‘Wholly Present’ Defined

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2):318–344 (2005)
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Abstract

Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would be better off if she could state her theory in terms accessible to all. We think she can. What is needed is a definition of ‘is wholly present at’ that all can understand. in this paper, we offer one.

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Author Profiles

Donald Smith
Virginia Commonwealth University
Thomas M. Crisp
Biola University

Citations of this work

Where in the relativistic world are we?Cody Gilmore - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):199–236.
Theories of persistence.Ryan Wasserman - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):243-250.
Mereological endurantism and being a whole at a time: reply to Costa.Roberto Loss - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (9):2874-2883.

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References found in this work

Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.
Parts: A Study in Ontology.Peter M. Simons - 1987 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
How things persist.Katherine Hawley - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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