Time and Change – Page 6 – Maverick Philosopher

Is the Wholly Past Now Impossible?

Boston's Scollay Square is an example of a wholly past item. It existed, but it does not now exist. Boston's Copley Square, by contrast, existed and still exists: it has a past but it is not wholly past.

In an earlier exercise I gave an anti-presentist argument one of the premises of which is:

d) It is not the case that Scollay Square is [now] either merely possible or impossible: what passes away does not become merely possible or impossible.

The Ostrich objected:

I didn’t follow the assumption (d) above. Scollay Square is impossible, having perished.

The question is this: When a thing that actually existed passes away and becomes wholly past, does it cease to be actual and become impossible? Can the passage of time affect an object's modal status?

I say No; the Ostrich says Yes. My No, however, will be nuanced by a distinction I shall introduce shortly.

A Concession

I concede to the Ostrich that there is a sense in which Scollay Square, that very item, is now impossible: it cannot be restored to existence. (If you made a copy of it, the copy would not be it.) After the demolition was complete, there was nothing anyone could do to bring back that very item. In this respect the demolition of the famous square is like a person's loss of virginity. If you lose your virginity at time t, then there is nothing anyone can do after t to undo the loss. (Repairing a girl's hymen would not do the trick. Hymenoplasty is possible but it is not the same as restoration of virginity.)

Now there is no need to drag the Deity into this debate, but I will do it anyway just to throw the issue into relief. Not even God can restore a virgin or bring back Scollay Square (where many a sailor lost his virginity). This is because it is the very natures of time and existence that prevent the restoration. (Now please forget that I even mentioned God, and do not ask me any questions about divine omnipotence.)

Let's consider another example. Our patron Socrates was executed by the Athenian state. That event might not have occurred. That is, his execution was not metaphysically necessary. In the patois of 'possible worlds,' there are possible worlds in which Socrates is executed and possible worlds in which he is not. Therefore, his execution was metaphysically contingent and remains sub specie aeternitatis metaphysically contingent despite the fact that the execution cannot be undone. But if the execution cannot be undone and was impossibly undone from the moment of the event onward, then how can the execution be contingent? Is it not necessary? Obviously, we need to make a distinction.

Metaphysical versus Time-Bound Modalities

We have to make a distinction between metaphysical modalities and time-bound modalities. We can say that Socrates' execution, while metaphysically contingent, nevertheless enjoys necessitas per accidens and its undoing impossibilitas per accidens. Nothing hinges on this particular terminology, but there is a distinction to be made here.

Someone could say, and the Ostrich perhaps will say, that before Socrates came to be, he was merely possible, that when he came to be he became actual, and that after he passed away he became impossible. If this makes sense, then our man's modal status is time-dependent.

I think the following are logically consistent:

1. It is impossible that an actual being that no longer exists be restored to existence.

2. A metaphysically contingent being that exists in the sense that it existed, exists, or will exist retains its modal status when it passes away. Socrates exists in this disjunctive sense. When Socrates ceased to exist (assuming no immortal soul) he retained his modal status: actual but not necessary.

(1) is a concession to the Ostrich. But (2) is also true. I am inclined to accept a Growing Block theory of time: as time passes the 'block of reality' gets bigger and bigger. Everything that IS is actual, and everything that WAS is also actual. The past is not nothing: it is real.

Socrates is (in the disjunctive sense) an actual being. This may be the same as saying that he is tenselessly actual. His passing away does not affect his metaphysical modal status. He is no longer temporally present but he is nonetheless metaphysically actual.

Furthermore, he remains a contingent being after his passing. He does not become an impossible being.

So I think we can achieve a sort of irenic if not quite Hegelian synthesis. The Ostrich is speaking from the perspective of the present. (I suspect he is a presentist and I should like him come clean on this.) From the point of view of the present, the wholly past is now impossible in the sense that nothing ANYONE can do can restore the past or bring it back. I believe I have accommodated, with all due charity, the insight of the Ostrich.

But we also have the power to view things 'from above,' We are time-bound to be sure, but we are also "spectators of all time and existence" as Plato once taught us. Looking down upon this scene of flux and folly we can 'see' with the eye of the mind the tenseless modal relationships that obtain here below. These are not affected by the passage of time.

For example, no contingent being is impossible. Socrates is a contingent being. Ergo, Socrates is not impossible. He was not impossible before he became present; he was not impossible when he was present; and he is not impossible now when he is past. He is tenselessly contingent.

The stable view sub specie aeternitatis is just as valid as the view from one's shifting temporal location.

Taking Stock

The question is this: When a thing that actually existed, or an event that actually occurred, passes away and becomes wholly past, does it cease to be actual and become impossible?

The Ostrich answers in the affirmative. I think this answer is sustainable only if presentism is true. Presentism, however, is hard even to formulate (nontrivially), let alone evaluate.

I must now demand of the Ostrich that he come clean and tell us whether he is indeed a presentist. If I am not mistaken most if not all of the medieval philosophers he studies are presentists; if so, he may be unaware that there are alternatives to ptesentism. It may just seem obvious to him when it ought not seem obvious to him.

Millianism and Presentism: An Aporetic Pentad

A Millian about proper names holds that the meaning of a proper name is exhausted by its referent. Thus the meaning of 'Socrates' is Socrates. The meaning just is the denotatum. Fregean sense and reasonable facsimiles thereof play no role in reference. If so, vacuous names, names without denotata, are meaningless.

Presentism, roughly, is the claim that present items alone exist. This implies that no past or future items exist in the sense of 'exists' that the presentist shares with the eternalist who maintains that past, present, and future individuals all exist. What exactly this sense is is a nut we will leave for later cracking.

Now Socrates is a wholly past individual: he existed, but he does presently exist. It follows on presentism that Socrates does not exist at all. The point is not the tautology that Socrates, who is wholly past, does not exist at present. The point is that our man does not exist, period: he is now nothing at all.

We now have the makings of an aporetic pentad:

1) 'Socrates' has meaning. (Moorean fact)

2) The meaning of a proper name is its referent. (Millian thesis)

3) If a name refers to x, then x exists. (Plausible assumption)

4) 'Socrates' refers to a wholly past individual. (Moorean fact)

5) There are no past individuals. (Presentism)

It is easy to see that the pentad is logically inconsistent: the limbs cannot all be true. Which should we reject?

Only three of the propositions are candidates for rejection: (2), (3), (5). Of these three, (3) is the least rejectable, (5) is the second least rejectable, and (2) the most rejectable.

So I solve the pentad by rejecting the Millian thesis about proper names.

You might budge me from my position if you can give me a powerful argument for the Millian thesis.

Here, then, we have an 'aporetic' polyad that is not a genuine aporia. It is soluble and I just solved it.

The Recalcitrant Ostrich will probably disagree.

Presentism: The Triviality Objection

Presentism in the philosophy of time is the thesis that the present moment enjoys an ontological privilege over the other two temporal modi. The basic idea is that only (temporally) present items (individuals, events, times) exist. If so, past and future items do not exist. What is no longer is not, and what is not yet is not. Presentism presupposes the A-theory of time according to which pastness, presentness, and futurity are monadic properties irreducible to the B-relations earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than. Presentness is an absolute property. To say of an event that it is present is not to say that it is simultaneous with a reference to it or perception of it.

Presentism, then, is the claim all that exists is present, or

P) Nothing exists that is not present.

On a present-tensed reading of 'exists,' however, (P) collapses into a tautology:

P1) Nothing presently exists that is not present.

