Johanna Seibt - Process and persistence

Forskarseminarium

Högre seminariet i teoretisk filosofi: Johanna Seibt - Process and persistence

Abstract: The task of an ontological interpretation of persistence is to define a model structure ('truth-makers') in terms of which we can justify inferential space of statements about transtemporal sameness and change for instances of as many of our general classificatory concepts as possible (things, persons, events, actions, features, relationships etc.). The contemporary debate about persistence seems deadlocked in an opposition between endurance and perdurance accounts: endurantists hold that transtemporal sameness is identity, perdurantist insist that transtemporal sameness is, at bottom, to be defined in terms of a relation. I present a new, third option, the 'recurrence account' of persistence that is embedded within an ontology of non-particular individuals (a process ontology). As I try to show, relative to the data and evaluative criteria of a theory of persistence accepted in the current debate, the recurrence account performs better than (certain representatives of) perdurance and endurance theories.