LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
THE LOWE ROAD TO THE PROBLEM OF TEMPORARY
INTRINSICS
(Received in revised version 10 October 2002)
ABSTRACT. It has been argued that there is a problem of temporary intrinsics,
the problem of explaining how it is possible for things to possess successively
contrary properties, if a certain theory about time, “eternalism”, is true. In this
paper, I consider whether there really is such a problem and survey some standard
solutions to it. I argue for one of them, one which has been offered by Mark
Johnston and Peter van Inwagen, and which I call the “exemplification-solution”.
I consider a variant on that solution offered by E.J. Lowe (and Sally Haslanger),
and I argue that this variant should be rejected.
I. INTRODUCTION
Temporary intrinsics are properties that are temporary and intrinsic.
They are intrinsic to the things that have them in the sense that they
are not relational. So, I presume, being red, being straight, and being
round are intrinsic properties, while being taller than Smith is not.
There may be difficulties in saying precisely what the distinction is between intrinsic and extrinsic properties;1 but the basic
idea is simple enough. Jones cannot have the property of being
taller than Smith unless Smith exists (or did exist or will exist?)
and has a height that is less than Jones’s; so that property is not
intrinsic to Jones.2 But the property of being, say, six feet two inches
tall, although it is the property that Jones has in virtue of which
he is taller than the six foot tall Smith, is itself intrinsic. And it
is, I suppose, possible for something to be red, regardless of the
properties that any other thing possesses (apart from those of the
atoms, etc. that are parts of the thing’s surface); and that, I presume,
qualifies redness as an intrinsic property.
Temporary properties are such that the things that can have them
can have them at one time and lack them at another. This idea seems
straightforward enough.
Philosophical Studies 112: 163–185, 2003.
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
164
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
According to an ancient criterion, much debated by Plato and
Aristotle, a thing changes just in case it has a property at one time
and lacks it at another. Change thus involves properties that are
temporary; a thing cannot change with respect to a property that
it cannot lose. This much is also obvious.
Now a thing can, it seems, have and then lack a property that
is not intrinsic. When Theaetetus grows, Socrates has and then
lacks the non-intrinsic, relational property of being taller than
Theaetetus. However, some might object to saying, in that case,
that Socrates changed.3 The objection might be that Socrates, in
becoming shorter than Theaetetus, did not really change, he did not
undergo any alteration. Socrates was, in some important sense, no
different from the way he was when he was taller than Theaetetus;
it was Theaetetus who, by growing, really changed (that is, altered);
Socrates merely changed relationally. For purposes of this paper, no
stand need be taken on whether a thing which has and then lacks a
temporary property just in virtue of the fact that some other thing
alters is something that really changes. It is enough to point out that
there can be reasonable disagreement concerning that issue.
But there should be no disagreement concerning whether a thing
changes by having and then lacking some intrinsic, non-relational
property. After all, isn’t a thing’s going from being red to being
blue, or from being square to being round, just a paradigmatic case
of change? The apparently uncontroversial cases of change involve
change with respect to temporary intrinsics.
Nevertheless, it has been argued that there is a problem with the
very idea of change with respect to temporary intrinsics. Yet how
could there be a problem with the idea that objects change when
have and then lack properties that they can have and then lack?
Those who think that there is a problem of temporary intrinsics
do not claim that the problem arises just because of the nature of
temporary intrinsics. Rather, they insist, the problem arises when the
claim that enduring things change with respect to their temporary
intrinsics is combined with a view about time known as eternalism.
The problem is that a contradiction appears to be deducible.4
Eternalism is the view that all times are on the same ontological
footing, and that all things, whenever they exist, are equally real.
Eternalism contrasts with presentism, the view that only the present
THE LOWE ROAD
165
time exists. Here are some characterizations of eternalism and
presentism:
. . . for the eternalist, there is nothing special about the present; things at other
times are just as real . . .5
According to the presentist, the way things are is the way things presently are. So,
the only things that exist are things that presently exist . . .6
According to the Presentist, all that exists exists at the present time; and an object
has only those properties it has at the present time.7
Now, I am uncertain whether these views can be understood as
substantive and rival views about time. Does presentism assert that
only the present time exists? Exists when? Now? This is true, but
hardly an interesting thesis. Ever? Surely not. Does eternalism assert
that all times exist? Exist when? Now? Surely not. At some time or
other? True, but again hardly interesting. Still, while I am not certain
just what these views are, it is not my intention to discuss the issue
of the intelligibility of presentism and eternalism here; I shall simply
presume that they are rival and substantive views about time.
