Our world is a world of change. Children are born and grow into adults. Material possessions rust and decay with age and ultimately perish. Yet scepticism about change is as old as philosophy itself. Heraclitus, for example, argued that nothing could survive the replacement of parts, so that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Zeno argued that motion is paradoxical, so that nothing can alter its location. Parmenides and his followers went even further, arguing that the (...) very concept of qualitative change is inconsistent. Change in any respect is impossible, they argued, as change requires difference and nothing differs from itself. Few today would accept the Eleatic conclusion that change is impossible. But the topic of change continues to be a source of much debate, as it brings together various issues that are central to metaphysics, language, and logic – including identity, persistence, time, tense, and temporal logic. Author Recommends Wasserman, Ryan. 'The Problem of Change.' Philosophy Compass 1 (2006): 1–10. This article presents the problem of change and provides a brief survey of potential solutions. Haslanger, Sally. 'Persistence Through Time.' The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics . Eds. M. Loux and D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. This article presents the problem of change and provides a detailed survey of potential solutions. Heller, Mark. 'Things Change.' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1992): 695–704. This article presents, explains, and defends the temporal parts solution to the problem of change. Hinchliff, Mark. 'The Puzzle of Change.' Philosophical Perspectives 10 (1996): 119–36. This article presents, explains, and defends the presentist solution to the problem of change. Wasserman, Ryan. 'The Argument from Temporary Intrinsics.' Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2003): 413–19. This article presents, explains, and defends the relationist solution to the problem of change. Sider, Theodore. Four-Dimensionalism . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. This book provides an introduction to various issues related to the problem of change, including the nature of time, tense, and persistence. Chapter 5 presents, explains, and defends the stage-view solution to the problem of change. Online Materials Change. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/change/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on change, by Chris Mortensen. Time. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on time, by Ned Markosian. Temporal Parts. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/temporal-parts/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on temporal parts, by Katherine Hawley. Material Constitution. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on material constitution, by RyanWasserman. Persistence Bibliography. URL: http://tedsider.org/teaching/pp_bibliography.pdf A bibliography on change and related issues, by Theodore Sider. Sample Syllabus Books on Syllabus Rea, Michael. Material Constitution: A Reader . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. Sider, Theodore. Four-Dimensionalism . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. 2008. Metaphysics: The Big Questions . 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Week 1: Time and Tense Four-Dimensionalism , chapters 1 and 2. Markosian, Ned. 'A Defence of Presentism.' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 1. Ed. D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004: 47–82. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 116-123. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 124-129. Week 2: Time and Persistence Four-Dimensionalism , chapter 3. McGrath, Matthew. 'Temporal Parts.' Philosophy Compass 2 (2007): 730–48. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 265-267. Hawthorne, J, Scala, M., and Wasserman, R. 'Recombination, Humean Supervenience, and Causal Constraints: An Argument for Temporal Parts?' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics , Volume 1. Ed. D. Zimmerman, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004: 301-318. Week 3: Change and Presentism In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 141-149. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 267-269. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 269-281. Week 4: Change and Temporal Parts Four-Dimensionalism , pp. 92–8. Heller, Mark. 'Things Change.' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1992): 695–704. Lombard, Lawrence. 'The Doctrine of Temporal Parts and the "No Change" Objection.' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (1994): 365–72. Week 5: Change, Relationism, and Adverbialism Hawley, Katherine. 'Why Temporary Properties are not Relations between Physical Objects and Times.' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 98 (1998): 211–16. Wasserman, Ryan. 'The Argument from Temporary Intrinsics.' Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2003): 413–19. Lewis, David. 'Tensing the Copula.' Mind 111 (2002): 1–13. Caplan, Ben. 'Why so Tense about the Copula?' Mind 114 (2007): 703–8. Week 6: Change and Tropes Ehring, Douglas. 'Lewis, Temporary Intrinsics and Momentary Tropes.' Analysis 57 (1997): 254–8. MacBride, Fraser. 'Four New Ways to Change Your Shape.' Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2001): 81–9. Simons, Peter. 'On Being Spread Out in Time: Temporal Parts and the Problem of Change.' Existence and Explanation . Eds. W. Spohn, B.C. van Fraassen, and B. Skyrms. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991: 131-147. Weeks 7 and 8: Special Topic – Material Change Four-Dimensionalism , chapter 5. Selections from Material Constitution: A Reader. Week 9: Special Topic – Change of Position In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 186-195. In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 195-215. Week 10: Special topic – Changing the Past In van Inwagen, P. and Zimmerman, D. Metaphysics: The Big Questions. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008: 224-235. van Iwagen, Peter. 'Changing the Past.' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics , Volume 5 . Ed. D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009: 1-22. Hudson, H. and Wasserman, R. 'Van Inwagen on Time Travel and Changing the Past.' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics , Volume 5. Ed. D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009: 41-49. (shrink)
Humeans hold that the nomological features of our world, including causal facts, are determined by the global distribution of fundamental properties. Since persistence presupposes causation, it follows that facts about personal identity are also globally determined. I argue that this is unacceptable for a number of reasons, and that the doctrine of Humean supervenience should therefore be rejected.
What is the relation between a clay statue andthe lump of clay from which it is made? According to the defender of the standardaccount, the statue and the lump are distinct,enduring objects that share the same spatiallocation whenever they both exist. Suchobjects also seem to share the samemicrophysical structure whenever they bothexist. This leads to the standard objection tothe standard account: if the statue and thelump of clay have the same microphysicalstructure whenever they both exist, how canthey differ in their (...) de re temporalproperties, de re modal properties and soon? In this paper I develop amereological answer to this question – thestatue and the lump differ with respect totheir parts and this explains theirdifference with respect to de re temporalproperties, de re modal properties andthe like. (shrink)
What is the best question to ask an omniscient being? The question is intriguing; is it also paradoxical? We discuss several versions of what Ned Markosian calls the paradox of the question and suggest solutions to each of those puzzles. We then offer some practical advice about what do if you ever have the opportunity to query an omniscient being.
Analyses of dispositional ascriptions in terms of conditional statements famously confront the problems of finks and masks. We argue that conditional analyses of dispositions, even those tailored to avoid.nks and masks, face five further problems. These are the problems of: (i) Achilles' heels, (ii) accidental closeness, (iii) comparatives, (iv) explaining context sensitivity, and (v) absent stimulus conditions. We conclude by offering a proposal that avoids all seven of these problems. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?
Much of the recent work in action theory can be organized around a set of objections facing the Simple View and other intention-based accounts of intentional action. In this paper, I review three of the most popular objections to the Simple View and argue that all three objections commit a common fallacy. I then draw some more general conclusions about the relationship between intentional action and moral responsibility.
Our world is a world of change. Children are born and grow into adults. Material possessions rust and decay with age and ultimately perish. Yet scepticism about change is as old as philosophy itself. Heraclitus, for example, argued that nothing could survive the replacement of parts, so that it is impossible to step into the same river twice. Zeno argued that motion is paradoxical, so that nothing can alter its location. Parmenides and his followers went even further, arguing that the (...) very concept of qualitative change is inconsistent. Change in any respect is impossible, they argued, since change requires difference and nothing differs from itself.1 Few today would accept the Eleatic conclusion that change is impossible. But the topic of change continues to be a source of much debate, as it brings together various issues that are central to metaphysics, language and logic – including identity, persistence, time, tense, and temporal logic. As we consider various approaches to our topic, it will become clear that one’s perspective on change is often determined by one’s position in the broader philosophical landscape. (shrink)
This is a basic logic text for first-time logic students. Custom-made texts from the chapters is an option as well. And there is a website to go with text too: http://www.poweroflogic.com/cgi/menu.cgi .
Previous theories of the relationship between dispositions and conditionals are unable to account for the fact that dispositions come in degrees. We propose a fix for this problem that has the added benefit of avoiding the classic problems of finks and masks.
According to the doctrine of four-dimensionalism, our world and everything in it consists of stages or temporal parts; moreover, where an object exists at various times, it does so, according to the four-dimensionalist, in virtue of having distinct temporal parts at those times. While four-dimensionalism is often motivated by its purported solutions to puzzles about material objects and their persistence through time, it has also been defended by more direct arguments. Three such arguments stand out: (1) the argument from temporary (...) intrinsics, (2) the argument from vagueness and (3) the argument from recombination, Humean supervenience and causal constraints. Not surprisingly, each of these arguments originates in the work of four-dimensionalism’s most prominent modern defender, David Lewis.1 The third of these arguments has received, by far, the least attention, critical or otherwise; it is now time to begin to address this imbalance. (shrink)
It is widely assumed that causation is an extensional relation: if c causes e and c = d, then d causes e. Similarly, if c causes e and e = f, then c causes f. Moving to the formal mode we have: The Extensionality Thesis (ET): (i) If „c causes e‟ is true and „c‟ and „d‟ co-refer, then „d causes e‟ is true; and (ii) If „c causes e‟ is true and „e‟ and „f‟ co-refer, then „c causes f‟ (...) is true. (shrink)
David Lewis has long defended an analysis of counterfactuals in terms of comparative similarity of possible worlds. The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate Lewis’s response to one of the oldest and most familiar objections to this proposal, the future similarity objection.
I am a material object. So there is a set of very small material objects (material simples, let us suppose) such that all and only the members of that set are parts of me right now. The parthood relation is a primitive, three-place relation that holds between two objects and a time. Set-membership is classical in the sense that it is never a matter of degree. I am also a human person. To say that I am a human is to (...) make a purely biological claim: I belong to the class of homo sapiens. To say that I am a person is, in part, to say that I possess certain cognitive features: I am conscious, I am the bearer of first-person intentional states and so on. These facts, in turn, supervene on the environment, together with the intrinsic properties and arrangement of the material simples that compose me now. This supervenience relation is insensitive in the sense that a slight change in the number, properties or arrangement of the simples that compose me now would not change the fact that there is a human person hereabouts. So, I am a material object and a human person. Moreover, I am currently the only object in the room that satisfies this description. I expect that a great number of philosophers would be happy to join with me in making the foregoing speech (at least those philosophers who think they are alone right now). However, as Hud Hudson notes in the beginning of his new book, A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person, “a wonderful little puzzle known as the Problem of the Many threatens to show that this popular collection of plausible claims leads to a contradiction, and thus that not all of them are as innocent as them seem.” (12). (shrink)
Previous theories of the relationship between dispositions and conditionals are unable to account for the fact that dispositions come in degrees. We propose a fix for this problem which has the added benefit of avoiding the familiar problems of finks and masks.
This is a summary of “Toward a Global Media Ethics: Theoretical Perspectives,” which appeared in Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies , 29(2), 2008, 135-172. The article was written by Clifford G. Christians, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Shakuntala Rao, State University of New York-Plattsburgh; Stephen J. A. Ward, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Herman Wasserman, University of Sheffield. It was the result of a workshop on global media ethics by the article's authors hosted by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (...) (STIAS) at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. The authors brought to the discussion the different perspectives of contractualism, communitarianism, and critical theory. The intention of the summary is to the draw the attention of scholars and ethicists outside the readership of Ecquid Novi to this leading-edge theoretical work. It is hoped the summary will stimulate comment and further work in global media ethics. The summary is not intended to replace the original article. Readers should consult the original for the full argument. (shrink)
Kris McDaniel (2009). Ways of Being. In David John Chalmers, David Manley & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press.score: 12.0
forthcoming in Metametaphysics, edited by David Chalmers, David Manley, and RyanWasserman, Oxford University Press.
Manley and Wasserman (2008) join the chorus of opposition to the possibility of conditional analysis of dispositions. But that score cannot be settled without more careful attention to the implicit philosophical methodology. Some of the opposition to such an analysis badly overestimates the effect of counterexamples, as if the Gettier example were sufficient to refute the possibility of conjunctive analysis of knowledge. A general objection to a form of analysis must satisfy a number of constraints, and Manley and (...) class='Hi'>Wasserman join the chorus too in failing to satisfy them. Most significant is the optional presupposition that the conditional used in analysis will exhibit some sort of centring. We show that even a careful effort to repair and reform Manley and Wasserman's objection to provide a satisfactory argument requires, ultimately, appeal to centring. Worse, the particular positive proposal they offer is vulnerable to a minor variant of their own counterexample. (shrink)
