617 lines
50 KiB
HTML
617 lines
50 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
|
||
<html>
|
||
<head>
|
||
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
|
||
<title>Spatiomaterialism</title>
|
||
<meta name="generator" content="LibreOffice 4.2.8.2 (Linux)">
|
||
<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
|
||
<meta name="created" content="20010831;2000000000000">
|
||
<meta name="changedby" content="Amr Gharbeia">
|
||
<meta name="changed" content="20010831;2300000000000">
|
||
<style type="text/css">
|
||
<!--
|
||
@page { margin-right: 1.2cm; margin-top: 1.2cm; margin-bottom: 1.25cm }
|
||
p { text-indent: 1.27cm; margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: rtl; color: #99ccff; line-height: 120%; text-align: right; widows: 2; orphans: 2 }
|
||
p.western { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US }
|
||
p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt }
|
||
p.ctl { font-family: "Simplified Arabic"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: ar-EG }
|
||
p.sdendnote-western { margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; direction: ltr; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; line-height: 150%; text-align: left; widows: 0; orphans: 0 }
|
||
p.sdendnote-cjk { margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; direction: ltr; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: left; widows: 0; orphans: 0 }
|
||
p.sdendnote-ctl { margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; direction: ltr; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; so-language: ar-SA; line-height: 150%; text-align: left; widows: 0; orphans: 0 }
|
||
a:link { color: #0000ff }
|
||
a.sdendnoteanc { font-size: 57% }
|
||
-->
|
||
</style>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body lang="en-GB" text="#99ccff" link="#0000ff" dir="ltr">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#ff0000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>S<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSSM_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="190" height="41" border="0">patiomaterialism.</b></font></font>
|
||
Given these three assumptions of ontological philosophy, the final
|
||
step in securing its foundation for necessary truths is to use them
|
||
to decide what to believe about the basic nature of existence. As it
|
||
turns out, the empirical method is decisive. There is one ontology
|
||
that we must choose over the others, if we follow the empirical
|
||
method, and it is different from the currently accepted ontologies.
|
||
The two received views are both ontologies of science. They come from
|
||
realism about contemporary physics. One is materialism, the view that
|
||
matter is the only kind of substance constituting the world, whereas
|
||
the other maintains that an opposite kind of basic substance helps
|
||
matter constitute the world, namely, spacetime. But as we shall see,
|
||
naturalists who take ontology to be explanatory and follow the
|
||
empirical method in deciding what to believe ought to reject both in
|
||
favor of the view that the world is constituted by space and matter,
|
||
both existing as substances in time, or what I will call
|
||
"spatiomaterialism." </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">We
|
||
can see that spatiomaterialism is the best ontological explanation of
|
||
the natural world by considering the various possible theories on
|
||
each of the basic issues about what exists in the natural world:
|
||
time, space, and matter. In each case we will decide what to believe
|
||
by which theory offers the best ontological explanation of what is
|
||
found in the natural world -- the one that explains the most with the
|
||
least. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Our
|
||
conclusion will be, however, that we ought to accept these
|
||
ontological position <i>if they are otherwise possible.</i> There are
|
||
ways they may be falsified by certain unobvious phenomena which we
|
||
are not currently taking into account. I mean the observations used
|
||
as evidence for Einsteinian relativity, as well as the fact of
|
||
consciousness, the real difference between good and bad, and the
|
||
validity of the belief that there is something worthy of worship. We
|
||
will not be in a position to show how those phenomena can also be
|
||
explained until we take up the necessary truths of ontological
|
||
philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#800000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSTime_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="75" height="29" border="0">ime.</b></font></font>
|
||
We have already assumed that the world is in time by assuming that
|
||
substance as substance has a temporal aspect to its nature, but as we
|
||
have also seen, there is a further issue to be decided. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>P<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSTPosEx_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="89" height="49" border="0">ossible
|
||
explanations.</b></font> We know from our experience of the world
|
||
that objects are in time as well as in space, but as we saw in
|
||
<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/L/LoOtdO09.htm" target="Lo"><font face="Arial, sans-serif">Ontology:
|
||
Temporality </font></a></u></font>, there are two possible theories
|
||
about the nature of time. We are looking for an explanation of the
|
||
world by substances, but we can believe either that </font></font></font><img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSEndure_up" align="left" hspace="10" width="25" height="146" border="0">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">substances
|
||
endure or that they perdure over time. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>Endurance
|
||
theory of time.</b></i> To hold that substances endure through time
|
||
is to hold that they exist only at the present moment. Existence
|
||
itself is in time. The past and the future do not exist. This view is
|
||
sometimes called "presentism," but we are also assuming
|
||
that what exists are substances. Thus, since substances never come
|
||
into existence nor ever go out of existence as time passes, the
|
||
substances that exist now did exist in the past and will exist in the
|
||
future. In other words, substances are identical across time. Each
|
||
substance that exists at one moment is identical to some substance
|
||
that existed or will exist at every other moment in the history of
|
||
the world.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>P<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSPerdure_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="26" height="148" border="0">erdurance
|
||
theory of time.</b></i> To hold that substances perdure over time is
|
||
to hold that all the moments of their histories exist in the same
|
||
way. Time is just a relation that holds among those moments. The past
|
||
and the future exist in the same sense as the present, for "past’
|
||
and "future" are just ways of referring to other moments
|
||
relative to some moment <i>taken as </i>present. Though the
|
||
perdurance theory of the temporal existential nature of substances
|
||
can agree that substances never come into existence nor go out of
|
||
existence over time, what they mean is that substances are wholes
|
||
made up of parts, with each substance having a momentary part for
|
||
each moment in the history of the world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdfSTBest_up" align="right" hspace="5" width="89" height="49" border="0">he
|
||
best ontological explanation of time.</b></font> Between these two
|
||
theories, the empirical method requires us to prefer the one that
|
||
explains more with less, that is, the one that uses fewer and simpler
|
||
ontological causes to explain more phenomena as effects. According to
|
||
each criterion, the endurance theory is clearly superior. Consider,
|
||
first, simplicity.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>Simplicity.</b></i><b>
|
||
</b>The perdurance theory must postulate many more substances as
|
||
ontological causes than the endurance theory, because it holds that
|
||
every moment in the history of each permanent substance has a
|
||
distinct and equal existence. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
fact, each moment is like a substance, according to the perdurance
|
||
theory, for it is a distinct ontological cause that must be
|
||
postulated separately in order to explain the world ontologically.
|
||
But if such moments are substances, they are rather unusual
|
||
substances, because they lack the temporal aspect of the existential
|
||
aspect of the nature of substance as substance. (Though they are as
|
||
eternal as the world, they do not exist at every moment in the
|
||
history of the world, for they are only one moment in the history of
|
||
a permanent substance.) Still, they have particularity. Each moment
|
||
is a particular substance with an existence that is distinct from
|
||
every other substance (including all the other moments in the history
|
||
of the same permanent substance). Thus, each has both an existential
|
||
and essential aspect to its nature (its essential nature being
|
||
whatever properties hold of the permanent substance at the relevant
|
||
moment in its history). So let us grant that they are substances of a
|
||
kind. I will call them "momentary substances," since they
|
||
do not endure through time but exist non-temporally (if not
|
||
eternally) as one moment in the history of a permanent substance. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Since
|
||
every momentary substance must be postulated separately, the
|
||
perdurance theory requires many more ontological causes to explain
|
||
each permanent substance postulated by the ontology. Indeed, the
|
||
perdurance theory must postulate (indenumerably) infinitely many
|
||
momentary substances for each permanent substance, since time is
|
||
continuous (as evident in its infinite divisibility), and may well be
|
||
eternal (that is, infinite in extent). Judging simplicity by the
|
||
number of ontological causes required, therefore, the empirical
|
||
method requires us to prefer the endurance theory. The endurance
|
||
theory needs to postulate only one enduring substance to account for
|
||
each permanent substance in the world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
may seem, however, that there is a defense for the simplicity of the
|
||
perdurance theory. Though its "momentary substances" are
|
||
greater in number, each is simpler in its nature than enduring
|
||
substances, and thus, its ontological causes are simpler. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||
makes momentary substances seem simpler than enduring substances is
|
||
that momentary substances do not have to endure through time, but can
|
||
simply exist eternally as one moment in the history of a permanent
|
||
substance. But why is that simpler? </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Perhaps,
|
||
the simplicity comes from having a temporally simpler nature.