According to Trenton Merricks, eternalism implies that there are
no enduring things (enduring things are things that exist “in their
entirety” at every moment at which they exist).8 Merricks’ argument for this conclusion amounts to an argument for a “temporal
parts”-solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. Frankly, I
think that no philosophical problem was ever solved or even clarified by supposing that persisting things had temporal parts. So,
undermining Merricks’ argument takes the form of an alternative
solution to that problem. The solution that I favor to the problem
of temporary intrinsics (if there really is such a problem) is not
new; a version of it has been offered by Mark Johnston and Peter
van Inwagen.9 However, E.J. Lowe has objected to that version of
this solution, and has proposed a variant version (also proposed by
Sally Haslanger).10 A chief purpose of this paper is to argue that we
should reject this variant.
Eternalism is supposed to be inconsistent with the existence of
enduring things which change; this is, I assume, what Merricks
intends in arguing that eternalism implies that there are no enduring
things; for enduring things endure what they undergo, namely
change.11 How is this conclusion deduced?
166
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
Let us suppose that some enduring thing persists through a
change from being F at time t1 to not being F at a later time t2 (where
F is a temporary intrinsic). But eternalism, according to Merricks
and others who hold that there is a problem of temporary intrinsics,
appears to imply that the object in question is then both F and
not F. But, this is impossible; so, no enduring thing can change.12
And if changing is essential to enduring things, there are no things
that endure. This is, I take it, the problem of temporary intrinsics:
enduring things cannot endure change, if eternalism is true.
Thus, any solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics must,
it appears, involve either (i) the rejection of eternalism in favor of
presentism, (ii) the rejection of the idea that any thing can change, or
(iii) the rejection of the idea that changing things endure. However,
concerning (i), Merricks thinks that, presentism implies that there
are no things with temporal parts (including events),13 while David
Lewis thinks that presentism implies that persistence and change are
impossible and is thus untenable.14 And (ii) is just too Parmenidean
to believe. So, Lewis opts for (iii).15
The apparent deduction of a contradiction from the apparently
obvious truth that an enduring thing changes demands at least a little
scrutiny. Surely we should pay attention to the occurrences of the
word ‘is’ in
(1)
If a single object persists through some change, and is F
at one time, and is not F at another, then that object both
is and is not F,
a claim that Merricks insists would be true if eternalism were true.16
If those ‘is’ ’s are in the present tense, (1) asserts that if some object
is now F at one time and now not F at another, then that object is
now both F and not F. But, even assuming eternalism, do we have
any reason to think that (1), so construed, is true? I should think not.
Alternatively, we could take them to be tenseless (whatever that
means precisely).17 But I do not, in the end, see how it is supposed
to follow, from the fact that something is tenselessly F at one time
and tenselessly not F at another, that it is tenselessly both F and
not F. I could see how an inconsistency follows from the idea that
something has and then lacks a property, in conjunction with eternalism, if eternalism expressed the absurd idea that all times do not
merely exist, but exist at the very same time; but, in addition to being
THE LOWE ROAD
167
absurd, that idea would reduce eternalism to a rather strange form
of presentism.
It could also be seen to follow if we were prepared to commit a
scope fallacy. The sentence
(2)
x is now F at t
is ambiguous. In one sense, the ‘now’ in (2) has large scope relative
to ‘at t’. In that sense, (2) does imply that x is F at t, since, if it is
ever the case that x is F at t (and, according to (2), it is now), then
it is always the case that x is F at t. But in that sense (2) does not
imply that x is F, either now or at any time other than t.
However, in another sense, when the ‘now’ has “moderately”
small scope, (2) does imply that x is F now, since, if it is true at
any time that x is now F, then it is true at all times that x is now F.
And then one could argue that, if x is now F at t1 and now not F at
t2 , then, in this second sense of (2), it follows that x is now F and
that x is now not F. And we have the contradiction that eternalists
believe follows from the idea that enduring things change.18
In addition, if one thinks that the ‘now’ in (2) has “really” small
scope, then what (2) says is that at t x is then (that is, now relative
to t) F. But in that sense, no contradiction can be derived from the
conjunction of ‘x is now F at t1 ’ and ‘x is now not F at t2 ’; all that
follows is that x is F at t1 and x is not F at t2 .
However, those who believe that change in enduring things is
possible do not interpret the claims that express the idea that some
thing changed, claims of the form ‘x is F at t1 and x is not F at t2 ’, in
the manner of the second sense of (2), but in the manner of the first.
That is, if one thinks that some object, x, has changed by losing F
at some time between t1 and t2 , then one thinks that it is now (and
has always been) the case that x is F at t1 , and that it is now (and
has always been) the case that x is not F at t2 . What one does not
think is that, at some distinct times, t1 and t2 , x is both now F and
now not F. So, those who would, in this way, deduce a contradiction
from claims about change in enduring things, do so by committing
a fallacy of equivocation involving a scope ambiguity.
Nevertheless, it is insisted that, if eternalism is true, there is a
problem of temporary intrinsics for enduring things, and failure to
solve it amounts to a failure to account for a pervasive feature of the
world, namely change.
168
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
II. SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF TEMPORARY INTRINSICS
Several strategies for solving this problem are often proposed and
discussed.19 One strategy supposes that all properties are timeindexed. According to this idea, there are no intrinsic properties
like being red, only relational properties like being red at noon.
This strategy does indeed block the contradiction that allegedly
arises from asserting that some enduring thing has and then lacks
a property, because nothing that has, for example, the property of
being-red-at-noon-on-January-1-2002 can ever come to lack it; but
it does so at the cost of denying the phenomenon – that is, change
– that any solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics should
explain. For if all properties are time-indexed, then nothing ever
comes to lack a property that it previously had.20 And that is, more
or less, just what change is. This strategy is usually rejected as
unsatisfactory.21
A second strategy employs the suggestion that what appear to be
intrinsic properties are really disguised relations. According to this
idea, there is, for example, no non-derived property of being red;
at base, there are really only relations like being red at. Unlike the
first strategy, this strategy preserves change construed as variation in
property, for, on it, to say that some thing has changed is to say that
it, for example, bears the relation of being red at to one time, and
fails to bear that relation to another. But, in changing, no enduring
thing has and then lacks any intrinsic property.
These two strategies, though different, are intimately related,
since, whenever an object, x, bears a relation R to an object y, x
can be said to have the relational property of bearing R to y. And
it might not be too difficult to argue that because the first strategy
denies variation with respect to property, the second one does as
well. Consider this apparently trivial argument:22
x cannot change with respect to F at t (that is, with respect
to the relational property of being F at t).
Therefore, x cannot change with respect to F at t (that
is, with respect to the non-relational, intrinsic property of
being F).
Since t is any time, x any object, and F any intrinsic property, this
argument, in effect, conflates the two strategies, apparently proving
THE LOWE ROAD
169
that no object can ever change in any intrinsic respect! However,
this argument is trivially fallacious. An object may not change with
respect to whether it has a property at a time; but it may, at a
time, change with respect to whether it has that property. That is,
we should not confuse the true claim, that the relational property
expressed by ‘is red at t’ (for particular ‘t’) is one with respect to
which a thing cannot change, with the false claim that the relation
expressed by ‘is red at’ cannot be entered into both by the pair
consisting of an object and a time and by the pair consisting of
that object and another time. Thus, the two strategies for dealing
with the alleged problem of temporary intrinsics, though similar, are
different in that the first, but not the second, would force a revision
in the analysis of change.
There are two objections that are often made against the strategy
of treating what appear to be intrinsic properties as disguised relations. The first is that it denies that there are any intrinsic properties
with respect to which any thing can change; and that seems to some
counterintuitive. It is surely the case, it will be said, that there is such
a property as that of being square, that that property is intrinsic to
anything that has it, and that, if things do change at all, a thing that
has that property can come to lack it.23
It should be noted, in connection with this objection, that the
property of having an internal temperature of 98.6 ◦ F and the
property of being six feet tall should be thought of as intrinsic
properties of the things that have them. Nevertheless, it could be
argued that a thing’s having of such properties should be understood
as in terms of relations involving such a thing and a number. If
that does not bar such properties from being intrinsic, then a case
might be made for thinking that the property of being-red-at-noonon-January-1-2002 and other such temporally relativized properties,
expressed by expressions of the form ‘being F at t’ (where F is itself
intrinsic) are also intrinsic. For they too may be construed as relating
things to numbers.24
The second objection is that it is, in some important sense, “backwards” to suppose that the relation expressed by ‘is red at’ is more
primitive than that expressed by ‘is red’.25 But it is unclear whether
this strategy really does get the order of analysis backwards.26 We
learned some time ago that the basic expression connected with
170
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
motion is ‘moves relative to’, which expresses a relation between
a thing and a frame of reference; the one-place predicate ‘moves’
means (or is elliptical for) ‘x moves with respect to some particular (perhaps familiar or understood) frame of reference’. Similarly,
one could take being red at to be basic, where a thing bears that
relation to a time if and only if it is red at that time. ‘x is red’
would then be understood as ambiguous between ‘x is red now’
and ‘x is red at all times’ in light of the fact that the ‘is’ in ‘x
is red’ is ambiguous between a present tense interpretation and a
conjunctively omni-temporal interpretation (meaning ‘is, was, and
will be’).
A third strategy, favored by Lewis and other perdurantists, rejects
any attempt to reconcile eternalism and change with respect to
intrinsic properties in enduring things. It insists that no thing can
possess contrary properties, and that, when that appears to be the
case, as in the case where a persisting thing has and then lacks
an intrinsic property, what really possesses those properties are
the thing’s different temporal parts. According to this idea, things
persist by perduring, that is, by having temporal parts, and it is
one thing (one temporal part) that has the intrinsic property in
question, and another thing (another temporal part) that lacks it,
and instead has a contrary one. Hence, persisting things change by
having contrary intrinsics successively possessed by their temporal
parts; and temporal parts do not possess their intrinsic properties
temporarily.
III. THE EXEMPLIFICATION SOLUTION
I think that we do not need to hold that persisting things have
temporal parts in order to avoid the idea that the apparently intrinsic
and changeable features of things are either really temporally
indexed relational properties or are really relations.
The thought that the only alternatives to temporal parts are
those ideas stems, I think, from a confusion between the idea of
a property and the idea of the having (or exemplification) of a
property. Redness is not a relation, it is a quality; but exemplification is a relation, and having redness is a relational property. As
Johnston and van Inwagen have suggested, exemplification is not
THE LOWE ROAD
171
a two-termed relation holding between things and their properties;
it is three-termed, relating things, properties, and times.27 The twotermed relational expression, ‘x exemplifies F’, would be definable
in terms of the three-place exemplification relation, though, since
it contains a verb in the syntactic present tense, it would then be
ambiguous between ‘x exemplifies F at the present time’ and ‘x
exemplifies F at all times’ (as it should be, since the syntactically
present tense of ‘is’ is ambiguous in just this way). Let us call
this “the exemplification solution” to the problem of temporary
intrinsics.28
Now, David Lewis, in objecting to the idea that all properties are
really relational, asked a question that seems also to be relevant to
the exemplification solution: “What does standing in some (temporally relativized) relation to [redness] have to do with just plain
being [red]?”.29 But there might be a confusion embedded in this
rhetorical question. The property that gets exemplified is redness
– just plain redness. Standing in some temporally relativized relation to it is what things do when they exemplify just plain redness
at some time. It is true, exemplification is temporally relativized,
that nothing just plain exemplifies a property,30 just as nothing is
just plain taller than. But when something stands in that relation to
redness at some time, it is just plain redness that the thing stands in
relation to then; and then, it is just plain red.
Since the exemplification solution does not require an appeal to
temporal parts in order to explain how it is possible for a persisting
thing to have and then lack an intrinsic property, it seems that endurance is compatible with eternalism after all. Eternalism does not
imply that there are no enduring things that actually change.
IV. TENSELESS AND PLACELESS PREDICATION
Now, I have interpreted the words ‘just plain being red’ in Lewis’s
question – What does standing in some (temporally relativized) relation to redness have to do with just plain being red? – as referring
to the property of being red, that is, Redness; and I interpreted the
question as asking what exemplification, construed as three-termed,
has to do with that (intrinsic) property. So interpreted, my response
seems correct. Redness, just plain being red, is the intrinsic property
172
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
that some thing may have and then lack when it changes color during
some interval of time.
However, there is another way to understand Lewis’s question
and the thought about temporary intrinsics that lies behind it.31
Rather than having the words ‘just plain’ modify ‘being red’, where
the latter are taken to refer to Redness, we should take ‘just plain’ to
modify just the word ‘being’. That is, what ‘just plain being red’
means, on this interpretation, concerns the just plain two-termed
relation of exemplification that might be said to hold between things
and the property Redness. And so, Lewis’s question is about what
a three-termed, temporally relativized relation of exemplification,
expressed by ‘x exemplifies F at t’, has to do with a two-termed
relation of exemplification, expressed by ‘x exemplifies F’. Now,
my answer to this question is simple: there is no two-termed
exemplification-relation expressed by ‘x exemplifies F’; rather since
‘exemplifies’ in ‘x exemplifies F’ is in the syntactic present tense, it
is ambiguous between two interpretations, ‘x exemplifies F now’
and ‘x exemplifies F at all times’, each of which construes the
relation of exemplification as three-termed.
However, a proponent of the idea that there really is a problem of
temporary intrinsics will reject this answer, and might well insist
that there is a two-termed relation of exemplification that relates
things and their intrinsic properties and that that relation is not
analyzable in terms of a three-termed relation of exemplification. It
is true, it might be insisted, that some objects (just plain) exemplify
intrinsic properties.32 Now, what can someone who believes this
have in mind?
Suppose that someone were to say “there’s a rabbit”, where the
‘there’ does not mean anything like ‘over there’ or ‘in that place’;
rather, she is simply asserting the existence of a rabbit. Now I should
think that, if that assertion is true, then there is a rabbit somewhere,
and that that is not an accident; rabbits, being physical beings, have
spatial location. If, for every (spatial) “there”, it is false that there
is a rabbit there, then it would simply be false that there was, in the
non-spatial, merely existential sense, any rabbit at all.
Of course, if there were a rabbit at one place, it would be true that
there is a rabbit simpliciter (that is, placelessly). But if there were no
rabbit at another place, would it then be true that there is no rabbit
THE LOWE ROAD
173
simpliciter? I think not, for the simpliciter-sense of ‘there’ that I am
imagining here is merely existential; it is not spatial. Therefore, if
there were a rabbit at one place and no rabbit at another, then there
would just be a rabbit simpliciter, and it would not be true both
that there was a rabbit simpliciter and that there was not a rabbit
simpliciter. So, even if ‘there is a rabbit’ does not mean ‘there is a
rabbit someplace’, the former still implies the latter (and, of course,
the latter implies the former), and no contradiction can be derived
from the fact that some places have rabbits (in or at them) and some
don’t.
When we say that some object is red, we are usually taken, and
correctly so, to say that all of it (or at any rate all of its surface)
is red. But I suppose that those words could be taken to imply
only that redness is exemplified in (or on) the object, where that
would imply only that some part of it was red. Then it could be
true that some object was both red and not red. For all that would
imply is that redness was exemplified somewhere in the object and
also not exemplified somewhere (else) in the object; and that’s not
impossible.
Now, let us suppose that someone said “x is red”, where the ‘is’
does not mean anything like ‘is now’; that is, let us suppose, that ‘is’
has no tense. I should think that, even if that assertion is true, x must
still be red at some time or other, and that that is not an accident. If,
for every “now”, it is false that x is red now, then it would simply be
false that x was, in the tenseless sense, red.
Of course, if x were red at one time, it would be true that x is red
simpliciter, in the tenseless sense of ‘is’ employed in the preceding
paragraph. But if x were not red at another time, would it then be
true that x is not red simpliciter? I think not. If x were red at one
time and not red at another, it would not be true that x both was and
was not red simpliciter. So, even if ‘x is red’ does not mean ‘x is red
at some time’, the former still implies the latter (and, of course, the
latter implies the former), and no contradiction can be derived from
the fact that some times have red things (that is, there are red things
at some times) and some do not.
The sentences ‘x is red at some time’ and ‘x is not red at
some time’ are not necessarily contradictories, for there is a scope
ambiguity in the latter. ‘x is not red at some time’ may mean either
174
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
(3)
∼(∃t)(x is red at t)
(4)
(∃t)(∼x is red at t).
or
‘x is red at t’ is inconsistent with (3), but consistent with (4).
In order to generate the contradiction that believers in the
problem of temporary intrinsics take to be derivable (in conjunction with eternalism) from the idea that enduring things change with
respect to their temporary intrinsics, it must at least be the case that
‘x is red at t1 ’ implies ‘x is red’, and that ‘x is not red at t2 ’ implies ‘x
is not red’. However, if ‘x is not red’ is without tense, or implies only
(4), then no contradiction can be derived. But, surely the believers
in tenseless predication of temporary intrinsics do not think that x
is not red either means or implies (3); for, since (3) means that x is
never red, it is not really tenseless, and, moreover, no one thinks that
some thing changes if it is red at one time and is also never red!
I do not see how a contradiction is supposed to be derived
from the idea that things change with respect to their temporary
intrinsics. Nevertheless, it is insisted that there is a problem of
temporary intrinsics that requires a solution. So, I now proceed to
Lowe’s and Haslanger’s variation on what strikes me as the correct
understanding of exemplification as a three-termed relation.
V. THE LOWE ROAD
In The Possibility of Metaphysics, E.J. Lowe endorses something
like the exemplification solution. He accepts Lewis’s description of
it as putting “the relationality not in the [colors] themselves but in
the having of them”.33 But Lewis’s gloss on it – “there is a threeplace relation of instantiation [holding between objects, properties
and times]” – is said by Lowe to be “unacceptable”:
To say that the having of a shape is related to a time is to say that the holding of
a two-place relation is related to a time, not that a three-place relation is involved,
one of whose relata is a time. Lewis’s gloss exhibits a failure to take seriously the
adverbial status which ‘at t’ has.34
According to Lowe, then, times are not one of the relata of a
three-termed relation of exemplification; exemplification just relates
THE LOWE ROAD
175
things and their properties. Lowe thus seems to endorse a “tenseless” reading of ‘x exemplifies F’, as described in the last section;
and he insists that, in order to take ‘at t’ seriously as an adverb, the
claim ‘x is red at t’ must be taken to mean that x’s (tenselessly)
exemplifying redness (or x’s being red) obtains at t. So, according
to Lowe, redness is an intrinsic property, exemplification is a twotermed relation, and obtaining is another two-termed relation, this
one holding between times and whatever are referred to by phrases
of the form ‘x’s being F’ (or ‘x’s exemplifying Fness’) – states
of affairs, I suppose. Lowe’s proposal seems to be an attempt to
respond to Lewis’s rhetorical question – What does standing in some
(temporally relativized) relation to redness have to do with just plain
being red? – by agreeing that red things are just plain red, that is,
they just plain exemplify just plain redness (and do not exemplify
redness at times or exemplify redness-at-times), and by retaining
redness as an intrinsic feature of things.
