Persistence and Properties

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-448
Author(s):  
SYDNEY SHOEMAKER
Keyword(s):  
Space Time ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Persistence Conditions ◽  
Four Dimensionalism

ABSTRACT:If for every portion of space-time there is an object composed of its contents, four-dimensionalism will be true of these objects. But ordinary objects—trees, stones, persons, etc.—are not among these objects (although the series of events that make up their careers will be). The properties of ordinary objects, including sortal properties, are temporally local and have causal profiles that incorporate transtemporal persistence conditions of the things that have them, and this supports a rejection of four-dimensionalism in favor of three-dimensionalism as an account of the nature of these ordinary objects. Also rejected is the stage theory that takes ordinary objects to be momentary stages (whose transtemporal sameness is not identity), and the argument (of Katherine Hawley) that holds that stage theory is supported by the fact that there can be cases in which it is indeterminate whether the same thing exists at different times.

On Stages, Worms, and Relativity

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 223-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Balashov
Keyword(s):  
Special Relativity ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
Temporal Parts ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Four Dimensionalism

AbstractFour–dimensionalism, or perdurantism, the view that temporally extended objects persist through time by having (spatio-)temporal parts or stages, includes two varieties, the worm theory and the stage theory. According to the worm theory, perduring objects are four–dimensional wholes occupying determinate regions of space–time and having temporal parts, or stages, each of them confined to a particular time. The stage theorist, however, claims, not that perduring objects have stages, but that the fundamental entities of the perdurantist ontology are stages. I argue that considerations of special relativity favor the worm theory over the stage theory.

scholarly journals Stage universalism, voints and sorts

Disputatio ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (28) ◽  
pp. 293-307
Author(s):  
Marta Campdelacreu
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
Ordinary Objects

Abstract In the current debate on how ordinary objects persist through time, more than one philosopher has endorsed the following two theses: stage theory and diachronic universalism. In this paper, I would like to offer a solution to the problem (related to lingering properties) that Balashov poses to the joint acceptance of these theses. I will also offer a number of reasons why, even if it is not necessary to undermine Balashov’s counterexamples, stage theorists can, without making their theory less appealing, reject Balashov’s understanding of sorts, which plays a crucial role in his criticisms of stage universalism.

scholarly journals Ought a Four-Dimensionalist To Believe in Temporal Parts?

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristie Miller
Keyword(s):  
Space Time ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Temporal Parts ◽  
Four Dimensionalism

I borrow the title of this paper, slightly amended, from Parsons’ recent ‘Must a Four-Dimensionalist Believe in Temporal Parts?’ Four-dimensionalism, as I use the term, is the view that persisting objects have four dimensions: they are four-dimensional ‘worms’ in space-time. This view is contrasted with three-dimensionalism, the view that persisting objects have three-dimensions and are wholly present at each moment at which they exist. The most common version of four-dimensionalism is perdurantism, according to which these four-dimensional objects are segmented into temporal parts — shorter lived objects that compose the four-dimensional whole in just the same way that the segments of real earth worms compose the whole worm.

Space, Time and Einstein

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Space Time

Spinors and Space-Time

1984 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Penrose ◽  
Wolfgang Rindler
Keyword(s):  
Space Time

Do Writing Directions Influence How People Map Space onto Time?

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Wenxing Yang ◽  
Ying Sun
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Horizontal Axis ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Temporal Cognition ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Psychological Experiments ◽  
Vertical Up

Abstract. The causal role of a unidirectional orthography in shaping speakers’ mental representations of time seems to be well established by many psychological experiments. However, the question of whether bidirectional writing systems in some languages can also produce such an impact on temporal cognition remains unresolved. To address this issue, the present study focused on Japanese and Taiwanese, both of which have a similar mix of texts written horizontally from left to right (HLR) and vertically from top to bottom (VTB). Two experiments were performed which recruited Japanese and Taiwanese speakers as participants. Experiment 1 used an explicit temporal arrangement design, and Experiment 2 measured implicit space-time associations in participants along the horizontal (left/right) and the vertical (up/down) axis. Converging evidence gathered from the two experiments demonstrate that neither Japanese speakers nor Taiwanese speakers aligned their vertical representations of time with the VTB writing orientation. Along the horizontal axis, only Japanese speakers encoded elapsing time into a left-to-right linear layout, which was commensurate with the HLR writing direction. Therefore, two distinct writing orientations of a language could not bring about two coexisting mental time lines. Possible theoretical implications underlying the findings are discussed.

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