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Single Idea 16212

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

Full Idea

A single isolated stage could not be a banana, because in order to be a banana a stage must be suitably related to other stages with appropriate properties.

Gist of Idea

An isolated stage can't be a banana (which involves suitable relations to other stages)

Source

Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 3.4.1)

Book Ref

Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.78


A Reaction

This seems at odds with the claim that each stage is the whole thing (rather than the long temporal 'worm' of perdurance theory). Isolated stages are instantaneous, so can't be anything, really. Her 'relations' seem hand-wavy to me. Connections?

Related Idea

Idea 16201 Perdurance says things are sums of stages; Stage Theory says each stage is the thing [Hawley]


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

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