Doctrine of Temporal Parts - Essay Sample

Introduction

The doctrine of temporal parts is a metaphysical theory that explains how objects persist through time. This theory argues that objects are both spatially and temporally extended. Perdurantists says that the object is considered to be demarked by its dimensions in the spatial and temporal realms. This subject has caused an argument of how these objects persist through time. Things and people take up time and space that why you existed yesterday and also you will exist tomorrow. Perdurantists argue that objects like animals and plants have temporal parts. Using the doctrine temporal parts theory, this paper will explain how perdurantist conclude that you are the same person as you were yesterday.

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Some philosophers explain that you are the same person by believing that people take up time by having diverse temporal parts at dissimilar times. Spatial parts in a human being are things like head, legs, nose, and hands. Generally, temporal parts in your body are things like you, which were present yesterday, today and they will be you tomorrow. If these temporal parts were different each day, that would mean you are capable of existing at different times. This would also that at different times you have different properties. According to perdurantist, persevering through time is also like prolonging through space. If you persist through time as a whole, then that means you don't change. Then you who are existing right now is the same whole person who lived yesterday, and by tomorrow it will also be the same you.

Perdurantists believe that objects have both spatial and temporal parts. Using this analogy, because the spatial parts are smaller than the whole objects in spatial dimensions, it makes the temporal parts smaller too. A person's temporal parts at a time are expertly the same but are only lasts for a moment. The temporal parts and spatial parts help in solving metaphysical problems. The spatial parts help the human being to be able to exist in several different places with different properties. They also help human to occupy space and take time. Having different properties helps in learning new things each day. They only add information, but you remain the same person. That means the same as you had less information yesterday, but today there will be added information, but you do not change. Chisholm argues that when we speak of our identity with our past and future self, we mean that we are precisely the same.

Perdurantist believes that ordinary thing has temporal parts. This argument makes them argue that things persist by perduring. Perdurantist prefers to think temporary about the individual parts without adding something else. This makes them conclude that amongst your pieces, you had you yesterday, you today and you will have you tomorrow. Many people argue that perdurantist theory does not make sense since they can view themselves changing day after day. But perdurantist explains their argument by strengthening the idea of the persistence is much like spatial extension which stretches out the four dimensions through time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the doctrine of temporal parts theory has been interpreted in many views. According to the perdurantist, the objects have four dimensions and have both temporal and spatial parts. With the support of those believes, they come up with the conclusion that human being does not change. They argue that despite the massive amount of change seen from the time you were born till now, you are basically the same person. Their theory is disagreed with by other philosophers who do not believe in temporal parts.