Abstract
Mereological challenges have recently been raised against the endurantist. For instance, Barker and Dowe (2003) have argued that eternalist endurantism entails (1) persisting objects are both 3D and 4D, and that (2) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. They also argue that presentist endurantism also entails, albeit in a tensed way, that (3) the lives of persisting objects last longer than they actually do. While they’ve further argued (2005) that the objections raised by McDaniel (2003) and Beebee and Rush (2003) fail, here I show that such objections are tenable without requiring further significant metaphysical commitments; I argue that such endurantist defences are tenable, contra to prior analyses.
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Notes
Skow (2007: 115–7) motivates this move. I should note that this isn’t the consequence Skow sought for the substantivalist. He argues that since shape cannot be intrinsic, substantivalism should be abandoned. But the idea that all shapes are just extrinsic is also compatible with his argument (and more palatable to the substantivalist).
McDaniel (2007) also finds that all shapes of material objects are extrinsic.
We can say that Eric is wholly located (or located, in Eagle’s terms) at the smallest region which it fills and is contained in – where Eric fills a region iff Eric occupies each subregion of it, and where Eric is contained in a region iff each part of Eric occupies a subregion of it. Filling and being contained in a region is not reducible to being located there; they are different kinds of extrinsic location relations (Eagle 2010: 54–56). Thus, we can see why enduring objects are only 3D objects here: because, according to the endurantist, Eric will only located at 3D regions (whereas perduring objects will be 4D objects because they’re only located at 4D regions).
We might say L(Eric)1 is its youth and that L(Eric)2 is its old age.
I take it that there’s nothing unintelligible about this claim. But I suppose this will depend on one’s ontology of events. However it isn’t readily apparent that the endurantist cannot say this (or even that this is the only available route here).
At least if we accept, as Barker and Dowe (2005: 73) maintain, that Eric is a part of L(Eric). As an anonymous referee has pointed out, not everyone may be incline to take objects to be parts of those events in which they play a role. This would seem to block Barker and Dowe earlier. I argue here that, even if we play their game, the endurantist is in no danger.
My position might entail that L(Eric)1 can be partly located in R 2, if at least one constituent of L(Eric)1 is wholly located in R 2. But the possibility of partial location isn’t a threat to the endurantist position and, as such, I leave partial location unanalysed.
Denying the second part of this conjunct — that the distinct spacetime regions must have different temporal co-ordinates — won’t help Barker and Dowe’s case since the presentist endurantist position doesn’t entail that objects are multi-spatially located (although the view doesn’t prohibit it). And to deny that the spacetime regions must be equally real would be nonsensical here.
References
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Acknowledgment
I thank Toby Handfield, John Bigelow, Dana Goswick, and an anonymous referee for feedback on earlier drafts and helpful discussions.
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Daniels, P.R. Endurantism and Paradox. Philosophia 41, 1173–1179 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9463-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9463-0