Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.26362/20220202
Stage-theoretical naming and counting
H. E. Baber
orcid.org/0000-0003-1430-7065
; Department of Philosophy, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110, USA
Abstract
According to the stage view, ordinary objects are instantaneous stages, which “persist” by being counterpart-related to stages that exist at other times. In this paper, I consider the respective merits of current proposals for a stage-theoretical semantics of proper names of ordinary objects and sketch what I argue is a better alternative. On any stage-theoretical account, names of ordinary objects refer to stages. I argue that names should be understood as temporally flexible, referring indeterminately over stages that constitute an object’s history, and sketch a stagetheoretical semantics for names of ordinary objects that yields the intuitively correct results for reference and counting in both ordinary cases and extraordinary puzzle cases of fission.
Keywords
Stage theory; persistence; personal identity; fission; proper names
Hrčak ID:
287834
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2022.
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