This trivial truth is not what the presentist intends. What he intends is a restriction of temporal things, things in time, to present things:

P2) Nothing exists in time that is not present.

I am assuming that there are timeless things, numbers for example. If there are no timeless things, and everything is in time, then (P2) reduces to

P2*) Nothing exists that is not present.

The trouble with (P2) and its starred cousin, however, is that they seem obviously false. Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists. That is: it did exist, but it does not now exist. Given that it did exist, it is a temporal item as opposed to an atemporal item such as a number. Now it it reasonable to think that its being past has consigned it to utter nonexistence? Arguably not. Here is a little argument.

a) What exists is actual.
b) What does not exist is either merely possible or impossible.
c) If a wholly past object such as SS does not exist, then it is either merely possible or impossible. From (b)
d) It is not the case that SS is either merely possible or impossible: what passes away does not become merely possible or impossible.
e) SS exists. From (c), (d), by modus tollens.
f) SS is not present. Datum.
g) Something exists in time that is not present. From (e), (f).

The intuition behind the argument is that actuality includes the past. An historian is neither a fiction writer nor a speculator about the merely possible. If it is true that Socrates drank hemlock, then there there was a time when Socrates drinks hemlock, Socrates himself, not his haecceity.

The foregoing is a version of the triviality objection to presentism. It has the form of a dilemma. (P) is trivally true if read as (P1) or trivially false if read as (P2), and these are the only two ways of reading (P). Either way it is trivial.

Convinced?

For a full-blown technical treatment, see Ulrich Meyer, The Triviality of Presentism.

Puzzling Over Presentism

Presentism in the philosophy of time is the thesis that only the (temporally) present exists. This is not the tautology that only present items (times, individuals, events . . .) exist at present; it is the substantive metaphysical thesis that only present items exist simpliciter. So if something no longer exists, it does not exist at all.

But what could this mean? It is counterintuitive and, contrary to what prominent presentists claim, not commonsensical. After all, the past is not nothing. It was and it actually was. When Boston's Scollay Square ceased to exist, it did not quit the actual world and become a merely possible object. It became a past actual object.

There are those who remember Scollay Square. Some of their memories are veridical and some are not. How is this possible if there is nothing that they are remembering? What makes the veridical memories veridical? I will assume that we do not want to say that the past exists only in the flickering memories of mortals. However things stand with the future, the reality of the past is near-datanic.

Historians of Boston study Scollay Square making use of various physical remnants, documents such as newspaper stories, photographs and whatnot. Are these historians writing fiction or speculating about possibilities? No, they are faithfully trying to record reality, past reality. So again, what no longer exists cannot be nothing. What is no longer temporally present retains some sort of ontological status.

These datanic points do not of course refute the presentist, but they present (pun intended!) a serious challenge to him, namely the challenge of accounting for them while holding fast to the thesis that only what presently exists exists simpliciter. Past-tensed contingent truths about Scollay Square — 'During the War Scollay Square was where sailors on shore leave in Boston went for girls and tattoos' — presumably need truthmakers; on presentism these will have to exist at present. What sort of item presently existing could do the job? Several suggestions have been made, none of them satisfactory.

Here is a related datum, a given, a Moorean deliverance that I think most would be loath to deny:

DATUM: if it is true that a was F, or that a F'ed, then it was true that a is F, or that a Fs.

For example, if it is true that John F. Kennedy was in Dallas on 22 November 1963, then it was true on that date that he is in Dallas on that date. For a second example, if it is true that Socrates drank hemlock, then it was true that Socrates drinks hemlock.

It seems to follow that the present present cannot be the only present: there had to have been past presents, past times that were once present. For example there was the present when JFK was assassinated. That is a past present. Only what was once present could now be past. Suppose you deny this. Then are you saying that there are past items that were never present. But that cannot be right. For the past is the present that has passed away.

So what is the presentist maintaining? He cannot be maintaining

P-Taut: Only present items presently exist

for this is not a substantive metaphysical claim contradicted by the eternalist's equally substantive denial, but a mere tautology. Nor can he be telling us that

P-Solip: Only presently present items exist simpliciter

for this is solipsism of the present moment, a lunatic thesis. It amounts to the claim that all that ever existed, exists, and will exist exists now, where 'now' is a rigid designator of the present moment. If our presentist pals cannot be saying that only what exists at the present present exists simpliciter, then they they must be telling us that only what exists at a given present (whether past, present, or future) exists. Thus

P-Cont: At every time t, only what is present at t, exists simpliciter.

But this seems contradictory: it implies that at each time there are no non-present times and that at each time there are non-present times. For if one quantifies over all times, then one quantifies over present and non-present times in which case there are all these times including non-present times. But the bit following the quantifier in (P-Cont) takes this back by stating that only what is present at a given time exists simpliciter.

It is obvious that (P-Taut) and (P-Solip) are nonstarters. So we were driven to (P-Cont). But it is contradictory. The presentist wants to limit the ontological inventory, the catalog of what exists, to temporally present items. To avoid both tautology and the solipsism of the present moment, however, he is forced to admit that what exists cannot be limited to the present. For he is forced to admit that there are times that are not present.

My interim conclusion is that presentism makes no clear sense. This does not support eternalism, however, for it has its own problems.

Presentism, Truthmakers, and Ex-Concrete Objects: Some Questions for Francesco Orilia

Here is an interesting little antilogism to break our heads against:

A. Presentism: Only what exists at present, exists.

B. Datum: There are past-tensed truths.

C. Truthmaker Principle: If p is a contingent truth, then there is a truthmaker T such that (i) T makes true p, and (ii) T exists when p is true.

Each of these propositions is plausible, but they cannot all be true. Any two of the propositions, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one.

For example, it is true, and true now, that Kerouac wrote On the Road. This truth is both past-tensed and contingent. So, by (C), this truth has a truthmaker that now exists. A plausible truthmaker such as the fact of Kerouac's having written On the Road will have to have Kerouac himself as a constituent. But Kerouac does not now exist, and if presentism is true, he does not exist at all. Assuming that a truthmaking fact or state of affairs cannot exist unless all its constituents exist, it follows that there is no present truthmaker of the past-tensed truth in question. So if (C) is true, then (A) is false: it cannot be the case that only what exists now, exists. I will assume for the space of this entry that (B) cannot be reasonably denied.

So one way to solve the antilogism is by rejecting presentism. Presentists will be loathe to do this, of course, and will try to find surrogate items to serve as constituents of present truthmakers.

Different sorts of surrogate items have been proposed. I will consider the surrogate or proxy favored by Francesco Orilia in his rich and penetrating "Moderate Presentism," Philosophical Studies, March 2016. (He would not call it a surrogate or a proxy, but that is what I think it is.)

Orilia's favored surrogates are ex-concrete objects. Consider the sentence

1) Garibaldi was awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a.m.

This sentence is past-tensed, and if true, then contingently true. So, if true, it needs a truthmaker. We are told that the truthmaker of (1) is the present event or state of affairs — Orilia uses these terms interchangeably, see p. 598, n. 1) – – consisting of Garibaldi's exemplifying of the time-indexed past-tense property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m. But of course Orilia does not mean that concrete Garibaldi himself presently exemplifies the property in question; he means that the ex-concrete object Garibaldi presently exemplifies it. After all, concrete Garibaldi is long gone.

What is an ex-concrete object?

