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Single Idea 15540

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change ]

Full Idea

To say that properties are really relations to times is to treat temporary intrinsics (such as my changing shape) as a matter of relations, but then 'intrinsic properties' would not deserve the name, and it is untenable if it denies temporary intrinsics.

Gist of Idea

You can't deny temporary intrinsic properties by saying the properties are relations (to times)

Source

David Lewis (Rearrangement of Particles [1988], 1)

Book Ref

Lewis,David: 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' [CUP 1999], p.188

A Reaction

[I have compressed a paragraph; he refers to his 1986:204] If a property is meant to be a 'relation to a time', I am not sure what the relata are meant to be, and I agree with Lewis that this seems a long way from properties.

The 29 ideas with the same theme [how existence can persist even when becoming different]:

452 All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides]
5112 Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle]
20893 Nothing comes from non-existence, or passes into it [Democritus, by Diog. Laertius]
2063 How can beauty have identity if it changes? [Plato]
2061 The best things (gods, healthy bodies, good souls) are least liable to change [Plato]
2060 There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato]
1700 There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place [Aristotle]
16100 True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle]
16101 A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle]
12133 If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle]
16118 Nature is an active principle of change, like potentiality, but it is intrinsic to things [Aristotle]
16115 Change is the implied actuality of that which exists potentially [Aristotle]
22960 The sophists thought a man in the Lyceum is different from that man in the marketplace [Aristotle]
14030 The totality is complete, so there is no room for it to change, and nothing extraneous to change it [Epicurus]
3072 Everything is changing, including yourself and the whole universe [Aurelius]
17253 Change is nothing but movement [Hobbes]
15200 How could change consist of a conjunction of changeless facts? [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin]
14761 Change is not just having two different qualities at different points in some series [McTaggart]
8198 A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett]
15261 Humeans can only explain change with continuity as successive replacement [Harré/Madden]
15540 You can't deny temporary intrinsic properties by saying the properties are relations (to times) [Lewis]
15541 Maybe particles are unchanging, and intrinsic change in things is their rearrangement [Lowe, by Lewis]
8281 Heraclitus says change is new creation, and Spinoza that it is just phases of the one substance [Lowe]
4201 Four theories of qualitative change are 'a is F now', or 'a is F-at-t', or 'a-at-t is F', or 'a is-at-t F' [Lowe, by PG]
4202 Change can be of composition (the component parts), or quality (properties), or substance [Lowe]
15858 Traditionally, the four elements are just what persists through change [Harte,V]
12838 Four-dimensional ontology has no change, since that needs an object, and time to pass [Simons]
12842 There are real relational changes, as well as bogus 'Cambridge changes' [Simons]
23783 Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE]