Theories Of Perdurantism

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Change in the properties of objects over time is a problem for the persistence of these objects. Properties of objects change over time such as trees growing taller and candles melting. Haslanger (2003) notes that this is a problem if we want to call these objects the same thing after change even though they have incompatible properties (p. 316). The tree in the field cannot have the properties of both being five meters tall and six meters tall. Perdurantism is one of the theories that attempts to explain how objects persist over time by explaining why objects can have incompatible properties. However, perdurantism has its flaws, as shown by the critique of worm theory and temporal changes.
Perdurantism is one of the theories that endeavours
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There is one ship at port x, being the ship with all the original parts. By the end of its journey, there is two ships at port y, one being Theseus’ ship with all new parts and the other ship being made up of the original parts of Theseus’ ship. The first ship continues to be Theseus’ ship even as it is replaced with new parts due to the closely related temporal stages of the ship making the object that is Theseus’ ship. However, the old parts of the ship being used to make another ship is also Theseus’ ship as those parts also share the same temporal stages as the other ship. This can be called the “worm theory” where two or more objects share the same temporal stages and exist as one object before branching off and having distinct temporal stages from each other (Ney, 2014, p. 175-177. In the case of Theseus’ ship, the two ships were one object and branches off into two ships when the old parts are used to make a new ship. When the branch occurs, the two ships share the past temporal stages but have different temporal stages moving …show more content…
One of these criticisms relates to the worm theory and why it is implausible, particularly when considering another theory of persistence which is exdurantism. Sider (1996) argues that the worm theory is implausible when it comes to the common-sense view of identity (p. 439). If an object consists of all its temporal stages, it then becomes problematic when an object splits into two, like Theseus’ ship, because we would have to admit that before the split there is two of that object before the split occurs (Sider, 1996, p. 439-440). Using Theseus’ ship, it becomes absurd to say that there are two ships at a stage before the split occurs. This is not the way we typically view identity as we would usually only say there is two ships once the split occurs, not before. However, because an object is comprised of all its temporal stages, this means that the two ships must coexist at all times, even though they are currently not physically existing separately. Thus, Sider’s argument critques the theory of perdurantism through the worm theory. The theory faces a problem if one is not willing to accept that it is possible for an object to have at least two different identities before a split occurs against what we common perceive to be identity. Though a perdurantist may argue that a flaw in split objects and identities is not a major issue, it also brings up

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