The emperor Trajan is a merely past object (particular). On typical (as opposed to moderate) presentism, his being past implies that he does not exist at all. For Orilia, however, "merely past objects have not really ceased to exist, but have rather become ex-concrete." (593) The idea seems to be that they continue to exist, but with an altered categorial status. Merely past objects were concrete but are now ex-concrete, where this means that they are "neither abstract nor concrete." (593, quotation from T. Williamson.)

So when Trajan became wholly past, he yet continued to exist as an ex-concrete object. Hence Trajan still exists — as an ex-concrete object. And the same goes for Garibaldi. Since the statesman still exists as ex-concrete he is available now to exemplify such properties as the property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a.m. His exemplification of this property constitutes a present event or state of affairs that can serve as the truthmaker for (1).

Can an item change its categorial status?

Orilia is well aware that there is something dubious about the supposition that an item can change or lose its categorial status. For it seems as clear as anything that categorial features are essentially had by the items that have them. Numbers, sets, and (Fregean) propositions are candidate abstracta. There is little or no sense to the notion that the number 9, say, could become concrete or ex-abstract. For the number 9, if abstract, is abstract in every possible world, assuming, plausibly, that numbers are necessary beings. Similarly, it is difficult to understand how a statue, say, if destroyed could could continue to exist as an ex-concrete object. It is not even clear what this means.

Pushing further

Orilia tells us that "backward singular terms should be taken at face value as referring to the very same objects they used to refer [to] when they were not, so to speak, backward." (593, emphasis added.) So uses of 'Garibaldi' now refer to the very same object that uses of the name refereed to when Garibaldi was alive. But now the referent is an ex-concrete object whereas then it was a concrete object. So I ask: how can concrete Garibaldi be the same as ex-concrete Garibaldi when they differ property-wise? I now invoke the contrapositive of the Indiscernibility of Identicals.

If x, y differ property-wise, then they differ numerically; concrete Garibaldi and ex-concrete Garibaldi differ property-wise in that the former but not the latter is concrete; ergo, they cannot be numerically the same (one and the same). If so, then the temporally forward and backward uses of singular terms such as "Garibaldi' cannot refer to the same object, contra what Orilia says.

Orilia will readily grant me that an haecceity of a wholly past concrete object, assuming there are haecceities, is a presently existing surrogate of the individual. My question to him is: why is this not also the case for ex-concrete objects? Of course, they are not haecceities. But they too 'go proxy' in the present for past objects such as Garibaldi and Leopardi, and they too are distinct from full-fledged concrete objects.

It seems to me that Orilia's position embodies a certain tension. His moderate presentism denies that there are past events or states of affairs, in line with standard or typical presentism, but allows that there are past objects (589). But these past objects are ex-concrete. The latter, then, are not past objects strictly speaking (as they would be on a B-theory) but proxies for past objects. So there may be some waffling here. Connected with this is the fact that it is not clear how concrete Garibaldi, say, relates to ex-concrete Garibaldi. We are told in effect that they are the same, but they cannot be the same. Their relation wants clarification.

Are ex-concrete objects subject to the 'aboutness worry'?

If I am sad that my classmate Janet Johnston has died and is no longer with us, presumably it is the loss of Janet herself that saddens me. There is no comfort in the thought that ex-concrete Janet is still 'with us,' any more than there would be at the thought that her haecceity, now unexemplified, is still 'with us.'

Truthmaking troubles

Yesterday I drank some Campari. What makes this past-tensed, contingent truth true? Note the difference between:

2) BV's having yesterday drunk Campari (A case of a present object's past exemplification of an untensed property)

and

3) BV's being such that he drank Campari yesterday (A case of a present object's present exemplification of a past-tensed property.)

(2) is a past event or state of affairs, while (3) is a present event or state of affairs. Since Orilia's moderate presentism rejects past (and future) events, he must take (3) to be the truthmaker of the truth that yesterday I drank some Campari. But it seems to me that the truthmaker of 'Yesterday I drank some Campari' is not (3), but (2). This sentence is true because yesterday I exemplified the untensed property of drinking Campari, not because today I exemplify the past-tensed property of having drunk Campari yesterday. Why? Well, I can have the past-tensed property today only because I had the untensed property yesterday. The latter is parasitic upon the former.

The same problem arises for Orilia's sentence (1). We are told that the truthmaker of (1) is the present event or state of affairs consisting of Garibaldi's exemplifying of the time-indexed past-tense property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m. Ex-concrete Garibaldi cannot now have the time-indexed past tense property unless concrete Garibaldi had the untensed property of being awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m. Or so it seems to me.

To conclude, I am not convinced that Orilia (the man in the middle, below) has provided us with truthmakers for past-tensed truths.

Image credit: Francesca Muccini, 5 June 2018, Recanati, Italy. The philosopher to the left of Francesco is Mark Anderson, Francesca's husband.

Propositions About Socrates Before He Came to Exist

This continues the discussion with James Anderson. See the comments to the related article below. Here is Professor Anderson's latest comment with my replies.

So are you saying that prior to the time Socrates comes into existence the proposition It is possible that Socrates come into existence doesn't exist at all?

Yes, if either Socrates himself, or an haecceity property that deputizes for him, is a constituent of the proposition in question. For it is surely obvious that before Socrates came to exist, he did not exist, and so was not available to be a constituent of a proposition, a state of affairs, or anything at all. As for the putative property identity-with-Socrates, I have already shown to my satisfaction that there cannot be any such property if properties are necessarily existent abstract objects.

No, if we think of 'Socrates' along Russellian lines as a definite description in disguise replaceable by something like 'the most famous of the Greek philosophers, a master dialectician who published nothing but whose thoughts were presented in dialogues written by his star pupil and who was executed by his city-state on the charge of being a corrupter of youth.' I have no objection to saying that, prior to the time Socrates comes into existence, the following proposition exists: It is possible that some man having the properties of being famous, Greek, etc, come into existence.

Are you thereby committed to the contingent existence of propositions?

Not across the board.

Or would you favor full-blown nominalism about propositions?

Not at all. Here is an argument for propositions that impresses me.

Here's my reasoning laid out step by step. Perhaps you can tell me where you would want to jump out of the cab.

1) Socrates came into existence at t.

2) It is possible that Socrates come into existence at t. [actuality entails possibility]

It is a modal axiom that everything actual is possible. So of course actuality entails possibility. But it doesn't follow that before Socrates came into existence, that he, that very individual, was possible. For it might be that he, that very individual, becomes possible only at the instant he becomes actual. If a thing is actual, then it is possible; but that says nothing about when it is possible.

3) The proposition It is possible that Socrates come into existence at t is true. Call this proposition P. (P is a tenseless proposition, although it makes reference to a particular time.)

You are moving too fast. Yes, the proposition P is true. But that P is tenseless is a further premise of your argument and should be listed as such and not introduced parenthetically. Can you prove that P is tenseless? It is not obvious or a non-negotiable datum.

I grant that there are tenseless propositions. Whales are mammals. Numbers are abstract objects. 7 plus 5 is 12. The same goes for their negations. But one cannot assume that every proposition is tenseless. (I grant that every Fregean proposition is tenseless, but that is a technical use of 'proposition.') It might be that P is true only at t and at times later than t.

4) P is necessarily true. [by S5]

Not if P is true only at t and at times later than t. Does this violate S5? Not obviously. On S5, Poss p –> Nec Poss p. Can it be shown that 'p' here includes within its range propositions of de re possibility such as P?

5) P is true at all times. [because necessary truths cannot fail to be true]

6) P is true prior to t (i.e., before Socrates comes into existence).

7) Prior to t, it is possible that Socrates come into existence (at t).

