Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Lawrence B. Lombard, David Lewis and Jrgen Habermas

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5 ideas

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time

9663	A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis]
	Full Idea: Something 'perdures' iff it persists by having different temporal parts, or stages, at different times, though no one part of it is wholly present at more than one time; whereas it 'endures' iff it persists by being wholly present at more than one time.
	From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.2)
	A reaction: Only a philosopher would come up with a concept like perdurance. I'm thinking about this one, and will get back to you in a later-numbered idea... He compares perdurance to the way a road persists through space.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change

14737	Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider]
	Full Idea: The problem of 'temporary intrinsics' is that in one model we think of properties as relations to times (I am 'bent' relative to now), but change sometime involves intrinsic properties. I am just plain bent, not bent with respect to something else.
	From: report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], p.202-4) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism
	A reaction: [I've compressed Sider's summary] The question of whether intrinsic properties endure over time runs in parallel with the question of whether objects endure over time, and the two issues cannot be separated.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 3. Three-Dimensionalism

9664	Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis]
	Full Idea: The principal and decisive objection to endurance, as an account of the persistence of ordinary things, is the problem of temporary intrinsics. Persisting things change their intrinsic properties, such as their shape. My own shape keeps changing.
	From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.2)
	A reaction: Presumably if something was going to endure through time it would need a shape. If it has no particular shape, it lacks identity? Lewis discusses the problem at length. Why is a precise shape essential to anything?

9665	There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis]
	Full Idea: The problem for the endurance view of temporary intrinsic properties like shape is met be either saying shape is a disguised relational property, or only present properties are intrinsic, or the shapes belong to different things (perdurance).
	From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.2)
	A reaction: [compressed] It is certainly implausible to deny that shape is a feature of all physical objects. Or it appears to be. Shapes are hard to pin down at the quantum level. How do you sharply divide moments for the perdurance view? ...

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential

19280	I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis]
	Full Idea: If I ask how things would be if Saul Kripke had come from no sperm and egg, but was brought by a stork, that makes sense. I create a context that makes my question make sense, which is a context that makes origin not to be essential.
	From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 4.5)
	A reaction: I'm not clear why delivery by a stork doesn't just count as a different origin, and hence it turns out to be essential to Kripke. If Kripke were a necessary being (and he's a good candidate), then he would have no origin.