Chisholm and the Doctrine of Temporal Parts
In the appendix to Person and Object, Roderick Chisholm discusses the doctrine of temporal parts. Chisholm’s position is that the arguments commonly supplied in support of the doctrine are not successful. In this paper, I will consider Chisholm’s objections and then give my own responses in favor of the doctrine of temporal parts.
The doctrine of temporal parts, commonly called four dimensionalism, is a metaphysical theory concerning how it is that objects persist through time. Four dimensionalism holds that objects are both spatially and temporally extended; as such, an object is considered to be demarcated by its dimensions in both the spatial and temporal realms. In terms of parthood, then, four dimensionalism considers an object to be jointly composed of both its spatial and temporal parts. Moreover, at any one point in time, it is only a spatiotemporal part of the entire four dimensional whole that is presenting itself to us. The four dimensionalist speaks of these parts, or stages (“time slices”) of the four dimensional object as constituting, over a period of time, the entire object[1]. Another way of putting this is to say that a four dimensional object is an aggregate of all of its spatial and temporal parts.
Opposed to this view of the persistence of objects through time is three dimensionalism. Three dimensionalism appears to be more in line with our common everyday sense of how objects persist through time; one in which we believe in, as Chisholm puts it, “the concept of one and the same individual existing at different times” (143). In contrast to the four dimensionalist, then, the three dimensionalist maintains that objects persist by being “wholly present” at each point at which they exist. Ultimately, Chisholm uses his arguments against temporal parts in order to support his general theses concerning personal identity over time. However, it is not within the scope of this paper to explore the underlying reasons Chisholm might have had for arguing against the four dimensionalist: that topic is best left to a more extensive project on the subject of the persistence of objects through time. For now, we will just take a look at three criticisms that Chisholm proposes for the temporal parts theorist: (1) that the so-called spatial analogy is not accurate, (2) that the doctrine of temporal parts does not solve the Phillip drunk/ Phillip sober puzzle, and (3) that the doctrine is of no use in solving various other metaphysical puzzles.
If a two-way communicator existed across time for this to be achieved the two metaphysical considerations must be met. Firstly, Lewis highlights the that “time is one dimension of four”, in the fourth-dimensional world, suggesting that time is just as perceptible as any place and potentially where the time traveller will send the message. Second, fourth-dimensional spectrum also considers causation and possible reverse causation, that is there must be awareness for earlier events to be causally dependable on the future events, and therefore how communication will take place between two different times. Lewis argues that his grandfather paradox can provide solidarity with the past, only if a time traveller was to travel to the past, they would not be able to make any changes that may potentially lead to them never
John McTaggart in his essay “Time” presents a radical argument that claims time is unreal. While the argument is interesting and has attracted much attention for his arguments, I remain unconvinced of the argument he makes. This paper will lay out McTaggart’s argument that time in unreal, critically analyze why I believe McTaggart’s argument fails and present an alternative idea about time, utilizing aspects of McTaggart’s argument.
To answer the question of whether a person can persist through time, it is important to consider what is meant by a ‘person’. This consideration seems trivial at first, and if one were to take the physicalist route, it would be – a person persists through time by existing as the same human animal. However, it is in fact a lot harder to pinpoint what the ‘self’ actually consists of if we were to take the psychological route and consider the voice inside our heads, the voice that thinks and experiences and suffers. What is this mysterious immaterial phenomenon that we hold to be our personal identity? And what makes it the same entity as the one yesterday? Although these questions don’t have an explicit answer yet, in this essay I will attempt to give an insight on how they could be answered, offering a psychological
In this essay we will consider a much more recent approach to time that came to the fore in the twentieth century. In 1908 James McTaggart published an article in Mind entitled 'The Unreality of Time', in which, as the title implies, he argued that there is in reality no such thing as time. Now although this claim was in itself startling, probably what was even more significant than McTaggart's arguments was his way of stating them. It was in this paper that McTaggart first drew his now standard distinction between two ways of saying when things happen. In this essay we shall outline these ways of describing events and then discuss the merits and demerits of each, and examine what has become known as the 'tensed versus tenseless' debate on temporal becoming.
In the early 1980s aggression and violence in the workplace have been a source of a lot of public discussion. (Piquero pg.383) The issues have risen again recently and have mostly been present in management and business fields. Workplace aggression often includes “behavior by an individual or individuals within or outside organizations that is intended to physically or psychologically harms a worker or workers and occurs in a work related”. (Schat& Kelloway Pg. 191) A national survey Conducted by the National Centers for Victims of Crime shows several statistics regarding workplace homicide by type show that is the year of (see fig. 1), violent crimes against victims working or an duty( see fig. 2) and nonfatal workplace violence committed by strangers(see fig. 3
Axtman, K., & Clayton, M. (2005, August 12). Worker right or workplace danger? (Cover story). Christian Science Monitor, 01-10. Retrieved from https://web-ebscohost-com.libdatab.strayer.edu/ehost
The what it is like to undergo an experience is essential to understanding that experience. Known by philosophers as subjective qualia, these characteristics are part of what makes a felt experience exactly that experience. If we introspect our own mental states, this seems apparent and incontrovertible. Most philosophers are unwilling to grant that subjective qualia are non-physical states, and attempts to face this problem and maintain physicalism must address arguments from qualia. While differing physical explanations for these subjective qualia exist, I will only briefly refer to them here as qualia will serve only as a means of leading the reader to the Explanatory Gap(1). The Explanatory Gap is a uniquely puzzling problem for physicalist philosophies of mind.
Workplace violence is a frustrating issue confronting businesses today. While more data on the reason for violence and how to handle it is getting known, there is frequently no sensible basis for this sort of behavior and, in spite of all that we know or do, fierce circumstances happen. No superintendent is resistant from working environment brutality and no manager can completely anticipate it.Workplace violence can cause many issues for a business, from extra expense, to how to deal with the problem, and prevent it from happening in the future.
Violent acts in the workplace come from a diverse population of perpetrators. Employees, former employees, clients, strangers, and even employers are all potential sources of violent behavior. In most cases, the person responsible for workplace slayings fits a certain stereotype. The violent person is either an unhappy employee, a frustrated customer, or in some type of relationship with an employee in the company, and almost always a socially reclusive male (Chavez, Workplace 1).
Physicalism, or the idea that everything, including the mind, is physical is one of the major groups of theories about how the nature of the mind, alongside dualism and monism. This viewpoint strongly influences many ways in which we interact with our surrounding world, but it is not universally supported. Many objections have been raised to various aspects of the physicalist viewpoint with regards to the mind, due to apparent gaps in its explanatory power. One of these objections is Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument. This argument claims to show that even if one has all of the physical information about a situation, they can still lack knowledge about what it’s like to be in that situation. This is a problem for physicalism because physicalism claims that if a person knows everything physical about a situation they should know everything about a situation. There are, however, responses to the Knowledge Argument that patch up physicalism to where the Knowledge Argument no longer holds.
Workplace violence is scary and intense. It doesn’t matter who you are in the situation, the victim, onlooker, or even the committer, it is frightening. When something happens to push an employee over the edge into violent action, many other employees are inadvertently involved. I observed a case of workplace violence many years ago, but I will not forget it anytime soon.
Physicalism of the human mind is a doctrine that states that the world is ‘entirely physical’, and can be described in various ways. One way it can be described is that minds, mental properties and mental processes are visibly not physical phenomena. Terms such as “mind,” “thinking,” and “feeling” do not play in the theories of fundamental physics. For example, in this slim sense of “physical,” a lung is not a physical object, inhalation is not a physical property and diffusion is not a physical process; as in the terms “lung,” “inhalation,” and “diffusion” do not have a role in the theories of fundamental physics. Acknowledging that mental phenomena are not physical in this slim sense is not vastly acknowledging. However, certainly there is an open sense of the word “physical” in which a lung, inhalation, and diffusion are certainly physical phenomena. Physicalism of the human mind proclaims that human minds, mental properties and mental processes are physical in this open sense of “physical.” A clear open sense of “physical” is contentious in the philosophy of the mind. A common view is: “An individual item (e.g., object, property-instance, or process) is physical in the broad sense if, and only if, it meets either of two conditions: (1) it’s an item of a kind that can in principle be defined in the distinctive vocabulary of fundamental physics; or (2) it’s a physically realized item of a functional kind.” The first condition is straight forward, but the second condition evidently demands clarification. Accordingly, a “functional” kind of thing is one in which its existence entails in the actuality of “something or other” that encounters a convinced measurement where the structure and functioning of the “something or other” does not matter as long as it encounters the functioning in request. For instance, a lung is a functional kind of object in my sense. Therefore,
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes seeks to prove that corporeal objects exist. This argument is put forth based on the principles and supposed facts he has built up throughout the Meditations. In order to fully understand his argument for the existence of corporeal things, one must trace his earlier arguments for effects and their causes, the existence of God, the nature of God, and his ability to never make mistakes.
There is a general perception that violence is growing in our society. Almost everyday we can turn on the news or read the newspaper and we hear stories about horrific workplace murders and assaults. Not only is the workplace violence increasing in those workplaces where violence is expected, such as correction, enforcement, and mental health, but also it has become a danger in almost every occupation that deals with the public. Therefore, few would argue that over the last ten years, occupational violence has become a serious problem facing workers and employers alike. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, murder was the second leading cause of death in the workplace in 1996, accounting for 15% of all workplace deaths. Although the press focuses on the “crazy worker-type violence,” where a worker kills his supervisor or co-worker, violence among co-workers occurs very infrequently compared to other types of workplace violence. Since 1992, violence among co-workers has averaged only about 6% of all work-related homicides. The rest are the result of robberies or other crimes.
But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human life, such as human dignity and personal identity. The mind-body problem entails two theories, dualism and physicalism. Dualism contends that distinct mental and physical realms exist, and they both must be taken into account. Its counterpart (weak) physicalism views the human as being completely bodily and physical, encompassing no non-physical, or spiritual, substances.