What Lowe means by taking ‘at t’ “seriously” as an adverbial
modifier is that it should be taken to modify a verb – in this case
‘exemplifies’ – in roughly the way that ‘to John’ modifies ‘spoke’ in
‘Bill spoke to John’. That sentence seems to me to be parsed more
or less as: there was a speaking by Bill, and it was directed at John.
On that model,
(5)
x is red at t
would mean
(6)
there is (simpliciter) an exemplifying by x of redness, and
it obtains at t.
So, what is related to t, by the relation of obtaining, is x’s being red,
a state of affairs.
There is, I think, a serious danger in Lowe’s idea that it is states
of affairs that are related to times by the relation of obtaining; the
danger is the threat of infinite regress. To see this, let us ask whether
we should take ‘at t’ in
(7)
state of affairs, s, obtains at t
just as seriously as an adverb as Lowe recommends that we take
it in (5)? I think we should. If there is a good reason why just
plain exemplification should be thought of as two-termed, then there
should be a good reason to think that obtaining is a simple property
176
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
of states of affairs, and not as a relation between states of affairs and
times; after all, could it not be said that some states of affairs just
plain obtain? If so, then, since the verb ‘at t’ modifies is ‘obtains’,
(7) should mean
(8)
s’s obtaining obtains at t.
But if we are to continue to take ‘at t’ seriously as an adverb
modifying a verb, then (8), in turn, should mean
(9)
the obtaining of s’s obtaining obtains at t;
and so on. We never get rid of all the ‘at t’s that need to be taken seriously as adverbs. This is a vicious regress, and it must be prevented
from arising.
The reason that this regress is vicious is that Lowe insists that
‘at t’ be treated as a genuine adverb modifying a verb, and that
time should not be treated as a relatum of some relation. Thus, he
insists that ‘at t’ modify a verb, namely the verb ‘obtains’, and so,
in analyzing (5), Lowe must find an occurrence of ‘obtains’. So, the
analysis of (5) is
(10) x’s being red obtains at t.
But then we must ask what role ‘at t’ is playing in (10) and its
generalization (7)? It cannot be that t is merely a relatum of the
“obtains at” relation; for otherwise, why not just have t be a relatum
of the exemplification relation in the first place? And again, don’t
some states of affairs just plain obtain? The time, t, must be referred
to by part of an adverbial phrase, namely ‘at t’, that modifies a verb.
However, at each stage in which ‘at t’ is construed adverbially (as
opposed to t’s just being a relatum of an obtaining relation), a new
entity gets introduced. At the first level, what obtains is the state of
affairs consisting of x’s being red. At the second stage, what obtains
is the state of affairs consisting in the obtaining of the state of affairs
consisting in x’s being red; and so on. Now, while it may be the case
that x’s being red obtains if and only if (and when and only when)
x’s being red’s obtaining obtains, it is nevertheless the case the x’s
being red and x’s being red’s obtaining are different states of affairs;
after all, the former is a state of affairs concerning a state that x is
in, while the latter is a state of affairs concerning a state that a state
of affairs is in. Thus, (5) and (10) are not about the same entities
and thus do not say the same thing. (10) is not a long winded way
THE LOWE ROAD
177
of saying that x is red at t; it says something new and speaks of
something that ‘x is red at t’ does not speak of. And so, since (10)
itself is subject to the same analysis as Lowe proposes for ‘x is red
at t’, and since it and all its progeny contain an ‘at t’ that needs to
be taken seriously as an adverb, we get a regress. And the regress is
vicious, since (i) ‘at t’ will always appear in the result of a Lowetype analysis and will always need to be “taken seriously” as an
adverb, and (ii) every new step introduces a new entity.35
To prevent this regress, one must say, at some point, something
like the following:
No, ‘at t’ is here not to be taken seriously as adverb (in Lowe’s sense of modifying
a verb), but rather as part of a relational predicate ‘obtains at t’; that is, one must
take ‘obtains at’ to express a relation between states of affairs and times.
But if one is eventually going to take that step, one might as well
take it with ‘exemplifies’. And then one gets the exemplification
solution with Lewis’s gloss: ‘exemplifies’ expresses a three-termed
relation holding among things, their properties, and the times at
which they have them.
Imagine these “rival” views about space. Let Here-ism be
the view that there is something privileged about where we are.
According to Here-ism, the only place that exists is here; the only
things that exist are those that are here, and the only properties a
thing has are the ones it has here. Just as what might be said to have
existed in the past or to exist in the future does not (according to
presentism) exist, what is there (that is, not here) does not, according
to Here-ism, exist either. On the other hand, Anywhere-ism is the
view that all places are on the same ontological footing and that the
things that exist both here and there are all equally real.
Just as it is alleged that eternalism implies that, if an object is red
at noon, then it is red, if Anywhere-ism were true, it should follow,
from the fact that an object has a feature somewhere, that that object
has that feature simpliciter. But then, there should be a Problem
of Local Intrinsics that is analogous to the Problem of Temporary
Intrinsics. Indeed, Lowe’s gloss on the exemplification solution to
the latter problem is suggested to him by an analogy of temporary
with local intrinsics, where an attribute is a local intrinsic just in
case it is an intrinsic feature that a thing may have at one place and
not at another.36 Consider this claim:
178
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
(11) The Thames is broad in London and narrow in the
Cotswolds.
The problem of local intrinsics arises, because, on the assumption
of Anywhere-ism, it seems to follow that if the Thames is broad in
London, then it is broad. Thus, a contradiction, that the Thames is
both broad and narrow, can be deduced from (11).
Lowe enumerates three responses to this problem of local
intrinsics: (i) take local intrinsics to be space-indexed, so that the
“real” property is broadness-in-London; (ii) take local intrinsics to
apply primarily to the spatial parts of things (it is not the Thames,
but the-Thames-in-London, that is broad); and (iii) take ‘at place p’
seriously as an adverb, so that ‘the Thames is broad in London’ is
parsed as ‘the Thames’s being broad obtains in London’; this third
response is the exemplification-solution applied to adverbs of place,
given a Lowe-type gloss.
Lowe rejects (i) because of what he perceives as the esoteric
character of space-indexed properties. (ii) is rejected because it
requires one to have the concept of a spatial part. And (iii) is
accepted.37
But (iii) seems a bit obscure. Of course, material things have their
features at distances from the moon, but one needn’t conclude from
this that obtaining relates states of affairs and the moon. Nor do I
find the application of the exemplification solution, with Lewis’s
gloss, especially appealing. This gloss would make exemplification relate things, their properties, and places. But, after all, verbs
are tensed, and not “placed”. In addition, it may well be the case
that objects have properties along “dimensions” other than spatial
and temporal ones; and, in advance of knowing just what those
dimensions, if any, are, we would have to profess ignorance of just
how many terms the exemplification relation takes. And I find that
unsatisfactory.
As Lowe admits, his reason for rejecting (ii) isn’t decisive.38
Van Inwagen’s concerns about arbitrary undetached parts
notwithstanding,39 the idea of some of a thing’s parts’ having
properties not had either by the thing itself or by other parts is
just not obscure or esoteric. Such ideas are easily acquired. Also,
we already have the idea that physical objects have parts; and we
believe much of what we are acquainted with to be composite.
THE LOWE ROAD
179
That some parts of things have different properties from other parts
hardly shocks our metaphysical sensibilities. Nor are we surprised,
unless we habitually commit fallacies of division and composition,
to find that objects may have properties that their parts don’t and
vice versa. This should not make us think of place as one of the
relata of the exemplification relation; rather, it should remind us
that we sometimes attribute properties to some but not all parts of a
thing.
Now we cannot cavalierly take a similar line with temporal parts.
Lowe is right to think that the view that persisting things have
temporal parts is considerably more controversial than the view that
objects have spatial parts. Moreover, I do not see how the spatial
analogy is supposed to motivate Lowe’s version of the exemplification solution. Lowe insists that to say that the Thames is broad in
London is to say that the Thames’s being broad obtains in London.
But, since rivers may widen and narrow over time, the Thames’s
being broad may obtain in London in 2001 but not in 2056. Should
we say then that obtaining is a three-termed relation, relating states
of affairs, places, and times? If so, then why not just allow that relation of exemplification may take times as relata in the first place?
If not, then we will be forced, I think, to do to obtaining, what
Lowe does to exemplification. The result will be that to say that
the Thames is broad in London in 2001 is to say that
(12) the state of affairs that is the Thames’s exemplifying
broadness’s obtaining in London obtains in 2001.
And for the life of me, I just cannot find this preferable to
(13) the part of the Thames that is in London exemplifies
broadness in 2001.
