Persistence and Location in Relativistic Spacetime

Abstract

How is the debate between endurantism and perdurantism affected by the transition from pre-relativistic spacetimes to relativistic ones? After suggesting that the endurance vs. perdurance distinction may run together a pair of cross-cutting distinctions (mereological endurance vs. mereological perdurance and locational endurance vs. locational perdurance), I discuss two recent attempts to show that the transition in question does serious damage to endurantism (at least of the locational variety).

HowDoThings Persist? Location Relations in Physics and the Metaphysics of Persistence

“…This captures the thought that a thing's path is the region that exactly corresponds to the thing's complete history or career. (Gilmore 2008(Gilmore , 1228 Note that this definition is satisfied if one simply forms the union of all the (time-indexed) regions at which an object is exactly located. In that case, it seems tempting to say that a persisting object is exactly located at its fourdimensional path.…”

“…Balashov (2000Balashov ( , 2010, Gibson and Pooley (2006), Gilmore (2006Gilmore ( , 2008. 31 For such complaints see (e.g.)…”

“…This is the approach taken by Gilmore, who uses a location relation of exact occupation to classify possible theories of persistence in locational terms. Gilmore (2008) introduces this relation as follows:…”

“…1 Relevant authors include Balashov (2000Balashov ( , 2002Balashov ( , 2010, Donnelly (2011), Gibson and Pooley (2006), Gilmore (2006Gilmore ( , 2008Gilmore ( , 2013, Hudson (2005) and Parsons (2007Parsons ( , 2008. relativistic spacetimes to provide a unique foliation into spacelike hyperplanes of simultaneity has been thought to provide an argument in favor of perdurance, according to which persisting objects are four-dimensional (Balashov 2000).…”

“…Section 2 begins with a brief account of Gilmore's (2008) use of exact occupation to classify locational theories of persistence. I then show how both the endurantist and perdurantist can use the location relation of classical mechanics to define satisfactory accounts of persistence in those terms.…”