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Single Idea 22625

[filed under theme 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time ]

Full Idea

There are very obvious causal aspects to the constitution and continued existence of compound entities, especially in light of the scientific image of the world.

Gist of Idea

Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects

Source

R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 6)

Book Ref

'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time', ed/tr. Callender,Craig [OUP 2013], p.99


A Reaction

I like this a lot. He aims to explain constitution and persistance, rather than just describing or characterising them, and causal binding seems the obvious thought. There are still intermittent and distributed objects, like a dismantled clock.


The 16 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about sameness of objects over time]:

Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides]
Identity means that the idea of a thing remains the same over time [Locke]
Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz]
A change more obviously destroys an identity if it is quick and observed [Hume]
Changing a part can change the whole, not absolutely, but by its proportion of the whole [Hume]
Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
An a priori principle of persistence anticipates all experience [Kant]
No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time [Kripke]
'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins]
A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis]
If things change they become different - but then no one thing undergoes the change! [Gallois]
Gallois hoped to clarify identity through time, but seems to make talk of it impossible [Hawley on Gallois]
A continuous object might be a type, with instances at each time [Ladyman/Ross]
Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron]
Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson]
Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson]