Four-Dimensionalism
Clicks: 1
ID: 295830
2001
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This
article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score —
reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
Reader Engagement
0.0
/100
1 views
0 readers
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Ranked #903 of 1,518 articles by views in Oxford University Press eBooks
Most read
Least read
Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 1,518 in total.
Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet mintedCreate a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.
5
SUSD
one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Abstract According to ‘four‐dimensionalism’, temporally extended things are composed of temporal parts. Most four‐dimensionalists identify ordinary continuants—the persisting objects ordinary language quantifies over and names—with aggregates of temporal parts (‘space‐time worms’), but an attractive alternate version of four‐dimensionalism identifies ordinary continuants with instantaneous temporal slices and accounts for temporal predication using temporal counterpart theory. Arguments for four‐dimensionalism include the following: (1) Either substantivalism or relationalism about space‐time is true, but given substantivalism one might as well identify continuants with regions of space‐time, which have temporal parts, or with instantaneous slices of space‐time, whereas relationalism about space‐time cannot be made to work without temporal parts. (2) It can never be vague how many objects exist; if temporal parts do not exist, then a restrictive account of which filled regions of space‐time contain objects must be given, but no such account can be given that is plausible and non‐vague. (3) Four‐dimensionalism—especially the alternate, counterpart‐theoretic version—provides the most satisfying overall account of the ‘paradoxes of material constitution’, in which numerically distinct material objects (e.g. statues and lumps of clay) apparently share exactly the same parts. Objections to four‐dimensionalism (involving, e.g., motion in homogeneous substances and de re modal properties) may be answered. While logically independent of the question of four‐dimensionalism, the book also defends related theses, including (1) a robust meta‐ontology according to which unrestricted existence‐statements are non‐vague, non‐analytic, and uninfected by human convention; (2) the B‐theory of time (the opposite of presentism); (3) unrestricted composition; and (4) counterpart theory (both modal and temporal).
| Reference Key |
openalex_W4210944044
Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using
SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
|
|---|---|
| Authors | Theodore Sider |
| Journal | Oxford University Press eBooks |
| Year | 2001 |
| DOI |
10.1093/019924443x.001.0001
|
| URL | |
| Keywords | Keywords not found |
Citations
No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.