Persistence and Spacetime

250 Pages·2010·1.178 MB·English

by  Yuri Balashov

Persistence and Spacetime
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Persistence and Spacetime
Yuri Balashov
1
1
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Acknowledgements
I acknowledge support from the Willson Center for the Humanities and
Arts and the University of Georgia Research Foundation, in the form of
grantsandteachingreleases,whichhasallowedmetodevotemoretimeand
efforttothisprojectthan wouldbepossible otherwise. Iextendmythanks
to the Royal Institute of Philosophy, the London School of Economics,
Institute for History and Foundations of Science at the University of
Utrecht, and philosophy departments at Duke University, Idaho State
University, and the University of South Carolina for opportunities to give
colloquium and workshop presentations related to this project.
In my work on this book I have benefited greatly from numerous
discussionswithmycolleagues.Iwouldliketothankthefollowingpeople
for helpful comments: Bana Bashour, Darrin Belousek, Peter Bokulich,
Carolyn Brighouse, Andrew Cortens, Chuck Cross, Jim Cushing, Mauro
Dorato,Arthur Fine,Mark Heller,DonHoward,JohnKennedy, Trenton
Merricks, J. Brian Pitts, Oliver Pooley, Mike Rea, Robert Rynasiewicz,
Ted Sider, James Simmons, Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman,
participants in my seminars at the University of Georgia, and anonymous
referees.
I am particularly grateful to Maureen Donnelly and Hud Hudson for
extensive discussions and advice on the material presented in the book.
Special thanks are due to Cody Gilmore who provided detailed and
insightful comments on the entire manuscript.
I would also like to thank Peter Momtchiloff for his encouragement
and my research assistant Charles Hollingsworth, the copy-editor Angela
Anstey-Holroyd, and my editors at Oxford Catherine Berry and Louise
Sprake, for their help at various stages of the work on the manuscript.
Forpermissiontoreuseportionsofpreviouslypublishedmaterial,Iwould
like to acknowledge the following: ‘Persistence and Space-Time: Philo-
sophical Lessons of the Pole and Barn,’ The Monist 83 (2000): 321–40,
Copyright(c)2000,THEMONIST:AnInternationalQuarterlyJournalof
Philosophical Inquiry, Peru, Illinois, USA 61354;‘On Stages, Worms, and
acknowledgements vii
Relativity,’ in Craig Callender (ed.), Time, Reality, and Experience (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 223–52; ‘Special Relativity,
CoexistenceandTemporalParts:AReplytoGilmore,’PhilosophicalStudies
124 (2005): 1–40, with kind permission of Springer Science and Business
Media;‘OnVagueness,4DandDiachronic Universalism,’TheAustralasian
Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005): 523–31, with permission from Taylor and
Francis; ‘Defining ‘‘Exdurance’’,’ Philosophical Studies 133 (2007): 143–9,
with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media; ‘About
Stage Universalism,’ Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2007): 21–39; ‘Persistence
and Multilocation in Spacetime,’ in D. Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Space-
time, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008), 59–81, with permission from
Elsevier; ‘Pegs, Boards, and Relativistic Perdurance,’ Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 90 (2009): 167–75. Some portions of the content of Chapters 1,
2, 4, and 5 will also be appearing in ‘Persistence,’ in Craig Callen-
der (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
forthcoming).
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Contents
List of Figures xii
Introduction xv
1. Background and Assumptions 1
1.1. Persistence and Philosophy of Time 1
1.2. Atomism and Composition 6
1.3. Scope 8
1.4. Some Matters of Methodology 9
2. Persistence, Location, and Multilocation in Spacetime 11
2.1. Endurance, Perdurance, Exdurance: Some Pictures 11
2.2. More Pictures 14
2.3. Temporal Modification and the ‘‘Problem of Temporary
Intrinsics’’ 18
2.4. Persistence, Location, and Multilocation in Generic
Spacetime 24
2.5. An Alternative Classification 36
3. Classical and Relativistic Spacetime 41
3.1. Newtonian Spacetime 43
3.2. Neo-Newtonian (Galilean) Spacetime 48
3.3. Reference Framesand Coordinate Systems 50
3.4. Galilean Transformations in Spacetime 50
3.5. Special Relativistic Spacetime 54
3.6. Length Contraction and Time Dilation 57
3.7. Invariant Properties of Special Relativistic Spacetime 63
4. Persisting Objects in Classical Spacetime 71
4.1. Enduring, Perduring, and Exduring Objects in Galilean
Spacetime 71
4.2. The Argumentfrom Vagueness 77
4.3. From Minimal D-Fusions to Temporal Parts 79
4.4. Motivating a Sharp Cutoff 82