that is possible in mechanics, but not in chemistry. This explains why chemistry is not a deductive or demonstrative discipline. This presupposes the covering-law approach. CartwrightVsSuper law/CartwrightVsMill: 1) Super laws are not always available; if we do not describe everything exactly, we lose our understanding of what is happening. And we explain without knowing super laws. We need a philosophical explanation for why these explanations are good. 2) Super laws may often not even be a good explanation. This is an old objection Vscovering laws. E.g. why does the quail in my garden shake its head? Because all quails do this.
I 71
Equally E.g. "All carbon atoms have five energy levels" explains nothing. 3) Certainly, covering laws are explanatory for complex cases. In particular, if the antecedent of the law does not precisely grasp the components of the individual situation, but provides a more abstract description.

Car I
N. Cartwright
How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983

CartwrightR I
R. Cartwright
A Neglected Theory of Truth. Philosophical Essays, Cambridge/MA pp. 71-93
In
Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994

CartwrightR II
R. Cartwright
Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954
Quine, W.V.O. Chisholm Vs Quine, W.V.O. III 86
Analytic/Synthetic/Chisholm: many authors maintain that the distinction is untenable.
III 87
1. for that one would have to speak of necessity 2. from the behavior of people it is not evident that their language is such that it is necessarily true: if a certain expression applies to something, then it applies also another way of saying the same thing.
3. The behavior does also not show the need that two expressions must apply to the same thing.
ChisholmVsQuine/Chisholm: That together, if it were true, would be insufficient to show that the distinction is untenable. An additional premise would have to contain a philosophical generalization on the conditions for such a distinction.
Generalization/Chisholm: how would it be defended: we see that in connection with the question of the criterion (see below) and skepticism (see below) -
ChisholmVsQuine: none of the possible generalizations was ever defended. Therefore, it is not true that the distinction analytic/synthetic was proved untenable.
Simons I 124
Event/occurrents/Ontology/Chisholm/Simons: Chisholm disproves three arguments for the ontology of events (occurrences): (Chisholm 1976, Appendix A) 1. Argument of spatial analogy: there is a great disanalogy between space and time: a thing cannot be in two different places at the same time, but a thing can be in the same place at two different times.
ChisholmVs: this is not conclusive, a defender of temporal parts can argue against it. But then he can use this argument to argue for his thesis without circularity.
2. Argument of change: for example, how can Philip be drunk once and sober once? For him, both are contradictory together.
ChisholmVsFour-Dimensionalism/Solution: instead of saying a time stage of Philip is (timelessly) drunk, we simply say in everyday language: he was drunk last night and is now sober.
Either we use grammatical times like in everyday language or we relativize our predicates to the time ((s) "have-at-t", "be-at-t".)
3. Argument of the river (not "flux-argument"): Example
River/QuineVsHeraclitus: Quine uses the temporal extension of the river on the same level as the spatial extension.
ChisholmVsQuine: not every sum of river stages is a river process.
I 125
Solution/Chisholm: we have to say what conditions a sum has to meet to be a river process. ChisholmVsQuine: Problem: this again requires continuants: (river banks, human observers) or a theory of absolute space or the introduction of a technical term ((s) predicate) "is cofluvial with").
Problem: this can only be understood in terms of "is the same flux as". So circular.
VsFour-Dimensionalism/VsProcess-Ontology: he did not succeed in eliminating all singular or general terms that denote continuants.

Chisholm I
R. Chisholm
The First Person. Theory of Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis 1981
German Edition:
Die erste Person Frankfurt 1992

Chisholm III
Roderick M. Chisholm
Theory of knowledge, Englewood Cliffs 1989
German Edition:
Erkenntnistheorie Graz 2004

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987
Wiggins, D. Simons Vs Wiggins, D. I 130
Event/mereology/relation/Simons: how do the mereological relations between events look like? Here, we do not need to modify the predicates timely like continuants. This makes the event interesting for philosophers who want to preserve the extensionality. Relation currently: is for events direct and narrow.
Relation to the space: is for events indirect on the continuants involved in them.
Duality/Wiggins: (1980,25-6,n12): events are "dual" to continuants in this regard.
SimonsVsWiggins: this is not perfect because continuants occupy space and continue as well.
Event/splitting/scattered/Simons: because continuants are involved in them they can be split (to be divided, dispersed, scattered). And therefore they can have both spatial and temporal parts.
But not as events involved continuants, e.g. the increase in the intensity of a magnetic field.
Field: whether itself is a continuant is controversial.
Event/localization: localization is only possible by the continuants involved in them.
Entering/time/happening/Simons: the time of the happening (whether continuants are involved or not) can only be calculated by measuring time intervals. We must rely on local cyclic processes.
I 221
Superposition/SimonsVsWiggins: what the superposition of things of the same kind is about is that we have no way to track things ((s) in its coming together and breaking up).
I 222
Namely, they are temporarily indistinguishable (this is an epistemic problem). Epistemic/(s): why are epistemic problems at all important or interesting? Because we have to revise our language use in epistemic impossibility: for basically indistinguishable we should not use different words (no distinction without difference).
Simons: e.g. two bee swarms unite and separate again. We generally do not know if the two are afterwards the same two as before. This could be, however, clarified by tracking each individual bee. Therefore, it is not an ontological problem.
Superposition/Simons: there are apparently cases where things can superimpose in the same way and we can still track them:
E.g. moving points of light or shadow, which overlap for a moment.
E.g. mutually parallel wavefronts, here we assume this in addition to uniform wave velocity.
E.g. (shorter): clouds of water vapor that can be manipulated by a "cloud projector", here we have a means of identification: causal paths.
I 223
Wiggin's Principle/WP/Wiggins: pro: space can be displayed only by reference to its occupiers (availability), and spatial facts are conceptually independent of the existence of facts about individual things (particulars) and the identities of these particulars. Now, if space is mapped by reference to permanent particulars the non-identity of the particulars A and B, that are both of the type f, has to be sufficient to determine that the place of A to t is different from the place of B to t. Simons is pro illustration by reference to particulars.
SimonsVsWiggins: nevertheless, objects of the same type may coincide: because the requirement of illustration only requires that some specific continuants can impossibly coincide with others of their kind. There are exceptions, though they are a minority: e.g. see above clouds, points of light, shadow, waves, etc.
VsSimons: it could be argued that these objects are not material or substances.
Simons: they actually are not substances. Just like accidents or disruptions.
SimonsVsVs: still the answer is not yet there if two things of a kind can superimpose whether they can be substances. The examples suggest that we can appease Wiggins' fear that we cannot retrace the traces if we find the appropriate means, e.g. separate causes or uniform speed.
Wiggins/Simons: Wiggins is only right if everything with which we can trace a continuant is, so to speak, in its own container. If this is the case, his principle (WP) is correct.
These cases seem to make out the majority, so we have no problem to map the space (illustrating, mapping).
Sortal Concept/Simons: (for a continuant): the sortal concept tells us, inter alia, under which conditions the object continues to exist and under which it ceases. These were the "existence-conditions" ((s) meaning linguistically!).
Superposition/SimonsVsWiggins: that various objects can superimpose follows from the fact that a single piece of matter can be in such a state that it simultaneously fulfills different existence conditions ((s) meaning intensional).
I 260
Neccessary/Nec/Wiggins: "Nec" is a predicate modifier working on λ-abstraction, rather than using the proposition operator "N". QuineVsWiggins: (1977, 236): misleading:
"Nec[(λx)(λy)(x = y)]" for
"the relation like any r and s have if they are necessary identical"
correct:
"(λx)(λy)(N(x = y)" (p. 293).
SimonsVsWiggins : "Nec" seems to be superfluous and Wiggins suggests this himself.

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

The author or concept searched is found in the following disputes of scientific camps.
Disputed term/author/ism Pro/Versus
Entry
Reference
Flux Simons I 118
Lager: Flux: there are only objects with temporal parts: pro: Cartwright 1975, Chisholm 1975, Heller 1984, Henry 1972, Thomson 1983, van Invagen 1981 - ((s) then there are no continuants.) -

Simons I
P. Simons
Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987

The author or concept searched is found in the following 8 theses of the more related field of specialization.
Disputed term/author/ism Author
Entry
Reference
Clay/Statue Chisholm, R. Lewis / Black I 35
Clay / sculpture / endurantism / Chisholm: Chisholm accepted unity of thing and it constituent matter. The statue already existed before it was formed. (). (1976, Chapter 3) Burke: the piece of clay disappeared when the statue appeared.
Lewis: the statue is now-identical with the clay, but not earlier-identical. Then the relative identity is defined over temporal parts.

Black I
Max Black
"Meaning and Intention: An Examination of Grice’s Views", New Literary History 4, (1972-1973), pp. 257-279
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, G. Meggle (Hg) Frankfurt/M 1979

Black IV
Max Black
"The Semantic Definition of Truth", Analysis 8 (1948) pp. 49-63
In
Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994
Vs Endurantism Lewis, D. Schw I 31
Def Perdurantism / Schwarz: thesis that temporally extended things usually consist of temporal parts.
Schw I 32
Def Endurantism / Schwarz: (VsPerdurantism): things are at all times, to which they exist, all (not just partially) present (such as Aristotelian universals). LewisVsEndurantism (instead: mosaic theory).
Statue/Clay Lewis, D. Schw I 35
Clay / sculpture / endurantism / Chisholm: Chisholm accepts the unity of thing and it constituent matter. The statue already existed before it was formed. (1976, Chapter 3) Burke: the piece of clay disappeared when the statue appeared.
Lewis: the statue is now-identical with the clay, but not earlier-identical. Then the relative identity is defined on temporal parts.
Four-Dimensionalism. Lewis, D. Meixner I 51
Spacetimes/Four-Dimensionalism/Lewis: "Argument of intrinsic change": a change that does not consist in changing the relationship to something outside the object.
Intrinsic changes often occur. Thesis: They can only be understood if one assumes that objects have temporal parts.
A preceding temporal part of the object has the shape A and a following one the shape B.
MeixnerVsLewis: but one can also simply say that the object - completely without temporal parts - first has this shape, and then that other one (whereby the two shapes are universals, which as such can be determined quite independently of the object and the time).

Mei I
U. Meixner
Einführung in die Ontologie Darmstadt 2004
Four Dimensionalism Meixner, U. I 49
"Four dimensionalism" / Meixner: the thesis that individuals consist in three spatial and one temporal dimension. MeixnerVs.   Regardless of dimensions you can also say: all individuals have spatio-temporal parts, which applies in each reference system! And in any reference system, spatiotemporal parts can in turn decomposed into spatial and temporal parts.
Continuant Simons, P. I 175
Temporal Part/continuuants mereology/SimonsVsall/SimonsVsChisholm: Thesis: continuants can also have temporal parts! I.e. they are not mereologically constant, but mereologically variable. Continuants/Simons: Thesis: do not have to exist continuously. This provides us with a surprising solution to the problem of the Theseus' ship.
I 351
Continuant/Existence/Simons: whether a continuant exists (E!) stands and falls with the question whether there are events that come together in the form of a life story. Gene Identity: is itself not sufficient for the existence of a continuant via integration of events into a story. It can only underline the union.
Continuant/Simons: thesis: has ontological priority over life.
Flux Simons, P. I 118
Flux-Argument/Simons: (winning and losing parts of objects) - thesis: the only objects that exist are temporary in the sense that they have temporal parts.
Continuant Stalnaker, R. I 137
Endurantism/Four Dimensional/Four Dimensionalism/Continuant/Stalnaker: some authors: Thesis: continuants have no temporal parts like events. I.e. they are present in every moment with all their (only spatial) parts. Nevertheless, they exist in time. LewisVsEndurantism: (Lewis 1986a, 203) this view uses the terms "part" and "whole" in a very limited sense.
StalnakerVsLewis: that cannot be quite so, because the representatives admit that some things like football matches, wars, centuries have quite temporal parts.
Endurantism/Stalnaker: even if the whole thing is an unclear doctrine, some intuitions speak for it. I will neither defend it nor fight it.