Endurance and multilocation
Item
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Title
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Endurance and multilocation
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:f53df910c6e4:11047
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identifier
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11429
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Creator
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Lafrance, Jean-David,
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Contributor
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Arnold Koslow
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy | Metaphysics | Endurance | Location | Material Objects | Parthood
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Abstract
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Material objects exist at different times. Endurance theory is the view that they are wholly present at each of the times at which they exist---or, that they are located at multiple regions of spacetime. In this dissertation, I argue that endurance theory is coherent by explaining how cases of multilocation (whether in space or in spacetime) are possible. My goals are twofold. The first is to show that there is nothing incoherent, both metaphysically and formally, in cases of multilocation and, thereby, in endurance theory. After having introduced temporal and regional variants of classical extensional mereology together with some principles about the location of objects in space, I show how our reluctance to admit cases of multilocation can be resisted by responding to an argument to the effect that they are incoherent. I then defend the view that endurance is multilocation in spacetime against rival characterizations. And, in the Appendix to the Dissertation, I develop formal theories of location in which objects can be located at several regions of space (or spacetime).;The second goal is to explain how the possibility of multilocation arises. I claim that it is possible for material objects to be located at several disjoint regions of space (or spacetime) because their haecceities, or the properties they have of being themselves, can be instantiated at these several regions. I offer an analysis of haecceities that allows us to give necessary and/or sufficient conditions for their instantiation. It is these conditions that constitute an explanation of the possibility of multilocation. I end the dissertation by showing that my analysis of haecceities, and of how they could come to be instantiated at distinct places, solves other issues in the metaphysics of persistence and, specifically, issues regarding the coincidence of material objects.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Philosophy