I have given reasons to deny each of these propositions.

At the very least, we have a stand-off here. Professor Anderson has not proven his point. Perhaps I cannot prove my point either. Then we would have an aporia.

Presentism and the Existence Requirement

Why do some find the Existence Requirement self-evident? Could it be because of a (tacit) commitment to presentism?

Here again is the Existence Requirement:

(ER) In order for something to be bad for somebody, that person must exist at the time it is bad for him. (D. Benatar, The Human Predicament, 111,115)

Assuming mortalism, after death a person no longer exists. It is easy to see that mortalism in conjunction with the Existence Requirement entails that being dead is not bad for the person who dies. (of course it might be bad for others, but this is not the issue.) Our Czech colleague Vlastimil V., though he is not a mortalist, accepts this line of reasoning. For he finds (ER) to be well-nigh self-evident. Vlastimil's view, then, is that if one is a mortalist, then then one ought to hold that the dead are not in a bad way; they are not, for example, deprived of the goods they would have had had they been alive.

Initially, I thought along the same lines. But now it seems less clear to me. For now I suspect that a tacit or explicit commitment to the questionable doctrine of presentism is what is driving the sense that (ER) is self-evident. Let's think about this.

At a first approximation, presentism is the ontological thesis that only present items exist. But 'present' has several senses, so we'd better say that on presentism, only temporally present items exist. If so, then what is wholly past does not exist, and likewise for what is wholly future. But let's not worry about future items. And to avoid questions about so-called abstract objects, which either exist at all times or else timelessly, let us restrict ourselves to concreta. So for present purposes, pun intended,

P. Presentism is the ontological thesis that, for concrete items, only temporally present items exist.

Note that 'exist' in (P) cannot be present-tensed on pain of siring the tautology, Only what exists now exists now. The idea is rather that only what exists now exists simpliciter.

Consider Tom Petty who died recently. On mortalism, he no longer exists. On presentism, what no longer exists (i.e., what existed but does not now exist) does not exist at all. So on presentism, Petty does not exist at all. If so, dead Petty cannot be subject to harms or deprivations.

It is beginning to look as if presentism is what is driving the Existence Requirement. For if presentism is true it is impossible that a person be subject to a harm or deprivation at a time at which he does not presently exist. For a time at which he does not presently exist is a time at which he does not exist at all. And if he does not exist at all, then he cannot be subject to harm or deprivation.

What if presentism is false? One way for it to be false is if the 'growing block' theory is true. We could also call it past-and-presentism. On this theory past and present items exist, but no future items exist.

On the 'growing block' theory, dead Petty exists. (This is obviously not a present-tensed use of 'exists.') He does not exist at present, but he exists in the sense that he belongs to the actual world. Once actual, always actual. Is this wholly clear? No, but it is tolerably clear and plausible. After all, we are making singular reference to Petty, a concrete actual individual, as we speak, and this is a good reason to hold that he exists, not at present of course, but simpliciter.

But what does this mean? It is not easy to explain. But if we don't have a notion of existence simpliciter, then we won't be able to make any of of the following substantive (non-tautological) claims:

A. Presentism: Only what exists now exists simpliciter.

B. Past-and-Presentism: Only what exists now and what did exist exists simpliciter.

C. Futurism: Only what exists in the future exists simpliciter.

D. Eternalism: All past, present, and future items exist simpliciter.

We understand these theories, more or less despite the questions they raise; we understand how the theories differ, and we understand that (C) is absurd. So we have an understanding of existence simpliciter. Perhaps we could say that x exists simpliciter just in case x is actual as opposed to merely possible.

I consider (B) preferable to (A).

We don't want to say that a dead man becomes nothing after death since he remains a particular, completely determinate, dead man distinct from others. If the dead become nothing after death then all the dead would be the same. If your dead father and your dead mother are both nothing, then there is nothing to distinguish them. I am assuming the reality of the past. The assumption is not obvious. An anti-realist about the past might say that the past exists only in memory and thus not in reality. But that strains credulity unless you bring God into the picture and put him to work, as presentist Alan Rhoda does in Presentism, Truthmakers, and God.

Nor do we want to say that a person who dies goes from being actual to being merely possible. There is clearly a distinction between an actual past individual and a merely possible past individual. Schopenhauer is an actual past individual; his only son Willy is a merely possible past individual.

Now suppose that something like the 'growing block' theory is true. Then one would have reason to reject the Existence Requirement. One would have reason to reject the claim that a thing can be a subject of harm/deprivation only when it exists (present tense). One could hold that Petty is deprived of musical pleasure on the strength of his having existed. Having existed, he exists simpliciter. Existing simpliciter, he is available to be the subject of harms, deprivations, awards, posthumous fame, and what all else.

Summary

If I am on the right track, one who subscribes to the Existence Requirement must also subscribe to presentism. But presentism is by no means self-evident. (ER) inherits this lack of self-evidence. This supports my earlier claim that the following aporetic triad is rationally insoluble:

1) Mortalism: Death ends a person's existence.

2) Existence Requirement: For something to be bad for somebody, he must exist at the time it is bad for him.

3) Badness of Death: Being dead is bad for the one who dies.

The Epicurean denies (3) and accepts (1) and (2). Benatar denies (2) and accepts (1) and (3). I say we have no rationally compelling reason to go either way.

Can One Change One’s Race?

I raise the title question in the context of my recent study of Rebecca Tuvel's controversial article, "In Defense of Transracialism" (Hypatia, vol. 32., no. 2, Spring 2017, pp. 263-278). It raises a number of fascinating and important questions. I will argue that even if one can change one's sex, by having one's body altered by surgery and hormonal 'therapy,' one cannot change one's race, and to think otherwise is to equivocate on 'identity.'

The Question and One of its Presuppositions

Can one change one's race? Suppose your parents are both white. Can you do anything, or have anything done to you, to become black, say? Common sense says: of course not! But common sense is subject to philosophical scrutiny.

Note first that our question rests on a presupposition, namely, that race has some sort of reality. It presupposes the existence of at least two different races, the racial terminus a quo and the racial terminus ad quem. In plain English, the presupposition is that there is the race one is and the different race one wants to become. So race has to be real. For if race had no reality whatsoever, there could be no real change from one race to the other. It is clear, then, that one cannot be an eliminativist about race and racial differences while holding that one can change one's race. There would be nothing one was changing from and nothing one was changing to.

Race and Money

But from the fact that race is real it does not follow that race is not to some extent socially constructed or construed. For money is surely real without prejudice to its being a social construct. That money is intersubjectively real is shown by the fact that there is a real and important difference between losing and not losing a thousand dollars. That money is a social construct is shown by the fact that without homo oeconomicus there would be no money. Gold ore is not money, nor are gold coins in a human-free world. And the same goes for counterfeit and non-counterfeit Confederate dollars. They are not legal tender because there is no social system now in existence that accepts them as such. As interesting artifacts of the Confederacy, Confederate notes of course have considerable monetary value. But they themselves are not money. You can't use Confederate notes to buy Confederate notes. (Buying is essentially different from bartering and trading.) You would have to use 'real' money such as U. S. dollars or Euros or Bitcoin. What makes a bit of metal or a piece of paper real money is its acceptance and use by humans as a means of exchange.

So it is only within a system of social relations that money is money. It follows that it is not the intrinsic properties of coins and notes and cognate instruments such as their size, shape, mass, and color that make these instruments money.

Money is real; money is a social construct; ergo, some real things are social constructs. So it might be that race is real despite being a social construct. But we need to dig deeper.

Money doesn't grow on trees. It doesn't occur in nature like leaves on trees. Human animals do occur in nature and grow from other human animals, their parents. A human animal does not have to be accepted as human by other humans to be a human animal. Think of a baby human adopted and cared for by wolves. The biology of that individual is not a social construct. It is no more a social construct than the gold ore of which gold coins are made. The coin is money in virtue of socio-economic relations; the gold as metal is independent of the socio-economic nexus. The same goes for human organisms. They cannot be socialized apart from society, but they can be the biological individuals they are apart from society.

Now sex and race are grounded in biology; race therefore cannot be a social construct in the way money is if it is a social construct at all. Granted, racial theories and classifications are social constructs. But what they theorize about and classify cannot be plausibly viewed as a social construct. Otherwise there couldn't be false theories or mis-classifications. Here, then, are some datanic starting points to be presumed epistemically innocent until proven guilty.

Race has to have some sort of reality if there is to be racial change.
A change in race cannot be a mere relational change but must be an intrinsic change.
The reality of race is consistent with aspects of it being socially constructed. Racial classifications and theories, for example, are social constructs.
Race cannot be a purely social construct.

A 'Temporal' Argument Against Race Change

Can I change my race? No. I can no more change my race than I can change the fact that I was born in California. I might have been born elsewhere, of course, but as a matter of contingent fact, I am a native Californian. Despite the logical contingency of my California birth, there was nothing I or anyone, including God, could have done to change or annul that fact about my place of birth. A change of birth place was thereafter impossible.

The same goes for race. My race is determined by my biological ancestors. Since both were white, I am white. To change my race I would have to change a past fact, namely, that I am the product of the copulation of two white parents. But that fact, being past, cannot now be changed or annulled. The argument, then, is this:

1) If I can change my race from white to black, say, then I can change some fact in the distant past, namely, the fact that I am the offspring of two white parents;

2) But it is not the case that I can change any past fact including the fact that I am the offspring of two white parents;

Ergo

3) It is not the case that I can change my race.

The argument assumes that it is nomologically necessary that parents of the same race have offpsring of the same race, that, e.g., white parents have white offspring. The assumption is obviously true.

A 'Modal' Argument Against Race Change

Although I was born in California to parents both of whom are white, I might have been born elsewhere to the same parents. But might I have been born to different parents? Is there a possible world in which I have parents other than my actual parents? If my actual parents are P1 and P2, might I have have had a different pair of parents, say, P1 and P3, or P4 and P5? Not if we accept Saul Kripke's thesis of the Essentiality of Origin. I share the intuition: I wouldn't be me if I had had different parents: my very identity as a biological individual rides on having precisely those parents. I now argue as follows:

4) It is metaphysically impossible that I have different parents than the ones I have;

5) My actual parents are both white;

6) White parents have white offspring; ergo,

7) It is metaphysical impossible that I be non-white; ergo,

8) It is metaphysically impossible that I change my race.

A Response to These Arguments

The point, then, is that it is impossible to change one's race even if it is possible to change one's sex. Tuvel has a response to something like these arguments. Tuvel couches the objection in these terms:

. . . race is a matter of one's biological ancestry, and this is not changeable. If cogent, then changing race would be unlike changing sex. To change sex, we can change hormones, genitalia, and other bodily features. But to change race, we would have to change features external to one's body, such as the fact of genetic ancestry. As a biological reality not restricted to to the body, but dependent on one's genetic heritage, changing race is thus impossible. (266-267)

This is a very powerful argument. To turn it aside one needs a make a drastic move, which is what Tuvel does. She maintains that one's "race is a matter of social definition." (267) It is a social construct and as such, "race is malleable." (267, emphasis in original) It follows that "there is no fact of the matter about her [Rachel Dolezal's] 'actual' race' from a genetic standpoint. . . ." (267, emphasis in original) There is no "truth" about a person's "real" race. (267)

The point, I take it, is not that race and racial differences are devoid of reality entirely, but that they have the reality of social constructs without a biological basis. Society assigns you your race. Thus the difference between white and black is not grounded in any biological difference. To be white/black/Hispanic, etc. is to be deemed such within a given society. If so, "it is at least theoretically possible to change races." (267) " . . . whether is is practically possible will depend on a society's willingness to adjust its rules for racial categorization to better accommodate individual self-identification." (267)

The idea, then, is that if a person identifies as black, say, and society recognizes and accepts this "felt sense of identity," then one is black. (264)

Surely this is preposterous.

Changing the Subject and Playing Fast and Loose with Identity

The question was whether one can change one's race. The answer from Tuvel is yes, one can change one's racial identity by (i) changing one's racial self-identification and (ii) getting society to accept one's new self-identification. But this amounts not to changing one's race but to changing the subject. No doubt one can change one's race in her sense. But race in her sense floats free of the undeniable biological reality of race. One's racial identity is no more malleable than one's species identity. As a biological individual, I am an instance of h. sapiens and and there is nothing I or anyone can do to change that. Not even the Cat Man, Dennis Avner, could change his species identity (He died a suicide recently in Tonopah, Nevada.) Similarly with my race. It is bound up with my biological identity.

On top of that, Tuvel conflates the identity of a biological individual with its self-construal or self-identification as this or that.

Four Types of Ontological Egalitarianism

There are egalitarians in ontology as there are in political theory.

Herewith, four types of ontological egalitarianism: egological, spatial, temporal, and modal.

Egological egalitarianism is the view there is a plurality of equally real selves. I take it we are all egological egalitarians in sane moments. I'll assume that no one reading this thinks, solipsistically, that he alone is real and that others, if they exist at all, exist only as merely intentional objects for him. The problem of Other Minds may concern us, but that is an epistemological problem, one that presupposes that there are other minds/selves. On ontological egalitarianism, then, no self enjoys ontological privilege.

Spatial egalitarianism is the that there is a plurality of equally real places. Places other than here are just as real as the place picked out by a speaker's use of 'here.' I take it we are all spatial egalitarians. No one, not even a Manhattanite, thinks that the place where he is is the only real place. Here is real but so is yonder. No place enjoys ontological privilege. All places are equal.

Temporal egalitarianism is the view that there is a plurality of equally real times. Times other than the present time are just as real as the present time. No time enjoys ontological privilege, which implies that there is nothing ontologically special about the present time. All times are equal. No time is present, period. This is called the B-theory of time. Here is a fuller explanation.

Modal egalitarianism is the view that there is a plurality of equally real possibilities. Possibilities other than those that are actual are just as real as those that are actual. It is plausible to think of possibilities as coming in maximal or 'world-sized' packages. Call them possible worlds. On modal egalitarianism, then, all possible worlds are equally real. No world enjoys ontological privilege. Our world, the world we take to be actual, is not absolutely actual; it is merely actual for us, or rather, actual at itself. But that is true of every world: each is actual at itself. No world is actual, period. In respect of actuality, all possible worlds are equal.

What is curious about these four types of ontological egalitarianism is that, while the first two are about as close to common sense as one is likely to get, the second two are not. Indeed, the fourth will strike most people as crazy. Was David Lewis crazy? I don't know, but I hear he was a bad driver.

Related: Philosophers as Bad Drivers?

Time and Tense: Remarks on the B-Theory

What is time? Don't ask me, and I know. Ask me, and I don't know. (St. Augustine) This post sketches, without defending, one theory of time.

On the B-Theory of time, real or objective time is exhausted by what J. M. E. McTaggart called the B-series, the series of times, events, and individuals ordered by the B-relations (earlier than, later than, simultaneous with). If the B-theory is correct, then our ordinary sense that events approach us from the future, arrive at the present, and then recede into the past is at best a mind-dependent phenomenon, at worst an illusuion. Either way, not something that really occurs. For on the B-theory, there are no such irreducible monadic A-properties as futurity, presentness and pastness. There is just a manifold of tenselessly existing events ordered by the B-relations. Time does not pass or flow, let alone fly. There is no temporal becoming. My birth is not sinking into the past, becoming ever more past, nor is my death approaching from the future, getting closer and closer. Tempus fugit does not express a truth about reality. At best, it picks out a truth about our experience of reality.

The B-theorist does not deny that there is time. He does not hold that time is an illusion or mere appearance. What he denies is that the sense we all have that time passes or flows is an ingredient in real time. His claim is that real or objective time is exhausted by the B-series and that temporal becoming is at best subjective.

If there is no temporal becoming in reality, then change is not a becoming different or a passing away or a coming into being. When a tomato ripens, it does not become ripe: it simply is unripe at certain times and is ripe at certain later times. And when it ceases to exist, it doesn't pass away: it simply is at certain times and is not at certain later times.

You could say that that the B-theorist has a static view of time that strips way its 'dynamism.'

Employing a political metaphor, one could say that a B-theorist is an egalitarian about times and the events at times: they are all equal in point of reality. Accordingly, my blogging now is no more real (but also no less real) than Socrates' drinking the hemlock millenia ago. Nor is it more real than my death which, needless to say, lies in the future. (But this future event is not approaching or getting closer.) Each time is present at itself, but no time is present, period. And each time (and the events at it) exists relative to itself, but no time exists absolutely.

This is to say that the present moment enjoys no privilege. There is nothing special about it. So you can't say that the present alone exists.

This is not to say that the B-theorist does not have uses for 'past,' 'present,' and 'future.' He can speak with the vulgar while thinking with the learned. Thus a B-theorist can hold that an utterance at time t of 'E is past' expresses the fact that E is earlier than t. An old objection is that this does not capture the meaning of 'E is past.' For the fact that E is earlier than t, if true, is always true; while 'E is past' is true only after E. This difference in truth conditions shows a difference in meaning. The B-theorist can respond by saying that his concern is not with semantics but with ontology. His concern is with the reality, or rather the lack of reality, of tense, and not with the meanings of tensed sentences or sentences featuring A-expressions. The B-theorist can say that, regardless of meaning, what makes it true that E is past at t is that E is earlier than t, and that, in mind-independent reality, nothing else is needed to make 'E is past' uttered at t true.

Compare 'BV is hungry' and 'I am hungry' said by BV. The one is true if and only if the other is. But the two sentences differ in meaning. The first, if true, is true no matter who says it; but the second is true only if asserted by someone who is hungry. Despite the difference in meaning, what makes it true that I am hungry (assertively uttered by BV) is that BV is hungry. In sum, the B-theorist need not be committed to the insupportable contention that A-statements are translatable salva significatione into B-statements.

The B-theorist, then, denies that the present moment enjoys any temporal or existential privilege. Every time is temporally present to itself such that no time is temporally present simpliciter. This temporal egalitarianism entails a decoupling of existence and temporal presentness. There just is no irreducible monadic property of temporal presentness; hence existence cannot be identified with it. To exist is to exist tenselessly. The B-theory excludes presentism according to which there is a genuine, irreducible, property of temporal presentness and existence is either identical or logically equivalent to this property. Presentism implies that only the temporally present is real or existent. If to exist is to exist now, then the past and future do not exist, not just now (which is trivial) but at all.

Please note that the B-theory is incompatible not only with presentism, but with any theory that is committed to irreducible A-properties. Thus the B-theory rules out 'pastism,' the crazy theory that only the past exists and 'futurism,' the crazy view that only the future exists. It also rules out the sane view that only the past and the present exist.

Why be a B-theorist? McTaggart has a famous argument according to which the monadic A-properties lead to contradiction. We should examine that argument in a separate post. The argument is endorsed by Hugh Mellor in his Real Time.

Another consideration is that the physics of Einstein & Co, has no need of temporal becoming. So if physics gets at the world as it is in itself apart from our subjective additions, then real time is exhausted by the B-series.

A Physicist’s Petitio Principii

One of my self-appointed tasks is to beat up on physicists when they play at philosophy and makes fools of themselves. The following is from an interview with Richard Muller in Physics Today:

PT: You mention in your introduction that some physicists have concluded that the flow of time is an illusion. Why do you think that’s not the case?

MULLER: The flow of time does not exist in the usual spacetime diagram of physics. Time is mysterious; in any relativistic coordinate system, it is linked to space. And yet time is different—and I mean much more than simply a sign in the metric. Time flows. Choose any coordinate system and you can stand still in space but not in time. That different behavior breaks the otherwise glorious spacetime symmetry. Moreover, there is a special moment in time we call “now.” No such special location exists in the dimensions of space.

Is this guy serious? His argument boils down to: The flow of time is not an illusion because time flows! There is no spacetime symmetry because there is a special moment in time called 'NOW.' Well thank you very much for resolving this thorny question at long last. The 'diameter' of this circular reasoning is embarrassingly short. Both interviewee and interviewer need a course in Logic 101.

The following entry will give you some idea of the theory that our physicist thinks he has refuted.

John Peterson’s Thomist Analysis of Change

1. The Riddle of Change. Change is ubiquitous. It is perhaps the most pervasive feature of our experience and of the objects of our experience. But is it intelligible? Change could be a fact without being intelligible. But the mind seeks intelligibility; hence it seeks to render change intelligible to it.

There is something puzzling about change inasmuch as it seems to imply a contradiction. When a thing changes, it becomes different than what it was. But unless it also remains the same, we cannot speak, as we do, of one thing changing. But how can this one thing be both the same and different? We ought not assume that there is an insoluble problem here. But we also ought not assume that a simple solution is at hand, or that some simple fallacy has been committed. We must investigate. We do well to begin with some mundane, Moorean fact.

This is because alteration (accidental change) is neither destruction nor duplication. The ripening of an avocado does not cause it to cease to exist. And it is clear that one cannot speak of change if there are two avocados, A and B, indiscernible except in respect of ripeness/unripeness, such that A is unripe at time t while B is ripe at time t* (t*> t). Alteration requires that one and the same thing have incompatible properties at different times. This is necessary for alteration; whether it is sufficient is a further question.

Thus there is an apparent contradiction: the ripe avocado is both the same and not the same as the unripe avocado. If you think this puzzle is easily solved, then you haven't understood it. You cannot understand philosophy unless you understand the problems to which its theories and theses are the responses. Philosophy may be more than aporetics, but it is at least aporetics. If you lack the 'aporetic sense' then you lack the "feeling of the philosopher" Plato describes at Theaetetus 155.

2. Reality is contradiction-free. There are no contradictions in reality, but only in our thoughts about reality. That there are no contradictions in reality is not perfectly obvious, but it is very reasonably assumed to be true, and we have to start somewhere. Now if it is true, and if, as is obvious, changes occur, then the apparent contradiction has to be removed. If the apparent contradiction cannot be removed, that is, shown to be merely apparent, then change, which obviously exists in some sense, will have to be demoted to the status of a Bradleyan appearance. (See F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, Book I, Chapter 5.)

The task, then, is to remove the apparent contradiction.

