Times, Worlds and Locations

Abstract

In 'from times to worlds and back again: a transcendentist theory of persistence' (henceforth TTP) Alessandro Giordani and Damiano Costa outline five competitor views regarding the manner in which objects occupy 1 regions along a dimension. These are: (1) classical uni-location, (2) bare uni-location, (3) multi-location, (4) counterpart presence and (5) transcendent presence. Each view comes in both a temporal and modal version and Giordani and Costa argue that one ought to prefer transcendentism (i.e., 5) along both dimensions. According to temporal transcendentism, necessarily, no object is exactly located at any region along the temporal dimension. Instead, any object, O, is derivatively present at some region, R, along the temporal dimension in virtue of bearing certain relations to something (according to TTP an event) that occupies R along that dimension. According to modal transcendentism, no object is exactly located at any region along the modal dimension. Instead, any object, O, is derivatively present at some region, R, along the modal dimension in virtue of bearing certain relations to something (according to TTP an event) that occupies R along that dimension.Before evaluating transcendentism it is worth distinguishing two different questions one might ask. The first is a metaphysical question: if an object occupies a region that is extended along some dimension, D, then in what manner does that object occupy that region? Answers to this question offer a metaphysics of occupation. The second is a semantic question: what are the truth conditions for certain ordinary temporal and modal claims about objects? Answers to this question provide a temporal or modal semantics.This article has two aims: first, to elucidate transcendentism and, second, to determine whether it offers a novel answer to either the metaphysical or the semantic question. With respect to the first question it will be argued that it does not. With respect to the second, it will be argued that perhaps, if one accepts additional, seemingly controversial, claims about the semantics of ordinary language, transcendentism offers a novel semantics for such claims. It remains, however, unclear whether such ancillary claims ought be accepted and thus unclear whether transcendentism is well motivated.Let us briefly recap the five views as they are presented in TTP. Classical uni-location is the view that objects exactly occupy 2 a single region and occupy 3 any proper subregion thereof by having a proper part that exactly occupies that subregion.

In Defence of Transcendentism

“…A concrete example of the latter case goes as follows. If objects are sums of events, and events are located at times, it is plausibly the case that (i) many claims about objects are made true by the events that compose them, and (ii) objects themselves, insofar as they have parts that are located at times -events -will also be located at times (Miller 2013).…”

Inwariantyzm a transcendentyzm

“…Jedną z nielicznych krytyk transcendentyzmu można znaleźć w(Miller 2013). Costa i Giordani odpowiadają na tę krytykę w(Costa, Giordani 2016).…”