The Kripke-Armstrong argument against temporal parts

Change, Temporal Parts, and the Argument from Vagueness

The so-called “argument from vagueness”, the clearest formulation of which is to be found in Ted Sider’s book Four-dimensionalism, is among the most powerful and innovative arguments offered in support of the view that objects are four-dimensional perdurants. The argument is defective—I submit—and in a number of ways that is worth looking into. But each “defect”, each gap in the argument, corre...

Against the Vagueness Argument

In this paper I offer a counterexample to the so called vagueness argument against restricted composition. This will be done in the lines of a recent suggestion by Trenton Merricks, namely by challenging the claim that there cannot be a sharp cut-off point in a composition sequence. It will be suggested that causal powers which emerge when composition occurs can serve as an indicator of such sh...

On Van Inwagen’s Argument Against the Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts

Imagine you are looking at a pen. It has a blue ink cartridge inside, along with a spring and some other mechanics to allow the user to retract the point. The outside is a plastic sheath with a clip. Now imagine that I remove the clip. Is the item still a pen? It certainly still functions like a pen. We are probably inclined to agree it is still a pen. What if I then remove the plastic outside?...

Cricoid pressure: the argument against

An Argument against Epiphenomenalism

_________________________________________________ I formulate an argument against epiphenomenalism; the argument shows that epiphenomenalism is extremely improbable. Moreover the argument suggests that qualia not only have causal powers, but have their causal powers necessarily. I address possible objections and then conclude by considering some implications the argument has for dualism.