Graham Priests Theory of Change by Ben Burgis In In Contradiction, Graham Priest argues that all moments of change are

necessarily contradictory. What follows is a quic , rough !ara!hrase of his argument. Consider any ob"ect # changing from being in state $ to being in state not% $. &or e'am!le, imagine that (ar gets )ery drun and accidentally smashes his friend Ben*s nice glass ash tray. +t the moment when it changes from being intact to being bro en ,i.e. not%intact-, is it. ,a- Intact/ ,b- 0ot%intact/ ,c- 0either intact nor not%intact/ ,d- Both intact and not%intact/ If the answer is ,a-, then we*re not tal ing about the moment of change, but some moment before the change. If the answer is ,b-, then we*re not tal ing about the moment but some moment after the change. If the answer is ,c-, then by double negation that entails ,d- in any case. 1ence, at the moment of change, it must be both intact and not%intact. Priest thin s this 2contradiction theory of change2 !uts him in a line of thought about change attributable to historical figures li e 1eraclitus, 3eno, 1egel and 4ngels. 1e also e'tends the thought to accommodate the common intuition that 2time flows2 as one moment changes into the ne't, that !rocess being as contradictory as all moments of change. 0ow, I*m inclined to )iew this as a neat little reductio !roof against the )ery idea that there are or could be such things as 2moments of change.2 Change doesn*t occur 5at moments,5 it occurs among moments. That is to say, to say that # goes from being $ to being not%$ is "ust to say that at Time T6 it*s $ and at Time T7 it*s not%$, and that*s all. To say that an ob"ect changes o)er time, is sim!ly to say that its !ro!erties )ary across time. ,In fact, since I*m a !erdurantist about !ersistence o)er time, I*d shar!en this by saying that to say that an ob"ect changes o)er time is sim!ly to say that there are differences in the rele)ant res!ect among its tem!oral !arts.Priest is of course aware of this alternati)e theory of change, which he attributes to 8ussell and calls the 2cinematic2 theory of change. The barb here is that this wouldn*t be real 2change2 at all, but a series of static states

succeeding each other, li e still frames being !ro"ected in ra!id succession to create the illusion of motion. #f course, in arguing for the 8ussellian theory of change against a non% dialetheist !artisan of 2moments of change,2 we could "ust res!ond to this barb by deri)ing the contradiction from the notion of moments of change and that would be that. In the roc %!a!er%scissors rules of standard meta!hysical argumentation, inconsistency%a)oidance beats )ague lingering intuitions e)ery time. In this case, of course, we can*t res!ond that way without begging the question against Priest, so let*s see if we can*t do better. The first interesting thing to !oint out is that Priest, with his tal of time flowing and moments changing into one another, would seem to be dee!ly committed to the +%Theory of Time, according to which there*s an ontologically !ri)ileged !resent moment, and if its not the only moment that e'ists ,as the e'treme form of the +%Theory has it-, then at the )ery least, there are real 2(acTaggart !ro!erties2 of !astness, !resentness and futurity out there in the world. The alternati)e B%Theory of Time has it that there are no such !ro!erties, no stance%inde!endent fact of the matter about what 2the !resent moment2 is, and that words li e 2now2 are "ust inde'icals li e 2here.2 It*s tellingly rele)ant that Priest e'!resses his theory of change with a !araconsistent tense logic, with !astness and futurity o!erators, and that tense logics ha)e historically been associated with +% Theorists li e Prior. It*s not clear that from the !ers!ecti)e of the B%Theory, a tense logic with !astness and futurity o!erators would ma e any more sense than, say, a 2height logic2 with tallness and shortness o!erators, and for about the same reason. (oreo)er, if the B%Theory is right, and time is "ust li e s!ace, then the )arying time slices of ob"ects had better be 2static,2 at least in the sense that all of time equally e'ists 2all the time.2 Priest*s first !roblem, then, is that it*s awfully hard to reconcile the +%Theory with 4instein*s $!ecial Theory of 8elati)ity. +s Putnam and others ha)e argued )ery nicely, without absolute simultaneity, it*s hard to ma e sense of the idea that there could be a fact of the matter about what 2the !resent moment2 is. +fter all, one of the things that seems to be intuiti)ely true about !resentness is that if 4)ent + is !art of 2the !resent,2 and 4)ent B is simultaneous with 4)ent +, then 4)ent B is !art of the !resent as well. The !roblem is that, if simultaneity is relati)e to reference frames, then + and B could be simultaneous with each other ,but not with 4)ent C- according to

one reference frame, and B and C could be simultaneous with each other ,but not +- according to a different one, and we can ee! iterating that !rinci!le about simultaneity and !resentness until....well, you see where this is going. $o that*s Problem 96. Priest*s theory of change seems to fly in the face of our best current science. The ob)ious snar y res!onse to this is that, as a dialetheist, the logical s!ace for Priest would include embracing a contradiction about the $!ecial Theory of 8elati)ity, but this would miss the !oint. :ust because contradictions are, according to the dialetheist, logically !ossible, doesn*t mean that any !articular contradiction is !articularly !lausible, and it seems safe to say that, as far as ma ing Priest*s form of dialetheism more !lausible and attracting new followers to it, embracing a contradiction about the $T8 would not be a !articularly good mo)e. This obser)ation leads direction to Problem 97. + central com!onent of Priest*s !ro"ect of trying to car)e out a !lausible dialetheism is something called the 2classical re%ca!ture.2 The idea is this. If dialetheism is correct, then some rules of classical logic, li e ;is"uncti)e $yllogism, aren*t uni)ersally truth%!reser)ing. ;$ is the rule that, gi)en ,P ) <- and =P, we can conclude <. The !roblem is that if dialetheism is right, then there could be a situation where P and =P are both true, but < is ,"ustfalse. In that scenario, since P is true, by the law of dis"unction%addition, ,P ) <- must true as well, so we ha)e a counter%e'am!le to ;$. While this has the ha!!y result of showing that, if dialetheism is true, the e'!losion !roof is in)alid ,since it relies on ;$-, it has the unha!!y result of rendering in)alid a rule that we use all the time in e)eryday, garden%)ariety reasoning and which intuiti)ely seems li e an ob)iously correct inference. ,28yan is either downstairs !laying Guitar 1ero or in his room slee!ing, since those are the only things he e)er does. 1e*s not !laying Guitar 1ero, so he must be slee!ing.2- Priest accommodates this by saying that, although gi)en the e'istence of true contradictions, and hence counter% e'am!les to ;$, it*s not deducti)ely )alid, it*s at least a !robabilistically reliable inference. To get this off the ground, he argues that the statistical frequency of true contradictions is )ery low, and so, all else being equal, the e!istemic !robability of any !articular contradiction being true is corres!ondingly low. 1ence, classical rules that rely on the assum!tion that there are no true contradictions still ha)e !robablistic force.

$o far, so good. But if all moments of change in)ol)e true contradictions, then it starts to loo li e the rate of true contradictions isn*t nearly as low as one would thin if one thought the only true contradictions in)ol)ed abstract issues li e >iar sentences and nai)e set theory. 4)ery time we say of an ob"ect # that it*s in state $ when it is in fact at that moment in the !rocess of changing into being in state not%$, we*)e said something that*s both true and false. $o it loo s to me li e, in claiming that change in)ol)es contradiction, Priest is !laying with fire and !utting his 2classical re%ca!ture2 is serious danger of burning down. That*s Problem 97. Problem 9? is the sim!lest one. >et*s say Priest is right and mere )ariation of !ro!erties that ob"ects ha)e among moments in time wouldn*t be real change but merely a succession of static states. (oreo)er, let*s say that on the basis of his intuition that real change e'ists, there are indeed these strange contradictory moments of change. 0ow, to ada!t a !o!ular argument against mathematical Platonism to this argument, imagine that suddenly, these moments of change sto!!ed ha!!ening. ,$ay, God willed that real change would no longer e'ist, but that e)erything else would stay the same.- +sh trays would still go from being intact to being bro en, your hair in the shower would still go from being dry to being wet, etc., etc., etc., but there would no longer be contradictory transitional moments. If that ha!!ened, how would we e)er now/ +nd what difference would it ma e to anything else/ Would !eo!le who ,in our world- share Priest*s intuitions about change not ha)e them/ If not, why on earth should we let those intuitions settle this, gi)en that it*s much sim!ler and more cautious to !ostulate that the obser)ed states of any gi)en ob"ect # being ,"ust- $ or ,"ust- not%$ are the only states there are/ $ourced from. htt!.@@blogandnot%blog.blogs!ot.com@7AAB@AC@graham% !riests%theory%of%change.html