|
||
Momentary substances cannot have temporally complex properties,
|
||
because they are what exists at only one moment in the history of a
|
||
substance that never comes into existence nor goes out of existence.
|
||
But that does necessarily make them simpler than enduring substances,
|
||
for enduring substances can also have essential properties that exist
|
||
completely at each moment of the existence of the substance. On both
|
||
views, therefore, the essential properties of substances can exist
|
||
completely at each moment of the existence of the substance. Thus,
|
||
the only difference between them is that enduring substances exist at
|
||
many more moments than momentary substances. But that is just the
|
||
difference between them. To take that as showing the greater
|
||
simplicity of the perdurance theory would be to beg the question. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">On the
|
||
other hand, perhaps the greater simplicity is supposed to come from
|
||
its theory about the nature of existence. The endurance theory holds
|
||
that existence itself is in time, and since that means time is an
|
||
aspect of existence, a permanent substance must endure through time
|
||
in order to exist as a substance. Thus, it might be argued that the
|
||
perdurance theory is simpler, because it takes existence to be just
|
||
the self-subsistence of the momentary substances making up the
|
||
histories of permanent substances. Existence is non-temporal, rather
|
||
than being in time. And this greater simplicity about the perdurance
|
||
theory enables it to explain ontologically why permanent substances
|
||
exist at every moment in the history of the world: each permanent
|
||
substance is a whole made up of many momentary substances as its
|
||
parts. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">However,
|
||
that supposed ontological explanation brings out the cost of not
|
||
assuming that existence is in time. Not only must the perdurance
|
||
theory postulate infinitely many momentary substances to account for
|
||
each permanent substance, but it must also assume a basic
|
||
relationship that gives those momentary substances infinitely many
|
||
relations to one another. The events in the history of a permanent
|
||
substance occur in a certain order, and so the momentary substances
|
||
that must be related in a certain way in order to constitute it.
|
||
Though those relations may be simply how the momentary substances
|
||
exist together as a world, they must all be assumed in order to deny
|
||
presentism. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, not
|
||
only are momentary substances not simpler than enduring substances in
|
||
virtue of having temporally simple essential natures, but the
|
||
perdurance theory must also postulate infinitely many momentary
|
||
substances with infinitely many relations among them to account for
|
||
each permanent substances.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">As
|
||
far as simplicity is concerned, therefore, endurance theory is
|
||
clearly superior. It postulates one enduring substance to account for
|
||
each permanent substance, whereas the perdurance theory must
|
||
postulate infinitely many momentary substances with infinitely many
|
||
relations among them in order to explain each permanent substance.
|
||
But this ontological extravagance might be justified, if the
|
||
perdurance theory can explain why permanent substances are in time,
|
||
and so let us turn to the criterion of greater scope.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>Scope.</b></i><b>
|
||
</b>The criterion of greater scope requires us to prefer the theory
|
||
about the nature of time that explains more to the one that explains
|
||
less. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
may seem that the perdurance theory does have a greater scope,
|
||
because it explains at least one phenomenon ontologically that the
|
||
endurance theory simply assumes. It explains ontologically why
|
||
permanent substances are in time by showing how they are constituted
|
||
by momentary substances and relations among them. But this claim to
|
||
have an ontological explanation of substances being in time does not
|
||
stand up, for two reasons.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">First,
|
||
it is <i>ad hoc.</i> Nothing is explained by the assumption that
|
||
permanent substances are constituted by momentary substances and
|
||
relations among them except their being substances that exist at
|
||
every moment in the history of the world. To postulate infinitely
|
||
many ontological causes to explain a single aspect of the world is to
|
||
explain the least with the most, the opposite of the empirical
|
||
criterion. To be sure, the endurance theory does not explain this
|
||
aspect any better. But there is nothing to prefer over the assumption
|
||
that existence itself is in time. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Second,
|
||
there is an aspect of this phenomenon whose possibility the
|
||
perdurance cannot explain. That aspect is how the present moment is
|
||
different from all the other moments in the history of the world,
|
||
both past and future. It is something for which the endurance theory
|
||
can account. And the failure even to account for it (that is, the
|
||
failure to explain its possibility) means that the perdurance theory
|
||
is falsified by it. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Endurance
|
||
theory can account for the fact that one moment in the history of the
|
||
world stands out as different from all the others, because it holds
|
||
that only the present moment exists. The present is different from
|
||
the past and the future in the most basic way, as far as ontology is
|
||
concerned, because the present exists, while the past and future do
|
||
not. That is what it means to hold that existence itself is in time.
|
||
(This is not to explain the phenomenon of the present ontologically,
|
||
because it is simply what the endurance theory assumes about the
|
||
nature of existence. But the endurance theory does not have to deny
|
||
that present is different from the past and future.)</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
perdurance theory, on the other hand, cannot even account for the
|
||
fact that the present stands out as different from all the other
|
||
moments in the history of the world. It holds that all the moments in
|
||
the history of a permanent substance exist in exactly the same sense,
|
||
and so there is nothing ontological that can distinguish any one
|
||
moment from all the rest that help make up its history. To be sure,
|
||
the perdurance theory can say how any moment in the history of a
|
||
permanent substance that is taken as the present differs from those
|
||
that occur earlier and those that occur latter, for its momentary
|
||
substances are all related to one another in a certain order. But it
|
||
has no way to single out any moment in the history of a permanent
|
||
substance as "now." </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This
|
||
blindness to the present is implicit in what the perdurance theory
|
||
says about the nature of existence and time. Instead of taking time
|
||
to be an aspect of the nature of existence, it takes time to be part
|
||
of the structure of what exists, that is, a certain kind of
|
||
relationship that exists among its momentary substances. It sees time
|
||
as a dimension of what exists, much like spatial dimensions, and
|
||
thus, time contains different moments in the same way that space
|
||
contains different point, which means that all moment are contained
|
||
in the <i>same </i>way. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, far
|
||
from explaining why permanent substances are in time, the perdurance
|
||
theory cannot even explain the possibility of the most basic aspect
|
||
of it. Indeed, the phenomenon of the present being different from the
|
||
past and future would seem to show that the perdurance theory is
|
||
false. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||
the perdurance theorists can do, however, is <i>explain away </i>the
|
||
phenomenon. That is, it can explain why we experience the present as
|
||
being different from all the other moments by holding that it is just
|
||
an appearance that holds for each and every moment in the history of
|
||
beings like us. We are rational beings, capable of reflection, and it
|
||
is by reflecting on our experience that we come to believe that the
|
||
present moment is different from the past and the future. But if the
|
||
perdurance theory is correct, each of us is just a set of momentary
|
||
substances that makes up a personal history. Thus, it is possible to
|
||
hold that the essential nature of every momentary substance
|
||
constituting a being like us includes the appearance that that moment
|
||
in one's history is the present and, thereby, different from all the
|
||
moments in the past that may be remembered and all the moments that
|
||
may be anticipated. That is, each moment in the life of a reflective
|
||
subject includes the subjective appearance that it is present, even
|
||
though it is just another momentary substance that exists
|
||
non-temporally. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">But
|
||
this is not to explain the present. It is to claim that our sense of
|
||
the present is an illusion. That is surely an alternative that we
|
||
want to avoid, if possible, for it is <i>ad hoc</i>. Anything found
|
||
in the world could be explained away the same way, that is, explained
|
||
as a mere appearance to the subject by holding that it is actually
|
||
part of his essential nature as a substance. If it is <i>possible </i>to
|
||
explain our sense of the present being different from the past and
|
||
the future in a way that makes it true, we must prefer the theory
|
||
that does so. Hence, the empirical method requires us to prefer the
|
||
endurance theory on the grounds that it explains more than the
|
||
perdurance theory.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a>[1]</sup>
|
||
</font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
point can be seen more clearly if we consider how the present being
