Three- and Fourdimensionalism

Most relevant literature:

• David Lewis, Counterparts of Persons and Their Bodies
• David Lewis, Survival and Identity
• Ted Sider, Four-Dimensionalism
• Matthew McGrath, Temporal Parts

Click here for a bibliography.

Cf. also my "Introduction to Modal Realism" and the webpage of Sider's 1998 seminar.

Introductions:

• the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on time
• Introduction to: Persistence: Contemporary Readings. Edited by Sally Haslanger and Roxanne Marie Kurtz. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Fall 2006).
• Sally Haslanger, Persistence Through Time, In the Oxford Handbook in Metaphysics, ed. Michael Loux and Dean Zimmerman. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

What Sider has to do to establish 4D:

1. provide a clear and non-circular statement of 4D; part of this is to argue that the temporal notion of parthood is explanatorily prior to the a-temporal notion and to show how the latter can be defined in terms of the former
2. clarify the opposite view, 3D; part of this is the discussion of how to make sense of 3D's talk about objects being "wholly present" in terms of the temporal notion of parthood
3. argue for 4D as opposed to 3D (the argument from vagueness)

On the first point, there is

• Katherine Hawley, Temporal Parts
• Eric Olson, Temporal Parts and Timeless Parthood
• Jeremy Butterfield, Spatial and Temporal Parts
• Nathan Oaklander, Temporal Passage and Temporal Parts
• Josh Parsons, Theories of Location
• Harold W. Noonan, Perdurance, location and classical mereology

On the second point, check the exchange between Hughes and Carrara about "wholly present". There is also a discussion between Barker and Dowe, Beebee and Rush and McDaniel. This is the reply by Barker and Dowe.

There is also an interesting recent paper by E.J. Lowe and Storrs McCall, The definition of endurance.

Re 3, Click here for a critique of Sider's argument from vagueness, along the lines of Hawthorne's Plenitude, Convention, and Ontology.

Also very interesting is Kathrin Koslicki, The crooked path from vagueness to four-dimensionalism and Kristie Miller, Blocking the Path from Vagueness to Four-Dimensionalism.

Perdurantism (Lewis) vs. Exdurantism (Sider):

• Ted Sider, All the World's a Stage
• Achille Varzi, Naming the Stages
• T. Sattig, Temporal Predication with Temporal Parts and Temporal Counterparts
• Click here for a bibliography.

Presentism and Eternalism

Check the Stanford Encyclopedia entry.

Most relevant literature:

• John Bigelow, "Presentism and Properties"
• Ted Sider, "Presentism and Ontological Commitment"
• Ted Markosian, "A Defense of Presentism"
• Simon Keller, "Presentism and Truthmaking"

Check the recent discussion between Jonathan Tallant, Ross Cameron and Tallant's reply.

The problem of temporary intrinsics

Most relevant literature:

• David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, 4.2 Against Overlap (here or here)
• E.J. Lowe, Lewis on Perdurance versus Endurance
• David Lewis, Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe
• E.J. Lowe, The Problems of Intrinsic Change: Rejoinder to Lewis
• Dean Zimmerman, "Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism"
• Ted Sider, "The Stage View and Temporary Intrinsics"
• Andrea Bottani, "Having-at-a-time a property"
• Dean Zimmerman, "The A-theory of Time, the B-theory of Time, and 'Taking Tense Seriously'"

Introductions:

• Tobias Hansson, "The Problem(s) of Change Revisited"
• Pablo Rychter, "There is no Problem of Change"

Is the Debate Substantial?

Some views:

• Eli Hirsch, Concept of Identity (1982), pp 188 ff.
• Kristie Miller, The metaphysical equivalence of three and four dimensionalism