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Single Idea 16206

[filed under theme 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts ]

Full Idea

To account for change, stages and temporal parts must be as fine-grained as change: a material thing must have as many stages or parts as it is in incompatible states during its lifetime.

Gist of Idea

Stages must be as fine-grained in length as change itself, so any change is a new stage

Source

Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 2.4)

Book Ref

Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.48

A Reaction

There seems to be a dilemma for stages here, of being so fat that they are divisible and change, or so thin that they barely exist. Lose-lose, I'd say.

Related Idea

Idea 16205 The stages of Stage Theory seem too thin to populate the world, or to be referred to [Hawley]

The 21 ideas with the same theme [things have parts in time, as they do in space]:

13267 Temporal parts is a crazy doctrine, because it entails constantly creating stuff ex nihilo [Thomson, by Koslicki]
16209 How can point-duration slices of people have beliefs or desires? [Thomson]
17521 You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers]
17514 Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers]
16023 Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan]
12297 Three-dimensionalist can accept temporal parts, as things enduring only for an instant [Fine,K]
17279 Even a three-dimensionalist might identify temporal parts, in their thinking [Fine,K]
14730 Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider]
14731 Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider]
14758 How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider]
14762 Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider]
16203 Stage Theory seems to miss out the link between stages of the same object [Hawley]
16204 Stage Theory says every stage is a distinct object, which gives too many objects [Hawley]
16205 The stages of Stage Theory seem too thin to populate the world, or to be referred to [Hawley]
16206 Stages must be as fine-grained in length as change itself, so any change is a new stage [Hawley]
16212 An isolated stage can't be a banana (which involves suitable relations to other stages) [Hawley]
16213 Stages of one thing are related by extrinsic counterfactual and causal relations [Hawley]
13927 We must explain change amongst 'momentary entities', or else the world is inexplicable [Haslanger]
13928 If the things which exist prior to now are totally distinct, they need not have existed [Haslanger]
14410 You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks]
14561 Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum]