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    JOHANNA SEIBT EXISTENCE IN TIME: FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS Most topics of present-day ontological debate are discussed within a specific ontological research paradigm that has dominated ontological inquiry throughout its history. Since this paradigm has its starting point in Aristotle and contains many elements of Aristotle’s substance meta- physics, one might justifiedly speak of a historical hegemony of ‘the paradigm of substance ontology’. It is important to note, however, that the paradigm reaches beyond the commitment to the dualist categ framework of ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’ — in fact, being committed to substances and attributes is not even essential to it. Rather, the paradigm of substance ontology consists primarily of a set of principles which governs the construction of ontological theories, Since these principles are located within the ‘presuppositional depth- structure’ of the debate, they have hardly received any attention so far. Even those contemporary ontologists who drop the traditional talk about substances still import the presuppositions of the traditional paradigm; even in ontologies whose basic entities are events, tropes, or state of affairs, the presuppositions of substance ontology are still operative Substance-ontological presuppositions enter into the very formulations of ontological problems and restrict the space of possible solutions ‘To put this observation most dramatically, one might draw a parallel to other well-known ideological fixations in the philosophical tradition; in the same way in which semantics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind have narrated the “myth of the museum” (Quine), the “myth of the given” (Sellars), and the “myth of the ghost in the machine” (Ryle), respectively, ontology, one might claim, has been trading a myth of its own — the ‘myth of substance’ In the following I will try to show how substance-ontological presuppo- sitions influence the contemporary debate about the nature of existence in time. In section one I present the five most central presuppositions of the debate about existence in time. In section two I show how the so-called ‘endurance view’, which retains all of the mentioned presuppo- 183 J. Faye etal. (eds), Perspectives on Time, 143—182. (© 1997 Kluwer Academie Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 144 JOHANNA SEIBT sitions, remains caught in an aporia generated by these presuppositions. In section three I discuss several approaches, in particular the so-called ‘perdurance view’, which dismiss some of the five presuppositions. Fi- nally, in section four I sketch Key ideas for a process-ontological scheme where all of the mentioned substance-ontological presuppositions are abandoned. Within this framework, I formulate an account of persis- tence which presents a third alternative between endurance and perdu- rance and avoids the pitfalls of both. 1, SOME SUBSTANCE-ONTOLOGICAL PRES UP POSITIONS Ramsey once remarked that “when a philosophical dispute presents itself as an irresolvable oscillation between two alternatives, the like- lihood is that. both alternatives are false and share a common false presupposition”! Since the current debate about existence in time presents itself as such an ‘irresolvable oscillation’ — between the so- called ‘endurance’ and ‘perdurance? approaches — it seems appropriate to follow Ramsey’s advice and search for implicit assumptions which might hamper the treatment of the issue. In this section I will introduce five presuppositions which figure centrally in the current debate about existence in time but have not received any attention so far? Let me begin with some preparatory remarks rehearsing what 1 take to be the standard view on the methodology in current ontological re- search. An ontology is a theory of truth-makers for the sentences of a certain natural or scientific Ianguage L.? An ontology describes what there is in the world, as speakers of L conceive it, that makes the true sentences of L true. The structural descriptions of truth-makers provide explanations for why L-speakers may draw certain inferences. For in- stance, an ontological theory aims to explain, by means of a structural description of a truth-maker, why we, speakers of common sense English, are entitled to infer from ‘Kim is tall’ that the denotation of ‘tall’ may 1 The phrasing is K. Campbell’, ef 7], p. xi. 2In order to simplify my exposition I will i thie section generalize over tendencies in ontologies; for a more diversified discussion see [43]. She term ‘truth-maker', originating from Husseri, has recently been brought again into currency by Mulligan et sl. ([33)). A ‘truth-maker' js any kind of entity “in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are tric” ((83} p. 287), e., objects, properties, events, state of affairs truth-makers contrast with ‘tnith-bearers?, which are any kind of entity which ‘has' the properties of being trac or fala, e.g, a sentence or proposition. FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 145 occur multiply in space and time, while this is not so for the denotation ef kim’. Briefly, an ontology is an explanatory theory of a certain class or inferences licensed within a certain language or class of languages." What, then, are the data for an ontological theory about existence in time? The natural answer would seem to be that an ontological theory about entities existing in time should account for inferences that reflect hhow sve (or more generally — Z-speakers®) conceptualize entities to ex: ist in time. This means, for instance, that such a theory should explain why the sentence (1:1) Kim saw the explosion that destroyed my car this morning implies (1.2) Kim witnessed an explosion this morning, while the sentence (1.3) Kim saw the man who destroyed my car this morning does not imply that Kim witnessed anything at the time of the de- Steuction of the car. In addition, the theory should explain, in terms of appropriate structural descriptions of the truth-makers of (1.4) and (1.6), why the sentence (14) Kim is running implies (1.5) Kim has run, but (1.6) Kim is running a mile ‘oes not imply that Kim has run a mile, Furthermore, the theory should explain, by appropriate structural descriptions of the relevant truth- makers, why (1.7) Kim divided the unspeakable in half since Pat and Kit both wanted the unspeakable Tone might add here that the class of inferences targeted by an ontological theory fs material rather than formal, inferences licensed by a class of intertransiatable Languages, ye, by a conceptual scheme in the Sellarsian sense. For present purposes teeny seecifeations — some of which are added below — are not important (for farther clarifications ef. 42], ch. 9 and ch. 9) Sia che following I will assume that the domain of inferences to be explained is the conceptual acheme determined by common sense English (cf. previous footnote). Note however, that an ontological theory of existence in time might aim to offer Jiouchurel descriptions of truth-makers which can be used to explain the relevant suiuclures licensed by a language of common sense as well as by some scientific Jongunge, For instance, the ontology sketched at the end of this paper is drafted to have such wider scope. 146 JOHANNA SEIBT implies (1.8) the unspeakable exists in time like apple-pie or playing tennis or the Red Cross Catastrophy Assistance, but not like an oaktree, a computer, or Kim. ‘That is, the complete data set for an ontology of existence of time com- prises inferences about a large variety of types of concrete entities. First, compare sentences (1.1) through (1.3), there are inferences which indi- cate that we conceive of a basic difference in which an entity can exist in time, namely, as change and as ‘that which changes’. Second, compare sentences (1.4) through (1.6), there are inferences which indicate that we conceive of different types of changes — developments, destructions, generations, motions, alterations, actions, activities ete. Third, com- pare sentences (1.7) and (1.8), there are inferences which indicate that we conceive of different types of ‘that which changes’ — heaps (masses), collections, things, persons etc. After Aristotle the ontological debate about existence in time has all but neglected the second group of inferential data. Among ontologists at least, the classification of changes has not received much attention®; structurally very different types of temporal existents like the Enlight- enment, the destruction of Hiroshima, hurricane Andrew, the pace of New York, or Goethe's trip to Italy, are commonly treated as events or ‘occurrents’ without further differentiation. Furthermore, ontologists have all but disregarded the fact that things and persons are not the only entities which are said to change,” and the fact that the into changes and ‘that which changes’ is not a mutually exclusive one. Processes, events, heaps, collections, and perhaps also particular fea- tures (tropes), are said to be generated and destroyed, to change their features, to move, and last through time. For instance, we claim that the wind has become stronger, that the snow storm is easing up now, that my car's blue has faded, that small vortices are travelling down the stream, that the king’s wedding lasted for three nights and three days, that our friendship has improved, that the sand dune shifted recently to "Occasionally ontalogists have distinguished between events and processes, pro- cesses and ‘subject-less'or ‘absolute! processes, as well as different types of actions (cE eg., Broad ((3), p. 155 ff); Vendler ([65]}; Kenny ([22]); Zemach ((62])). But the 0 far most detailed and systematic classifications of dynamic entities are provided by linguistic theories of verb semantics and, in particular, verbal aspect One exception to the generalization is [14] FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS a7 the right, and that the Poel Brass band is steadily expanding. ‘The ontological debate about existence in time has been, and still is, primarily a debate about how things and persons exist in time. More precisely, it is a debate about the alteration of things and persons, rather than their generation or destruction. As commonly conceived, the cen- tral task of an ontological account of existence in time is to provide a structural description of truth-makers of sentences about alterations in things and persons, that is, a structural description which explains why we are entitled to draw certain inferences from such sentences. Let ‘S-sentences’ be all sentences about alterations in things and persons, ive., tensed and tonseless sentences like ‘Leaf a is green at t; and red at ty’, ‘Kim went running’, ‘My banana tree is growing fast’, ete. Within the ontological tradition the problem of existence in time has come to amount to just the question ‘Which entities make S-sentences true?” ‘The fact that the historical debate about existence in time has focused almost entirely on the persistence of things and persons, can be traced to the historical predominance of substance metaphysics. While the notion of substance shows considerable historical variation, there is one defini- tional trait which figures prominently in most of the historical accounts of substance, as well as in contemporary usages of the phrase ‘the tra- ditional notion of substance’. ‘This is the requirement that substances persist through time and change — that they are “...numerically one and the same ...{yet] able to receive contraries”’. On the other hand, the prime examples of substances are traditionally (living) things and persons. Quite naturally then, the substance-ontological tradition has concentrated on the analysis of the alteration of things and persons (rather than, say, on the analysis of the generation and destruction of persons, or the persistence of events or heaps). ‘The current debate about existence in time still displays this his- torical topical bias. Despite explicitly renouncing the category term ‘substance’, participants of this debate still operate under the influence of the long-standing research paradigm of substance metaphysics. A subclass of inferential data about existence in time, namely, inferences characterizing the persistence of things and persons, is commonly iden- tified with the entire class of inferential data about entities existing in time.® Interestingly, this identification of existence in time tout court Aristotle, Categories 4a 10ff Prime instances are Chisholm ({11}); Noonan ({35]); Brody ({4]); Hirsch ([19]); 148 JOHANNA SEIBT with the persistence of things or persons occurs without commentary or argument. That is, most contemporary discussions of existence in tirne simply presuppose that the domain of inquiry is properly conceived by the ontological tradition. We may state this presupposition as follows (P1) The task of an ontological theoty of existence in time is to ex- plain the persistence of things or persons, ie., to describe the truth- makers of ‘S-sentences’, ‘The very fact that a substantial topical restriction like (P1) can go un- commented points to a second implicit premise. Principle (P1) appears better motivated if one operates with a category dualism which implies that only things and persons are individuals, that only individuals exist in time, and that individuals exist in time not as changes but. by per- sisting through change, That is, principle (P1) may be taken to derive considerable force from the following background assumption. (P2) What there is belongs to one of two sorts of entities: individuals, ie., conerete countable particular entities, and general abstract entities General abstract entities are not changes and do not undergo any change. Individuals exist in time and undergo change. Presupposition (P2) is perhaps the most influential complex substance- ontological principle employed in the history of ontological research. As I will try to show below, by focusing exclusively on the problem of how to account for the persistence of things and persons, the contemporary ontological debate about existence in time deprives itself of precisely what might be the most promising solution to this problem. ‘The third presupposition in the current debate about existence in time is closely connected to the second. The third presupposition does not introduce a topical bias, but a methodological one, which discriminates against certain candidate solutions for persistence. In order to under- stand it properly, we must begin to look more in detail at the layout of the current discussion. Few participants in the debate about, Persistence explicitly commit themselves to ‘substances’ in the old sense” ([37], p. 63) when articulat- ing an account of persistence. Most ontologists circumvent the tradition- laden concept of substance and prefer to recommend substance-ontolo- gical accounts of persistence in terms of the ‘endurance’ — ‘perdurance’” distinction introduced by Mark Johnston and David Lewis Van Inwagen ([54]), but the claim holds indeed very broadly. FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 149 (Slomething persists iff, somehow or other, it exists at various times; this is the neutral world. Something perdures if it per- sists by having different. temporal .. .stages at different times it endures iff it persists by being wholly present at more than one time. ([27), p. 202) In order to be wholly present at more than one time, the endurantist claims that “an enduring object that exists at one time is identical to iteelf existing at another” ([31]). Since substances are said to be the only entities which persist by remaining ‘numerically one and the same’, vir. by remaining numerically identical through time and change, sub- stances are enduring entities and vice versa, ie, enduring entities are substances.!° The perdurance view is thus often presented as a rejection of substance ontology. Instead of trying to account for the self-identity of changing entities, the perdurance view explains persistence in terms of, a special relation which connects different non-changing entities. More precisely, sentences about ordinary things are taken as being about four- dimensional filled regions of space-time which have epatial and temporal parts. “A physical thing — whether a river or a human body or a stone — is ...2 sum of the temporally small parts which are its successive states” ([51), p. 201) The truth of a sentence like ‘A is green at tx and red at ty’ is explained by the fact that the four-dimensional filled region denoted by ‘A’ has, at t) and te, two (non-changing) temporal parts which are green and red, respectively. Relative to the endurance-perdurance contrast we can now locate the second presupposition. At face value, the endurance view and the perdu- rance view are on equal standing with respect to theoretical expenditure. Both the endurantist as well as the perdurantist introduce a theoretical entity as the ‘ontological ground’ or explanans of persistence. From the perdurantist standpoint, the prominent ontological component of the truth-maker of an S-sentence is a ‘four-dimensional object’, i., an en- tity which has spatial and temporal parts. The endurantist stipulates that the truth-maker of an S-sentence contains an entity which is the ‘self-identical substratum’ of a change and does not have temporal parts. Yet stipulating an entity without temporal parts is no less of a stipula- tion thon stipulating an entity with such parts, nor is an entity without TD More precisely, within the contest of the problem of persistence a commitment to enduring entities amounts to a commitment to substances and vice versa. Substances fare multi-functional entities, ie., they perform explanatory tasks with respect to bther ontological problems beyond the issue of persistence. 150 JOHANNA SEIBT temporal parts in any sense less of a theoretical construct than one with temporal parts. Any ontological constituent is a theoretical entity — a logical construct designed to fit into a coherent structural explanation of what makes the sentences of a certain language (class of languages) true, relative to the inferential roles of the sentences considered. But this is not how the endurance view and perdurance view are com- monly perceived. The third presupposition in the debate about existence in time consists in a curiously asymmetrical assessment of endurance and perdurance. This asymmetry can already be detected in Lewis’ formula- tion of the distinction as quoted above. Lewis’ formulation suggests that a thing — the analysandum — perdures iff ‘it? — the thing — has differ- ent temporal stages at different times, and endures iff ‘it’ — the thing — does not have temporal parts but is wholly present. That is, the formula- tion suggests that the perdurance view stipulates a explanatory relation (part-whole) and theoretical constituents (temporal stages), while the endurance view makes do with only the relation of identity without stip- ulating theoretical entities. This misleading perception of the endurance view is shared by endurantists and perdurantists alike — while the theo- retical, stipulative character of entities with temporal parts looms large in the discussion, the ‘theoreticity’ of entities without temporal parts often seems to go altogether unnoticed (ef. for instance [45], p. 123). In some cases the bias is so strong that proponents of endurance lose their srip on the difference between common sense talk to be explained and explanatory ontological constructs. Consider for instance the following line of argument. What I cycle to work on every day is the bicycle, not a [tempo- ral] part of it; the bicycle, not a slice of a bicycle-worm, leaves tracks in the muddy path. It is the bicycle which costs so-and- so many pounds, not a temporal slice of it; and what badly needs a clean is not today’s space-time segment, for that will not take polish. ((16), p. 6; very similarly (30), p. 5 ff.) Proponents of this line of reasoning identify the pre-analytical notion of a thing and the highly theoretical construct of a substance.!! ‘There is no question that in our common way of speaking, it is things, not temporal parts of things, which move and stand in causal relations. However, what is at issue in the debate about persistence is the question * Proponents of this ine of reasoning thus commit a methodelogical fallacy iden- tified by Whitehead as the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness" ((57], p. 8) FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 151 of how to interpret ontologically our common way of speaking about moving things and their causal effects. In order to criticize an ontological interpretation one must investigate whether the truth-makers postulated by that interpretation successfully explain the inferences licensed in our common way of speaking; it does not suffice simply to rehearse our common way of speaking. When endurantists reject the perdurance view as theoretically ‘costly’ or as ‘unnatural’, and when perdurantists defend the expenditure of such costs, both sides are operating on the basis of the following presupposition: (P3) An enduring entity is not a theoretical construct — “ordinary lan- guage is substance-language” ([59], p. 590) Presupposition (P3) underlies the common assessment — again, en- dorsed by endurantist and perdurantists alike — that the perdurance view represents, in terms of Strawson’s distinction, a “revisionary” meta- physics while the endurance view remains “descriptive” Presuppositions (P1) through (P3) are highly general tenets. In ad- dition, the debate about existence in time incorporates two implicit ‘ax- ioms’ about persistence and change. These presuppositions are involved in the core puzzle of the debate, which I will call here the ‘aporia of change’ ‘The aporia of change is the common point of departure for most ex- tant analyses of persistence; it provides the main difficulty for enduran- tists and the main gambit for perdurantists. Since enduring entities are said both to be identical over time and to be able to have different properties at different times, they seem to violate Leibniz’ law of the “in- discernibility of identicals” , which requires identical entities to have the same properties (or satisfy the same predicates). Commonly the apo- rr is thus described as the conflict. between the postulate of endurance, Leibniz’ Law of identity, and the admission of qualitative change in en- during entities!?. At a closer look, however, the aporia results only if one relies implicitly on a number of additional principles. For @ general S-sentence with incompatible predicates ‘F’ and ‘G’, i.e., (19) ais Fatty and G att, which shall be assumed to be true, the aporia arises as follows. (EN) Endurance principle: Persistence through time and change is numerical identity, ie., whatever satisfies the predicate “F” at ty is identical with whatever satisfies the predicate ‘G” at to: ~T2Most explicitly in 117), (5) — 152 JOHANNA SEIBT (1) Principle of non-variant identity: The identity of an entity does not change over time; identity is not a tensed predicate. (LL) Leibniz Law: If two entities are identical, then they have (i.e., are the logical subject of) the same properties (satisfy the same predicates).1® (P4) Principle of subjecthood: a is the entity persisting through the change described by sentence (1.9) iff a is the logical subject of the predications occurring in (1.9) (P5) State analysis of change: The entity denoted by ‘a’ in (1.9) has changed iff ‘F” and ‘G” are made true by the referent of ‘a at. ty’ and ‘a at ta.’ In order to resolve the aporia, at least one of these assumptions must be abandoned. According to the general perception, the most unlikely candidate for rejection or revision is (LL) which articulates the very feature that distinguishes identity from other equivalence relations (cf. e.g, (58), p. 5). Rather, as commonly perceived, the debate about per- sistence is over principle (EN) which endurantists confirm and perdu- rantists reject. ‘The remaining elements of the aporia, however, have gone all but unnoticed so far. The principle of non-variant identity (I) has hardly received any discussion,'4 and (P4) and (P5) have been en- tirely overlooked. Principles (P4) and (P5) are well-known tenets of Aristotelian substance metaphysics — (P4) is a consequence of the pos- tulate that only substances are logical subjects, and (PS) restates the so-called ‘substratum-terminus’ analysis of change.!® Presuppositions (P1) through (P5) belong to a set of assumptions which have receded s0 far into the background of the debate that they are no longer perceived as subject to discussion. They are part and parcel of the traditional research paradigm of substance metaphysics, which Leibniz’ Law is commonly taken to quantify over properties and relations, or non. relational and relational properties. In the following I will concentrate on changes in non-telation properties or qualities; thus I will often omit indicating the full quantif- cational scope of Leibniz’ Law but simply say that it requires that identical objects have the same properties Occasionally authors make reference to this principle, treating the untensed na- ture of identity as an obvious insight to be emphasized, not a tenet to be argued for, cf. eg. Wilson ([60], p. 47): "Dates cannot be significantly associated with the identity sign’; or Simons ([45], p. 179): “We do not have a tensed identity predicate. ‘There is no sense which can be given to the question ‘When was a identical with 67" which makes it a question of identity." Both emphases in the original. "CF, Categories 2a13if and Physics 200b33, respectively, FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 153 Jill operates in the depth structure of ontological theory construction. ‘> adopt principles (P1) through (P5) is to fall prey to the ‘myth of abstance’. As I will argue in the following sections, due to the myth of abstance important resources for a resolution of the aporia of change ave been overlooked, and more generally, for a comprehensive theory fexistence in time, 2, ENDURANCE AND TEMPORAL RELATIVIZATION Jeing bent now and straight later, how can I be said to remain identical shen getting up from my chair? How can I be said to be numerically dentical through a change in qualities, if the characteristic axiom of nu- terical identity, Leibniz’ Law, precisely precludes that identical items liffer with respect to their qualities? The main purpose of contemporary ndurance accounts is to undercut this basic conflict between the qual- tative difference required in change and the qualitative non-difference equired by numerical identity. The conflict, the ‘aporia of change’ as bove, can be dissolved, endurantists claim, by taking proper account if the fact that changes take time. To describe the change of an object 5 to ascribe to it different properties at different times. In this section will investigate in some detail the most popular endurantist proposals, or eliminating the aporia of change by temporal relativization. ‘Phat an object has a property at a certain time can be parsed seman- ically in a variety of ways. There are six different ways of structuring emporally relativized predications, which point at six different. ontolog- cal strategies for the interpretation of persistence. ‘Temporally indexed predicates: ais F-at-t Temporally indexed copulas: aisat-t F. ‘Temporally indexed sentences at t: ais F Predicates as relations between individuals and times: F(a,t) {A5) ‘Temporally indexed predication a((is F) att) {A6) ‘Temporally indexed subject terms: watt is F. The sixth schema of semantic analysis supports the perdurance view of persistence; here the predicate is attributed to the temporal ‘manifes- tation’ or temporal slice of an object. ‘The remaining schemata (A1) | 154 JOHANNA SEIBT through (A5) are all compatible with the endurance view, and indeed endurantists have explored each.!® In the following I will take issue with endurance accounts based on parsing schemata (Al), (A4), and (A5), and will disregard approaches based on (A2) and (A3), which merely conceal the aporia in the framework of model-theoretic semantics.” For the sake of simplicity 1 will use the label “endurance4,’, ‘endurance aq” etc. to refer to the endurance account based on the relevant. parsing schema. Let us consider then how proponents of endurance, intend to under- cut the aporia of change. According to endurance; all of our predicates are abbreviations of temporally indexed expressions." 8, for instance for (At): (60), p. 48; for (A2): [84]; fr (A3): [50], [21 for (44), (29) for (AS): 46). 2" Johnston ([20), [21}) and Myro ([34)) argue for treating persistence in terms of schema (A2) and (A), respectively. Schema (A2) suggests that the ontological coun- terpart to the copula, the relation of exemplifcation or satisfaction, be temporally elativized. Cf, (21), p. 128: “We ean soy that ‘ais tly such that it Fs" is true-in-L, just in case it satstiess-at-t the predioate ‘such that it Fe’, where satisfying ote time for various times is well enough understood to take as basic for these purposes.” Analogously, with reference to scheme (A3) Myro stipulates that truth-in-1) must be taken as relative to a model and a point in time (cf. 34], p. 407 ff.). The Saentence ‘(1) Kim is bent at t; and Kim is straight at ¢2' is thus semantically to be analyzed as follows. (Endurance/ A2) The referent of Kim’ satisfies at-t; the predicate ‘s bent” and the referent of ‘Kim’ satisfies at-t2' the prodicate ‘is straight (Bndurance/A9) ‘Kim is beat is true in model M at ¢y and ‘Kim is straight” is true in M at ty It is not clear whether any of the two analyses allows one to claim that the referent of the first occurrence of ‘Kin’ in (1) is numerically identical with the referent of the second occurrence of ‘Kim’ in (1). Such an identity could be claimed only if Leibnia’ Law is to contain a temporal relativization, too (viz. if @ identical with By aan satisfy-att the same predicates’ or if and are identical, F(a)! and “F(B)’ ave true in M at ty’ respectively. But temporalizing Leibnia’ Law does not amount to a solution of the aporia (see my remars below). On the other hand, if Leibnia’ Law is not relativized in this way, the identity claim cannot be made, ‘The model-theoretical tools only hide this difficulty — they do not resolve it. In both conceptions it remains unclear precisely how the primitive notions of ‘salisfactien. att’ or ‘truth-in-M-at-t' link up with the identity conditions of objects. ‘That is, it remains unclear in which sense the entity which satisfes-at-t predicate ‘F” and the entity which satisfiesz-at-t2 predicate ‘G” (assumed to be incompatible with F") can be said to be numerically identical; analogously it remains unclear how sentences which involve incompatible predicates and are true-in-M-at-t, and true-in-M-al-t9, respectively, can be said to be about one and the same entity Here T discuss endurance a only with respect to the eporia of change. In eval ating the overall performance of the analysis, it would also be important to note | | | | | 1 FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 155 It is 90 obvious, so necessary, that if Philip is drunk, Philip is drunk at some time, that if Scott wrote Waverley, he wrote it during some period — it is so obvious and necessary, that in ordinary language we generally drop the ‘at some time’ and are left with the simple, the too simple, noun-copula-adjective form of sentence. (Perfidious ordinary language!) ((59], p. 597) Since the properties which describe the initial and end state of a change ina thing are temporally indexed, they can be ascribed to that thing at any time at which it exists. ‘A ‘complete’ property of an individual is a compound tempo- ralized (or dated) property, like being green in August 1965 or being born in 1769, and there is no question of an individual changing in the sense of once having and later lacking these compound properties. (Cf. [60], p. 48) ‘Thus, if Kim is getting up from a chair, and Kim’s body is first bent and then straight, a proponent of endurance; suggests that this change is to be analyzed ontologically as follows. (BN-A1) The object denoted by ‘Kim’s body’ exemplifies the prop- erties being bend at t1 and being straight at tz (or: satisfies the predicates ‘bent at f,’ and ‘straight at ¢2’) Since the denotation of ‘Kim’s body’ before the change — let us call it: ‘Kim-at-ty’ — and the denotations of ‘Kim’s body’ after the change — hereafter ‘Kim-at-t,’ — exemplify both the properties being bent at 4 and being straight at t2, Kim-at-t; and Kim-at-tz can be said, in accordance with Leibniz’ Law, to denote the numerically identical object (providing they agree in all other properties). Have proponents of endurance; thus indeed managed to dissolve the aporia of change? Since dissolving the aporia would mean to establish a coherent account of identity through time and change, the answer is ‘no’. Endurance, manages to establish the indiscernibility required by transtemporal identity — but to the extent to which indiscernibility is ‘at the policy of introducing temporal indices for any kind of property presents a far-reaching modification of our concept of a quality. Two objects of exactly the same shade of blue do not have the same property ifthe one is blue at time t; but not at ¢;, while the other object ie blue at t; but not at tn. But bhieat-t, and Diue-at-f, do not differ with respect to thei ‘suchness’ or qualitative aspects. ‘Thus the temporal indexing of qualities amounts to abandoning the common ontological principle — often used to distinguish qualities from particulars — that two qualities ‘are numerically different just in case they are qualitatively different. 156 JOHANNA SEIBT gained in the analysis, change is lost. For if “there is no question of an individual changing in the sense of once having and later lacking these compound properties”, how are we to express the phenomenon of change at all? Kim-at-t and Kim-at-t differ in none of their properties. It will not do to claim that the phenomenon of change is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that the object: is assigned temporally indexed properties, i.e., to claim that to change simply means to have contrary or contradictory properties with two different temporal indices. For let us assume that Kim has been sitting before getting up at ty; let further bet, Some nouns are lexicalized with the nominal aspects both mass and count (ef. ‘three chickens’ vs. ‘much chicken’); most nouns are lexicalized with only one nominal aspect, either with the category implications for masses (‘water’) or the category implications for count- able items (‘book’). But again, as in the case of verbal aspect, these aspects function merely as defaults; supported by morphosyntactic as- pect markers and, in particular, the context of interpretation, speakers may shift the aspect from mass to count and vice versa. For instance, relative to the sentence context and utterance context,”° we can read ‘book’ with the category implications for countable individuals or with the category implications for a certain (functional) stuff (cf. ‘much book for the money’, ‘I like books’). Even proper nouns or pronouns may be given a ‘mass’ interpretation — you may wish that someone were less Bill and more president, or join the American army to “be all you can distinction between imperfective, resultative, frequentative, habitual, punctual, prestadial ete. aspects is frequently combined with the philosophical distinction of action types (activities, accomplishments, achievements, states) by Z. Vendler and A. Kenny, as well as the classical ontological distinction in occurrence types (processes events). A. Mourelatos has been among the first to paint at the interconnections be- tween grammatical aspect theory and ontological research in action and occurrence types, ef. [82]. For the purposes of this brief exposition we need not consider the relationship between these different classification systems in detail. 2°For the notion of nominal aspect ef. e.g, (24) and, in particular, [36] and (40) 261m English the nominal espect ‘count’, among other criteria, marked by the plu- ral, the definite and indefinite article, and numeral quantifiers ‘one’, ‘many’ a noun used in the mass aspect normally cannot be put in the plural, does not allow for the definite and indefinite article, and combines with mensural quantifiers (‘auch’, ‘little’ ctc.). But the syntactic markers are not ultimately decisive — ‘he had beans’ denotes ‘a mass, while ‘much vacation’ denotes countable items. To illustrate the eategerial flexibility of nouns, linguists point out that we can well imagine two hypothetical ‘machines, the Universal Grinder, grinding every countable item into cognate stuff {e-., grinding books into book), and the Universal Sorter, sorting every mass into a countable type of stuff, (e.g, sorting wine into a wine); ef [36] [6], p. 16. FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS 167 be”. Briefly, then, the first observation is that lexical meanings do not determine the category implications of an expression — every verb can be used either as ‘activity verb’, ie., can be used with the category im- plications associated with the category of an activity, or as ‘event verb’; similarly, every noun can be used as a ‘count noun’ or as ‘mass noun’. (ii) There are inferential symmetries between verbal and nominal as- pects (ef. [32]; [23]; (2]). On the one hand, event verbs can be combined with numeral quantifiers just like count nouns (cf. ‘three weddings’, ‘his having knocked thrice’), and just like count nouns they imply that their denotations are structured units, i., contain only parts which are unlike the whole. On the other hand, as Aristotle already observed, mass nouns and activity verbs both imply that their denotations are ‘homoeomerous’ or like-parted. (Almost) every part of some running is some running, as (almost) every part of some milk is some milk. Whatever has the prop- erty of homoeomerity does not come in fixed portions or units and thus cannot be counted as such. We cannot count milk or snowing because (almost) every amount of milk or snowing contains a variable number of amounts of milk or snowing (i.e., every amount of milk or of snowing can be partitioned in many ways into sets of milk amount with differ- cent cardinality). Rather, masses and activities are measured, in terms of units of spatio-temporal extent and causal role — much milk, three kilogram flour, ten miles of running, electrical energy of 500 Watts ete. One way to describe these similarities is by saying that the category implications of event verbs intersect with the category implications of count nouns; and similarly, that the category implications of mass nouns intersect with the category implications of activity verbs. This suggests considering the possibility that the categories commonly associated with these pairs of category implications, objects and events, and masses and activities, respectively, are special cases of more comprehensive cate- gories. Let us say that a countable entity is any entity of kind K and of dimension n < 4, whose n-dimensional extent £ has no r-dimensional proper part £! which is of kind KX, for m

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