Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Continuants: temporally extended entities as opposed to events or occurrences. There is a debate about whether continuants themselves can have temporal parts. See also endurantism, perdurantism, ontology, person, four-dimensionalism._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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P. Simons on Continuants - Dictionary of Arguments
I 117 Continuant/Broad: a continuant has no temporal parts, only spatial parts. Contrast: event: an event has spatial and temporal parts. Continuant: e.g. human. N.B.: that is why he is able to change. ((s) Otherwise there is the question of whether he remains the same.) >Temporal identity, >Personal identity. Contrast: occurrence/Broad: an event cannot change. ((s) A human (continuant) can grow old - an event cannot grow old.) >Humans, >Events, >Persons. I 127 Continuants/SimonsVsFour-Dimensionalism: things that can have mass are continuants and they are used in the argument of the Relativity Theory that nothing which has a mass can be accelerated beyond the speed of light. >Four-dimensionalism, >Relativity Theory. I 173 Continuants/Locke: continuants are constant clusters of matter. They cannot lose or gain any parts (SimonsVsLocke). >J. Locke. I 175 Temporal Part/continuants/mereology/SimonsVsAll other authors: thesis: even continuants can have temporal parts, i.e. they are not mereologically constant, but mereologically variable. Simons: thesis: continuants can also have an interrupted existence. >Existence. I 176 Continuants/Simons: not all continuants have to be material things, e.g. smile, nodes, waves: they are rather disruptions of material things. I 180 Def coincidence/continuants/Simons: coincidence predicate: CTD5 a ‹ ›t b ≡ a ‹t ∧ b ‹t a For a similarity of parts in terms of the mutual inclusion see Identity/Simons. I 187 Continuant/ChisholmVsAll other authors: thesis: a continuant is mereologically constant. Mereologically variable continuants are not really primary substances, but rather logical constructions of mereologically constant continuants. Organisms are only constructions. I 305 Event/continuants/Simons: event: here, a formula like "a‹b" is complete. Continuants: we need an additional time index here: ((s) with quantification) "(∃t)[a‹t b]". I 350 Continuant/Simons: events happen to a person and are called their life (or life story). Context: not all events of a life are causally connected. Solution: genetic identity (gene-identical): i.e. all events involve a single continuant. I 351 Continuant/temporal relationship/Simons: it is not the continuant, which belongs together, but its life story. HumeVsContinuants, RussellVsContinuants: continuants bring about a reduction to events, they are mere clotheslines. Whether a continuant exists depends on whether there is a life story to it. I 353 Simons: nothing maintains their continuous existence._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Simons I P. Simons Parts. A Study in Ontology Oxford New York 1987 |
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> Counter arguments against Simons
> Counter arguments in relation to Continuants
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-18