3. Avocado A, having altered, is both the same and different. How is that possible? One solution involves a distinction between numerical and qualitative sameness. A is numerically the same over the interval during which it goes from unripe to ripe, but not qualitatively the same over that interval. The sense in which A is the same is not the same as the sense in which A is not the same: A is numerically the same over the interval but not qualitatively the same over the interval. I will say no more about this solution in this post.

4. Instead of distinguishing two senses of 'same,' one can distinguish two senses of 'individual.' On an Aristotelian-Thomistic analysis, as presented by John Peterson ("Persons and the Problem of Interaction," The Modern Schoolman LXIII, January 1985, 131-137), the individual₁ is the primary substance, the avocado in our example. This primary substance is the individual substance, the individual this-such, together with its accidents. The primary substance at time t (when the ripening process begins) is the unripe avocado, and the primary substance at t* (when the process is completed) is a numerically different primary substance. It follows that the primary substance is not the substratum of change!

The substratum of change — that which stays the same throughout the change — is the individual₂, the secondary substance 'in' the individual₁. The secondary substance 'in' a primary substance is its individuated essence. Primary substances are capable of independent existence. Secondary substances, as constituents of primary substances, are not capable of independent existence. Yet these secondary substances are what ground diachronic identity. So what grounds identity over time and underlies the change and persists through it is the individuated essence.

One can see how this distinction between two senses of 'individual' removes the contradiction. It is the individual₂ (the individuated essence) that is the same over time, and the individual₁ that is different over time. There is no one concretum that is the same and different. There are two 'things' in the changing concretum.

It follows that the unripe avocado I saw on my counter a week ago is not numerically the same ripe avocado that I see on my counter today. It is a numerically different avocado.

5. The scholastic analysis can be applied to persons and the problem of their identity over time and through change. Persons are individuals₂. Thus they are individuated essences or secondary substances. Elliot drunk and Elliot sober are the same person because the same individuated essence, the same instance of humanity, underlies the change in accidents. But they are numerically different primary substances and thus numerically different human animals.

Peterson thinks this solution superior to the Cartesian view according to which a person is identified with a res cogitans. On the Cartesian view, the person is a primary as opposed to a secondary substance. As a primary substance, the person on the Cartesian view is capable of independent existence. Given that a person remains self-same through change, the res cogitans must remain self-same though change. But then how can Elliot drunk and Elliot sober be the same person? "For individuals₁, as was said, are not substrates through any change but are rather the termini in any change, that is, the terminus ad quem [endpoint toward which] and terminus a quo [endpoint from which] of a change." (p. 135)

6. Let us now consider existential or substantial change. When an avocado ripens, it acquires the property of being ripe and loses the property of being unripe. It seems as obvious as anything that alterational or accidental change requires a substratum. But when the ripe avocado becomes the stuff of guacamole, it suffers a much more radical change. The avocado ceases to exist. Can one speak here too of a substratum of change, something in the thing that remains the same through the change?

There is likewise a difference between Elliot's sobering up and Elliot's dying. When he sobers up, the substratum of the change on the Thomistic view is his individuated essence. But what is the substratum of the radical existential change which occurs when he dies? Peterson writes, "The substrate of this change, of course, cannot be a particular human essence since it is just this which has passed away." (135) The particular human essence is subject to passing away since it is a compound of form and matter. So Peterson proposes the Aristotelian view according to which "The substrate of change in the case of essential change is simply the potentiality on the part of any individual to become something essentially different from what it is." (135) This potentiality is matter. Since it is that which individuates the form, matter is an individual in a third sense. There are then three senses of 'individual':

Individual₁ = primary substance
Individual₂ = secondary substance = substrate of accidental change
Individual₃ = matter = substrate of essential or existential change

7. Possible Lines of Critique

A. Peterson's theory implies that the unripe avocado and the ripe avocado are two primary substances, not one. (Likewise for Elliot sober and Elliot drunk.) But since now there is only one, the ripe one, the unripe one must have passed out of existence. This consequence of Peterson's theory seems to collide with the Moorean fact mentioned above, namely, that alterational or accidental change does not involve the destruction of the thing that changes. If the thing that changes is the unripe avocado one sees and touches, then that thing does not remain self-same over time: it passes out of existence. What remains the same over time is the individuated essence which one does not see and which is not a substance in its own right.

B. Matter, as the substrate of essential change, is prime matter. It is very difficult to see how the notion of materia prima can be rendered intelligible.

Past, Present, and Future Walked into a Bar . . .

. . . and things began to get tense.

Numerical and Qualitative Identity and Radical Flux

Philosophers often use 'numerically' in contrast with 'qualitatively' when speaking of identity or sameness. If I tell you that I drive the same car as Jane, that is ambiguous: it could mean that Jane and I drive one and the same car, or it could mean that Jane and I drive the same make and model of car, but not one and the same car. To take a second example, six bottles of beer in a typical six-pack are numerically distinct but qualitatively identical. Suppose you want a beer from the six-pack. It won't matter which bottle of the six I hand you since they are all qualitatively the same (qualitatively identical) in respect of both bottle and contents, at least with regard to the properties that you would find relevant such as quantity, taste, inebriatory potential, etc. If I hand you a beer and you say you want a different beer from the same six-pack, you mean a numerically different one. If I reply by saying that they are all the same, I mean they are all qualitatively the same.

If A and B are numerically identical, it follows that they are one and the same. A and B are one, not two. If A and B are qualitatively identical, it does not follow that they are one and the same. But they might be. For if A and B are numerically identical, then they share all properties, in which case they are qualitatively identical. Furthermore, if A and B are qualitatively identical, it does not follow that they share every property: it suffices that they share some properties.

To see this, suppose that you and I both order the 'monster chimichanga' at the local Mexican eatery. We have ordered the same item, qualitatively speaking. But it turns out that the one served to you is slightly more 'monstrous' (a wee bit bigger) than mine. That doesn't change the fact that they are qualitatively the same or qualitatively identical as I use these phrases. The chimis are two, not one, hence numerically different. They are the same in that they share most properties.

I suppose we could nuance this by distinguishing strict from loose qualitative identity. Strict implies indiscernibility; loose does not.

Can One Step Twice into the Same River?

Stephen Law (HT: Sed Contra) thinks one can make short work of a Heraclitean puzzle if one observes the numerical-qualitative distinction:

If you jump into a river and then jump in again, the river will have changed in the interim. So it won't be the same. But if it's not the same river, then the number of rivers that you jump into is two, not one. It seems we're forced to accept the paradoxical – indeed, absurd – conclusion that you can't jump into one and the same river twice. Being forced into such a paradox by a seemingly cogent argument is a common philosophical predicament.

This particular puzzle is fairly easily solved: the paradoxical conclusion that the number of rivers jumped into is two not one is generated by a faulty inference. Philosophers distinguish at least two kinds of identity or sameness. Numerical identity holds where the number of objects is one, not two (as when we discover that Hesperus, the evening star, is identical with Phosphorus, the morning star). Qualitative identity holds where two objects share the same qualities (e.g. two billiard balls that are molecule-for molecule duplicates of each other, for example). We use the expression 'the same' to refer to both sorts of identity. Having made this conceptual clarification, we can now see that the argument that generates our paradox trades on an ambiguity. It involves a slide from the true premise that the river jumped in the second time isn't qualitatively 'the same' to the conclusion that it is not numerically 'the same'. We fail to spot the flaw in the reasoning because the words 'the same' are used in each case. But now the paradox is resolved: we don't have to accept that absurd conclusion. Here's an example of how, by unpacking and clarifying concepts, it is possible to solve a classical philosophical puzzle. Perhaps not all philosophical puzzles can be solved by such means, but at least one can.

Problem Solved?

Not so fast. Although superficially plausible, the above solution/dissolution of the puzzle begs the question against the doctrine of Heraclitean flux. Law goes at Heraclitus with the numerical-qualitative identity distinction. But this distinction presupposes a distinction between individuals and qualities. Given this distinction one can say that one and the same individual has different qualities at different times. Thus one and the same river is stepped into at different times. But on a doctrine of Heraclitean flux, there are no individuals that remain self-same over time. There is no substrate of change. Change cuts so deep that it cannot be confined to the properties of a thing leaving the thing, as the substrate of change, relatively unchanged. For Heracliteans as for Buddhists, it's flux all the way down.

Law taxes Heraclitus with an illicit inferential slide from

The river jumped into the second time is not qualitatively the same

The river jumped into the second time is not numerically the same.

But there is no equivocation on 'same' unless we can sustain a distinction between the thing and its properties. Is this distinction unproblematic? Of course not. It reeks with problems. Just what is a thing in distinction from its properties? A Bergmannian bare particular? An Armstrongian thin particular? An Aristotelian primary substance? There are problems galore with these conceptions. Has anyone ever really clarified the notion of prote ousia in Aristotle? Nope. Is a thing a bundle of its properties? More problems. And what is a property? An abstract object? In what sense of 'abstract'? A universal? A trope? Will you say that there are no properties at all, only predicates? And what about the thing's HAVING of properties? What is that? Instantiation? Is instantiation a relation? If yes, does it sire Bradley's Regress? Are properties/concepts perhaps unsaturated in Frege's sense? Can sense be made of that? Is HAVING some sort of containment relation? Are the properties of a thing ontological constituents of it? And what could that mean? And so it goes.

We are presented with a puzzle and a seeming absurdity: There is no stepping twice into the same river. The Moorean rebuttal comes quickly: Of course, there is! Common sense, convinced that it is right, attempts to dissolve the puzzle by making a simple distinction between numerical and qualitative identity. The dissolution seems to work — but only if we remain on the surface of the troubled waters. Think a little more and you realize that the distinction presupposes a deeper distinction between thing and properties. But now we are launched into a labyrinth of ontological problems for which there is no accepted solution. The unclarity of the individual-property distinction percolates back upwards to disturb the numerical-qualitative distinction.

Law has not definitively solved the Heraclitean puzzle.

The Numerical-Qualitative Distinction is Valid at the Level of Ordinary Language

We need to make the distinction, of course: it is fallout from, and exegesis of, ordinary usage. 'Same' is indeed ambiguous in ordinary English. The distinction does useful work at the level of ordinary language. The Heraclitean, however, need not be taken as contesting, at that level, the truth that one can step twice into the same river. He is making a metaphysical claim: there is in reality, below the level of conventional talk and understanding, radical flux. If so, there is nothing that remains self-same over time, such as a river, into which one can step twice.

Summary

To think clearly and avoid confusion one must observe the distinction between numerical and qualitative identity. But this distinction, which is serviceable enough for ordinary purposes, rests on a distinction, that of individual and property, which is metaphysically murky. Therefore, the common sense distinction cannot be used to dispatch the Heracliteans' metaphysical claim.

The deep metaphilosophical issue here concerns the role and status of Moorean rebuttals to seemingly crazy metaphysical claims. The illustrious Peter van Inwagen famously denies the existence of artifacts. But he is not crazy, and you won't be able to blow him out of the water with some simple-minded distinction.

See Peter van Inwagen, Artifacts, and Moorean Rebuttals

Our Knowledge of Sameness

How ubiquitous, yet how strange, is sameness! A structure of reality so pervasive and fundamental that a world that did not exhibit it would be inconceivable.

How do I know that the tree I now see in my backyard is numerically the same as the one I saw there yesterday? Alvin Plantinga (Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford 1993, p. 124) says in a Reidian vein that one knows this "by induction." I take him to mean that the tree I now see resembles very closely the one I saw yesterday in the same place and that I therefore inductively infer that they are numerically the same. Thus the resemblance in respect of a very large number of properties provides overwhelming evidence of their identity.

But this answer seems open to objection. First of all, there is something instantaneous and immediate about my judgment of identity in a case like this: I don't compare the tree-perceived-yesterday, or my memory of the tree-perceived-yesterday, with the tree-perceived-today, property for property, to see how close they resemble in order to hazard the inference that they are identical. There is no 'hazarding' at all. Phenomenologically, there is no comparison and no inference. I just see that they are the same. But this 'seeing' is of course not with the eyes. For sameness is not an empirically detectable property or relation. I am just immediately aware — not mediately via inference — that they are the same. Greenness is empirically detectable, but sameness is not.

What is the nature of this awareness given that we do not come to it by inductive inference? And what exactly is the object of the awareness, identity itself?

A problem with Plantinga's answer is that it allows the possibility that the two objects are not strictly and numerically the same, but are merely exact duplicates or indiscernible twins. But I want to discuss this in terms of the problem of how we perceive or know or become aware of change. Change is linked to identity since for a thing to change is for one and the same thing to change.

Let's consider alterational (as opposed to existential) change. A thing alters iff it has incompatible properties at different times. Do we perceive alteration with the outer senses? A banana on my counter on Monday is yellow with a little green. On Wednesday the green is gone and the banana is wholly yellow. On Friday, a little brown is included in the color mix. We want to say that the banana, one and the same banana, has objectively changed in respect of color.

But what justifies our saying this? Do we literally see, see with the eyes, that the banana has changed in color? That literal seeing would seem to require that I literally see that it is the same thing that has altered property-wise over the time period. But how do I know that it is numerically the same banana present on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? How do I know that someone hasn't arranged things so that there are three different bananas, indiscernible except for color, that I perceive on the three different days? On that extraordinary arrangement I could not be said to be perceiving alterational change. To perceive alterational change one must perceive identity over time. For there is change only if one and the same thing has different properties at different times. But I do not perceive the identity over time of the banana.

I perceive a banana on Monday and a banana on Wednesday; but I do not visually perceive that these are numerically the same banana. For it is consistent with what I perceive that there be two very similar bananas, call them the Monday banana and the Wednesday banana. I cannot tell from sense perception alone whether I am confronting numerically the same banana on two different occasions or two numerically different bananas on the two occasions. If you disagree with this, tell me what sameness looks like. Tell me how to empirically detect the property or relation of numerical sameness. Tell me what I have to look for.

Suppose I get wired up on methamphetamines and stare at the banana the whole week long. That still would not amount to the perception of alterational change. For it is consistent with what I sense-perceive that there be a series of momentary bananas coming in and out of existence so fast that I cannot tell that this is happening. (Think of what goes on when you go to the movies.) To perceive change, I must perceive diachronic identity, identity over time. I do not perceive the latter; so I do not perceive change. I don't know sameness by sense perception, and pace Plantinga I don't know it by induction. For no matter how close the resemblance between two objects, that is consistent with their being numerically distinct. And note that my judgment that the X I now perceive is the same as the X I perceived in the past has nothing tentative or shaky about it. I judge immediately and with assurance that it is the same tree, the same banana, the same car, the same woman. What then is the basis of this judgment? How do I know that this tree is the same as the one I saw in this spot yesterday? Or in the case of a moving object, how do I know that this girl who I now see on the street is the same as the one I saw a moment ago in the coffee house? Surely I don't know this by induction.

How then do I know it?