Eternalist Theories of Persistence Through Time W

Authors: Jiri Benovsky

Publish Date: 2008/12/03

Volume: 19, Issue: 1, Pages: 51-71

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Abstract

The eternalist endurantist and perdurantist theories of persistence through time come in various versions namely the two versions of perdurantism the worm view and the stage view and the two versions of endurantism indexicalism and adverbialism Using as a starting point the instructive case of what is depicted by photographs I will examine these four views and compare them with some interesting results Notably we will see that two traditional enemies—the perdurantist worm view and the endurantist theories—are more like allies they are much less different than what is usually thought and some alleged points of central disagreement fall prey to closer scrutiny The aim of this paper is to examine carefully all those points and to call attention to the places where the real differences between these views lie I will then turn to the perdurantist stage view and claim that with respect to some central issues it is the view that is the most different from the other three but that in some places the reason why it different is also the reason why it is less satisfactoryFor very valuable comments and suggestions I would like to thank Michael Esfeld Fabian Dorsch Mark Heller Laurie Paul and Gianfranco Soldati as well as the participants to the SOPHA Conference in AixenProvence The photograph included in this paper is protected by international copyright by Jiri Benovsky wwwbenovskycom

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