Title

Wholly Present' Defined

School/Department

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Date

9-2005

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 three-dimensionalist 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.

Keywords

Whole and parts (Philosophy); Presentism (Philosophy)

Publication Title

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Volume

71

Issue

2

First Page

318

Last Page

344

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