|
||
different from the past and the future is something found in the
|
||
world by perception, not just by reflection on how it seems to us. We
|
||
perceive change in the natural world, and if we articulate the
|
||
beliefs implicit in such perceptions, we find that <i>what </i>we
|
||
believe is that certain properties go out of existence and other
|
||
properties come into existence as time passes. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Consider,
|
||
for example, a bus passing by us on the street. The property of
|
||
approaching us goes out of existence as the property of being in
|
||
front of us comes into existence, and then the property of being in
|
||
front of us goes out of existence as the property of moving away from
|
||
us comes into existence. That is how we perceive change in the
|
||
natural world, and it implies that the properties that the bus had in
|
||
the past do not exist any longer, and that the properties that it
|
||
will have in the future do not exist yet. That is what we mean by
|
||
their coming into existence and going out of existence as time
|
||
passes. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be more
|
||
precise, reflecting on our observation, we find that the experience
|
||
involves past, present and future. At the moment we see the bus is in
|
||
front of us, we remember seeing it approach and anticipate its moving
|
||
away. Were the immediate past and future not part of our experience,
|
||
we could not observe that the bus is moving. But while the present is
|
||
seen as <i>existing</i>, the past and future are seen as <i>not
|
||
existing</i>, albeit for opposite reasons. The past event is seen as
|
||
not existing because it is over, while the future event is seen as
|
||
not existing because it has yet to happen. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">That only
|
||
the present exists may be only implicit in the observation. But that
|
||
does not mean that it is not part of <i>what </i>we observe, only
|
||
that we have not formulated that aspect as a sentence. The belief
|
||
that the bus’s past and future do not exist now is as much part of
|
||
the observation of the bus’s motion as the belief that that the bus
|
||
is a distinct object in space is a part of the observation of the bus
|
||
itself. It is not surprising, therefore, that this is called the
|
||
ordinary view of the nature of time. It is what the “man in the
|
||
street” would say about the past and future if asked about their
|
||
existence (see, for example, <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Putnam67">Putnam
|
||
</a></u></font>[1967], p. 240).</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
perception of change as "real" in this sense discloses
|
||
something about the world that cannot be explained by the perdurance
|
||
theory, because it must deny that any properties come into existence
|
||
or go out of existence over time. The perdurance theory holds that
|
||
every moment in the history of every substance exists in exactly the
|
||
same sense, and so the properties that hold at earlier moments still
|
||
exist in the same sense as the present, and the properties that hold
|
||
at latter moments already exist in that sense. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Again, the
|
||
only way that the perdurance theory can account for this perceived
|
||
fact about the world is to deny that it is a fact and to hold that
|
||
what we think is perception of an independently existing world is
|
||
just an illusion. That is, its defenders can hold that each of the
|
||
momentary substances making up the histories of beings like us
|
||
involves, as part of its essential nature, the appearance that change
|
||
really takes place as time passes. That would mean that, relative to
|
||
any given moment, we perceive the past and future states of the world
|
||
as not existing, even though, in fact, they do. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But this
|
||
is, once again, to <i>explain away </i>the phenomenon, not to explain
|
||
it ontologically. It could be used to explain anything found in the
|
||
world, and thus, it should only be invoked, if it is not possible to
|
||
explain phenomena as what really exists. The perdurance theory has no
|
||
alternative, because if change is real in this sense, it is false.
|
||
But <i>we </i>have an alternative, because the perception can be
|
||
accounted for by the endurance theory. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
perdurance theory does not, therefore, have greater scope than the
|
||
endurance theory. Its explanation is <i>ad hoc</i>, and what is
|
||
worse, it is falsified by the phenomenon that it claims it alone can
|
||
explain, unless we accept further <i>ad hoc</i> assumptions that make
|
||
the phenomenon illusory. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nor do any
|
||
of the arguments for the perdurance theory offered by defenders of
|
||
the so-called tenseless theory of time give us any reason to accept
|
||
it.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote2anc" href="#sdendnote2sym"><sup>ii</sup></a>[2]</sup>
|
||
</font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
empirical method requires us, therefore, to prefer the endurance
|
||
theory over the perdurance theory. It is simpler in both relevant
|
||
ways (the fewest and simplest ontological causes), and it has a
|
||
larger scope (in the sense that it can, at least, account for our
|
||
sense of the present and our perception of change as really occurring
|
||
in time). It clearly explains more with less. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Nor
|
||
are the basic aspects of the world that only the endurance theory can
|
||
explain trivial. The ability to explain change by the endurance of
|
||
substances through time is the foundation for explaining regularities
|
||
about change ontologically. If ontological philosophy had to accept
|
||
the perdurance theory, it would not be able to show the ontological
|
||
necessity of the connection between cause and effect in efficient
|
||
cause explanations. Nor would it be able to demonstrate the
|
||
ontological necessity of global regularities, on which most of the
|
||
new ontologically necessary truths depend. Without the endurance
|
||
theory, ontological philosophy would not be a new way of doing
|
||
philosophy. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
|
||
does not necessarily mean that it is true. It is only to say that we
|
||
must prefer it, <i>if it is possible</i>, for it may turn out that
|
||
there are other things found in the world contradict the endurance
|
||
theory. That is what contemporary Einsteinian believe, as we shall
|
||
see when we take up spatiotemporalism, and thus, they will have to be
|
||
answered before we can be confident about the truth of the endurance
|
||
theory. </font></font></font></p>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm"><a name="Weyl"></a>
|
||
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a><sup>[1]</sup>
|
||
It may seem that there is a way to for the perdurance theory to
|
||
explain the present without dismissing the phenomenon of the present
|
||
as an illusion, and it is relevant to mention it here, because it
|
||
was first suggested by <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Weyl">Hermann
|
||
Weyl </a></u></font>([1921]<i>, </i>p. 217) in defense of the
|
||
perdurance theory entailed by taking spacetime to be a substance.
|
||
Einsteinian relativity had led, as we shall see in the next section,
|
||
to the belief that what exists is a spacetime world in which the
|
||
momentary substances making up permanent substances are spacetime
|
||
events, and Weyl said, "The great advance in our knowledge . .
|
||
. consists in recognizing that the scene of action of reality is not
|
||
a three-dimensional Euclidean space but rather a <b>four-dimensional
|
||
world in which space and time are linked together indissolubly</b>.
|
||
However deep the chasm may be that separates the intuitive nature of
|
||
space from that of time in our experience, nothing of this
|
||
qualitative difference enters into the objective world which physics
|
||
endeavors to crystallize out of direct experience. It is a
|
||
four-dimensional continuum, which is neither “time” nor “space”.
|
||
Only the consciousness that passes on in one portion of this world
|
||
experiences the detached piece which comes to meet and passes behind
|
||
it, as <b>history </b>that is, as the process that is going forward
|
||
in time and takes place in space."
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western">Weyl is assuming that
|
||
empirical falsification of substantivalism about spacetime can be
|
||
avoided by holding that the present is just how spacetime and the
|
||
spacetime events it contains <i>appear </i>to “consciousness”.
|
||
Though such a response may be acceptable in epistemological
|
||
philosophy, it leads to an ontology that is decidedly inferior to
|
||
the endurance theory, because it is more complex and problematic. To
|
||
assume that consciousness “passes on” is to assume that <i>it
|
||
</i>undergoes real change, and thus, to follow Weyl is to postulate,
|
||
in addition to spacetime and the spacetime events that it contains,
|
||
some substance that does endure through time, always existing at
|
||
each moment as it is present, namely, consciousness. If
|
||
consciousness is postulated as a subjective substance, spacetime
|
||
substantivalism will not only be more complex (now postulating three
|
||
basic kinds of substances), but it will also face a serious
|
||
ontological problem, for it must then be explained how enduring
|
||
substances can be related to non-temporal substances. Indeed, it
|
||
would be an ontology with two different concepts of time, one that
|
||
is part of the structure of spacetime and another that characterizes
|
||
the existence of consciousness (as a substance enduring through
|
||
time). That twofold use of time complicates the perdurance theory in
|
||
a way that makes it not only more complex simpler, but also far more
|
||
problematic.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western">Weyl's approach is still a
|
||
common response, however. For example, see <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#Penrose">Penrose
|
||
</a></u></font>[1989], pp. 442ff. And though McCall [1994] is only
|
||
trying to rescue the openness of the future, his ontology (or “model
|
||
of the universe’) is also made more complex and problematic by
|
||
requiring both these concepts of time.</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote2">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm"><a name="OaklanderSmith"></a>
|
||
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote2sym" href="#sdendnote2anc">ii</a><sup>[2]</sup>
|
||
To hold that only the present exists is to take sides with the
|
||
so-called “tensed theory of time” in a current dispute in the
|
||
philosophy of language (<font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#OaklanderSmith">Oaklander
|
||
and Smith</a></u></font>, [1994]), but that does not mean that the
|
||
perdurance theory can be defended by endorsing the “tenseless
|
||
theory of time”. The endurance theory would hold that the tensed
|
||
theory of time is correct in holding that statements about past,
|
||
present and future say something about the world that is not implied
|
||
by tenseless descriptions of before- and after-relations that hold
|
||
among events (or by analyzing the truth conditions of such
|
||
statements as indexical references to the moment of their utterance)
|
||
The tenseless theory must deny that only the present exists, for
|
||
otherwise it would have to admit that statements about past,
|
||
present, and future are something more than descriptions of an
|
||
event’s before or after relations to the moment of their
|
||
utterance. Such statements uttered at present would also be (true)
|
||
descriptions of how the event is <i>related to what exists</i>. And
|
||
those uttered at other moments would have <i>no </i>truth value, for
|
||
they wouldn’t exist at all.</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western">There may be a standoff
|
||
between these two views in the philosophy of language. But that is
|
||
not relevant here, because our reason for preferring the endurance
|
||
theory is not based on analyzing truth conditions of statements
|
||
about the past, present and future. It is an argument in <i>empirical
|
||
ontology</i>. I am arguing that the best ontological explanation of
|
||
the world disclosed by perception, including the observation of real
|
||
change, is to postulate only enduring substances.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western"><a name="WilliamsC"></a>The
|
||
tensed theory has not been defended in this way in the recent
|
||
debate. Appealing to <i>what we observe </i>is not the same as
|
||
appealing to phenomenology, as in Part III of <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#OaklanderSmith">Oaklander
|
||
and Smith</a></u></font> [1994]. The former argument is not refuted
|
||
by pointing out that the observation would have the same causal
|
||
connections on the timeless view, for it is about the <i>content </i>of
|
||
the observation, not its <i>causal role</i>. And though this view
|
||
implies that there are properties of “presentness”, “pastness”
|
||
and “futureness”, their meanings are explained in terms of
|
||
existence: the present is what exists, while the past and future do
|
||
not, albeit for opposite reasons. Thus, contrary to <font color="#0000ff"><u><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/ObjText/#WilliamsC">Williams
|
||
</a></u></font>[1994], there is a basic disanalogy between
|
||
“presentness” and “hereness”, for what is opposed to the
|
||
former (past and future) does not exist, whereas what is opposed to
|
||
the latter (what is over there) does exist.</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western">Nor is a theory that
|
||
explains how the present is different from the past and future by
|
||
its existence plagued by the paradoxes that are supposed to undo the
|
||
tensed theory of time. For example, it avoids McTaggart’s paradox
|
||
about time, for it is not committed to there being events that have
|
||
first the property of being future, then the property of being
|
||
present, and finally the property of being past, for nothing exists
|
||
but what exists at present. Nor are there sentences about past,
|
||
present and future changing truth values, for the only sentences
|
||
that exist (and are capable of being either true or false) are in
|
||
the present.</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div title="footer">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" align="right" style="margin-right: 0.64cm; margin-top: 0.45cm; margin-bottom: 0.42cm; line-height: 100%">
|
||
<span id="Frame1" dir="ltr" style="position: absolute; top: 0cm; left: 0cm; width: 16.8cm; height: 0.06cm; border: none; padding: 0cm; background: #ffffff">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" align="right" style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm; line-height: 100%">
|
||
<sdfield type=PAGE subtype=RANDOM format=PAGE>48</sdfield></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" style="margin-bottom: 0.42cm; line-height: 100%">
|
||
<br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
</span><br><br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |