Single Idea 16024

[catalogued under 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism]

Full Idea

Persons have different modal properties from the summations of person-stages. …I might have died when I was five. But the maximal summation of person-stages which perdurantists say is me could not have had a temporal extent of a mere five years.

Gist of Idea

I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not

Source

Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §5)

Book Reference

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.14


A Reaction

Thus the summation of stages seems to fail Leibniz's Law, since truths about a part are not true of the whole. But my foot might be amputated without me being amputated. The objection is the fallacy of composition?

Related Idea

Idea 6219 The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner]