A Non-Classical Solution To Vague Persistence

<p>One comtheory of persistence is that things move through time as wholly present entities, moving from time to time as a complete unit. This theory, the endurance theory, has come under challenge by various authors, and this paper will defend the view from one such objection. Katherine Hawley argues that the endurance theory fails to account for vague persistence on the grounds that endurance cannot account for vagueness semantically. I will show that this claim is based on an assumption of classical logic and that by rejecting this assumption in favor of a non-classical logic the objection is rendered mute. By revising our understanding of the identity relation to function on a continuum scale we can understand persistence as a scalar function that can be labeled as true false or any value in between. This reinterpretation of the identity relation will allow an endurance theorist to account for vague persistence semantically and thereby reject the objection from Hawley.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. in Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy and Religion

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Waite, Seth

Contributors dc:contributor

• Donovan Wishon
• Robert Barnard
• Timothy P. Yenter

• Endurance
• Language
• Non-Classical Logic
• Semantics
• Philosophy

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1107

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2106