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Four-dimensionalism
In philosophy, four-dimensionalism (also known as the doctrine of temporal parts) is the ontological position that an object's persistence through time is like its extension through space. Thus, an object that exists in time has temporal parts in the various subregions of the total region of time it occupies, just like an object that exists in a region of space has at least one part in every subregion of that space. Four-dimensionalists typically argue for treating time as analogous to space, usually leading them to endorse the doctrine of '' eternalism''. This is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, according to which all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real. As some eternalists argue by analogy, just as all spatially distant objects and events are equally as real as those close to us, temporally distant objects and events are as real as those currently present to us. ''Perdurantism''—or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endurantism
Endurantism or endurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity. According to the endurantist view, material objects are persisting three-dimensional individuals wholly present at every moment of their existence, which goes with an A-theory of time. This conception of an individual as always present is opposed to perdurantism or four-dimensionalism, which maintains that an object is a series of temporal parts or stages, requiring a B-theory of time. The use of "endure" and "perdure" to distinguish two ways in which an object can be thought to persist can be traced to David Lewis. One serious problem of endurantism is the problem of temporary intrinsics raised by David Lewis. Lewis claims that intrinsic properties of objects would change over time. Thus, endurantism cannot harmonize identity with change and then cannot explain persistence clearly even if endurantists appeal to intrinsic properties. Endurantists may argue that intrinsic properties are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exist on the most fundamental level. Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses classification of all entities. Commonly proposed categories include substances, properties, relations, states of affairs and events. These categories are characterized by fundamental ontological concepts, including particularity and universality, abstractness and concreteness, or possibility and necessity. Of special interest is the concept of ontological dependence, which determines whether the entities of a category exist on the most fundamental level. Disagreements within ontology are often about whether entities belonging to a certain category exist and, if so, how the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eternalism (philosophy Of Time)
In the philosophy of space and time, eternalism is an approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all existence in time is equally ''real'', as opposed to presentism or the growing block universe theory of time, in which at least the future is not the same as any other time. Some forms of eternalism give time a similar ontology to that of space, as a dimension, with different times being as real as different places, and future events are "already there" in the same sense other places are already there, and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time. The present In classical philosophy, time is divided into three distinct regions: the "past", the "present", and the "future". Using that representational mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Space And Time
Philosophy of space and time is the branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology and epistemology of space and time. While such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception, the philosophy of space and time was both an inspiration for and a central aspect of early analytic philosophy. The subject focuses on a number of basic issues, including whether time and space exist independently of the mind, whether they exist independently of one another, what accounts for time's apparently unidirectional flow, whether times other than the present moment exist, and questions about the nature of identity (particularly the nature of identity over time). Ancient and medieval views The earliest recorded philosophy of time was expounded by the ancient Egyptian thinker Ptahhotep (c. 2650–2600 BC) who said: The ''Vedas'', the earliest texts on Indian philosophy and Hindu philosophy, dating back to the late 2nd millennium BC, describe ancient Hindu cosmo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple Occupancy View
In metaphysics, the multiple occupancy view (m.o.) is a particular analysis of fission cases, which claims to be at least ''a priori'' possible, if not actually true of real cases of fission. Description Imagine an amoeba which undergoes symmetrical fission into two sister amoebae (call them B and C). We tend to think that before fission there was one amoeba (call it A), but what has happened to it? It has not died, for death is a biological state, and there are no dead amoebae lying around after the fission! In fact, there is more life after the fission than there was before, i.e. two live amoebae instead of just one. Has A somehow ceased to exist without dying? Is A still around, and identical with either B or C? It cannot be identified with both B and C, for identity is a transitive relation, and B is certainly not the same amoeba as C. Yet, the fission was symmetrical, so neither B nor C has any more or less claim to be A than the other. This is the problem. We seem to be forc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perdurantism
Perdurantism or perdurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity.Temporal parts – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The debate over persistence currently involves three competing theories—one three-dimensionalist theory called "endurantism" and two four-dimensionalist theories called "perdurantism" and "exdurantism". For a perdurantist, all objects are considered to be four-dimensional worms and they make up the different regions of spacetime. It is a fusion of all the perdurant's instantaneous time slices compiled and blended into a complete mereological whole. Perdurantism posits that temporal parts alone are what ultimately change. David Lewis in "On The Plurality of World" states that change is "the possession of different properties by different temporal parts of an object" (12). Take any perdur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rietdijk–Putnam Argument
In philosophy, the Rietdijk–Putnam argument, named after and Hilary Putnam, uses 20th-century findings in physicsspecifically in special relativityto support the philosophical position known as four-dimensionalism. If special relativity is true, then each observer will have their own '' plane of simultaneity'', which contains a unique set of events that constitutes the observer's present moment. Observers moving at different relative velocities have different planes of simultaneity, and hence different sets of events that are present. Each observer considers their set of present events to be a three-dimensional universe, but even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three-dimensional universes to have differing content. If each three-dimensional universe exists, then the existence of multiple three-dimensional universes suggests that the universe is four-dimensional. The argument is named after the discussions by Rietdijk (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between Substance theory, substance and Property (philosophy), attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (Aristotle), ''Metaphysics'' (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, ''meta ta physika'', 'after the Physics (Aristotle), ''Physics'' ', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of mind, mind, and Philosophy of language, language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methodology, Philosophical methods include Socratic questioning, questioning, Socratic method, critical discussion, dialectic, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a ''philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." "natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Isaac Newton, Newton's 1687 ''Phil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Line
The world line (or worldline) of an object is the path that an object traces in 4- dimensional spacetime. It is an important concept in modern physics, and particularly theoretical physics. The concept of a "world line" is distinguished from concepts such as an " orbit" or a " trajectory" (e.g., a planet's ''orbit in space'' or the ''trajectory'' of a car on a road) by the ''time'' dimension, and typically encompasses a large area of spacetime wherein perceptually straight paths are recalculated to show their ( relatively) more absolute position states—to reveal the nature of special relativity or gravitational interactions. The idea of world lines originates in physics and was pioneered by Hermann Minkowski. The term is now most often used in relativity theories (i.e., special relativity and general relativity). Usage in physics In physics, a world line of an object (approximated as a point in space, e.g., a particle or observer) is the sequence of spacetime events corr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why different observers perceive differently where and when events occur. Until the 20th century, it was assumed that the three-dimensional geometry of the universe (its spatial expression in terms of coordinates, distances, and directions) was independent of one-dimensional time. The physicist Albert Einstein helped develop the idea of spacetime as part of his theory of relativity. Prior to his pioneering work, scientists had two separate theories to explain physical phenomena: Isaac Newton's laws of physics described the motion of massive objects, while James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic models explained the properties of light. However, in 1905, Einstein based a work on special relativity on two postulates: * The laws of physics are invari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotelian Society
The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Square, London. It resolved "to constitute a society of about twenty and to include ladies; the society to meet fortnightly, on Mondays at 8 o'clock, at the rooms of the Spelling Reform Association…" The rules of the society stipulated: According to H. Wildon Carr, in choosing a name for the society, it was: The society's first president was Mr. Shadworth H. Hodgson. He was president for fourteen years from 1880 until 1894, when he proposed Dr. Bernard Bosanquet as his replacement. Professor Alan Willard Brown noted in 1947 that 'he Societys members were not all men of established intellectual position. It welcomed young minds just out of university as well as older amateur philosophers with serious interests and purposes. But many d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