Now, it might be thought that ‘The Thames is broad in London
in 2001’ should be rendered, on Lowe’s account, as
(14) the Thames’s exemplifying broadness obtains in London
and obtains in 2001,
and not, as I claim Lowe must render it, as the rather unfortunate (12). However, Lowe himself says that ‘The Thames is broad
in London’ is to be understood as ‘The Thames’s being broad
[exemplifying broadness] obtains in London’. And it is that state
of affairs – the Thames’s being broad in London – and not the
180
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
Thames’s being broad – that is being said to obtain in 2001. And
the reason for this is that the very same state of affairs may obtain at
different times and in different places (my being angry obtained in
1972 and in 2001; my being hungry obtained both in Cleveland and
in Cincinnati). (14) is clearly the conjunction of two claims about
the Thames’s being broad: (i) that that state of affairs obtains in
London, and (ii) that that state of affairs obtains in 2001. But (i)
could be true because the Thames was broad in London in 1985, but
not in 2001, and (ii) could be true because the Thames was broad
in Oxford 2001. Thus, (14)’s truth does not require that the Thames
be broad in London in 2001. ‘The Thames is broad in London in
2001’ ’s truth, however, clearly does; and so does (12).
Thus, there is not much to recommend Lowe’s version of the
exemplification solution, and some reason to reject it.40 But the
exemplification solution has much, I think, to recommend it; at least
it appears to exemplify correctness here and now. And we should
understand that solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics,
ironically, in the light of the gloss that David Lewis, one of its chief
opponents, has given it; he seems to have understood the view he
was opposing perfectly.
APPENDIX ON LEWIS
In his paper, “Tensing the Copula”,41 David Lewis explained,
perhaps more clearly than he had done in the past,42 just what his
reasons were for his rejection of the exemplification solution, and
clarified what he had in mind by “ just plain being red”.
His two-pronged objection is not really to a three-place, rather
than a two-place, relation of exemplification, but to any exemplification relation at all. First, he thinks that any use of a relation
of exemplification to explain the relation between a thing and its
properties is going to be faced with a Bradley-style regress. In this,
Lewis may well be right, although it is unclear whether the exemplification solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics requires that
the relation of exemplification, whether two-placed or three-placed,
be employed as an explanation of the relation between a thing and its
properties. The second point is expressed by Lewis in the following
way:
THE LOWE ROAD
181
But it is one thing to have a property, it is something else to bear some relation
to it. If a relation stands between you and your properties, you are alienated from
them.43
Lewis is here objecting to any exemplification relation, regardless
of how many places it has; the tie that binds object and property
cannot, in Lewis’s view, be reified, it cannot be an entity. Lewis’s
idea, of course, is reminiscent of Frege’s idea that properties are
“unsaturated”, waiting to be “filled” by objects (whence it follows
that the object has that property), and of the idea of a “nexus”, a
non-relational tie between an object and its properties. Lewis grants
that talk of unsaturatedness of properties and of a nexus is so far just
talk; but it is, in his view, talk with a virtue:
It is all very well to say that the copula is a ‘non-relational tie’ or that properties
are ‘unsaturated’ and await completion by their bearers. These remarks at least
have the merit of pointing away from the idea that having is relational. But they
don’t point toward much of anything.44
My interest here is not to enter into the debate about whether
Bradley’s regress can be overcome or to wonder whether good clear
sense can be made of the idea that the copula expresses a nonrelational tie or nexus binding an object and its properties. It is
rather to point out that the issue does not, it seems to me, to have
any serious consequences for the problem of temporary intrinsics.
If there is no relational tie (such as a relation of exemplification)
between an object and its properties (and, possibly, times), we are,
I think, supposed to conclude that, when an object has a property at
one time it just has it, and that when that object later has a contrary
property it just has it; and thus, if an object has a property and then
has a contrary property, the object just has the property and just has
a contrary one, which is alleged to be impossible. Thus, the problem
of temporary intrinsics.
But, as I argued in §IV above, in connection with the idea of
tenseless predication of temporary intrinsics, the fact that x is (tenselessly) red implies that x is red at some time and the fact the fact
that x is red at some time implies that x is (tenselessly) red. But,
that x is red at some time and not red at some (other) time does
not imply a contradiction, regardless of whether the “tie” binding
x and redness is reified or not. At least, no contradiction can be
deduced unless a scope fallacy is committed. Thus, I do not see how
182
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
the problem of temporary intrinsics is to supposed to arise, even
if a relation of tenseless exemplification is eschewed in favor of a
tenseless non-relational nexus.
If a thing and its properties are non-relationally tied together,
the problem of explaining just how time fits in remains. And time
must fit in somehow, it seems to me, since ‘x is (tenselessly) red’
expresses the proposition that x is now red, or it expresses the proposition that x is red at all times, or it expresses no proposition at all.
Some philosophers apparently believe that ‘x is (tenselessly) red’
expresses a proposition that is true on some occasions and false
on others. But I just do not understand what proposition that is
supposed to be.
At this point, one might wish to reintroduce Lowe’s (and
Haslanger’s) suggestion that it is the state of affairs consisting
in x’s (tenselessly) having redness that obtains at a time (and
not at another). But, as I argued in §V above, that way lies an
infinite regress, and that regress may be just as problematic as the
Bradley-style regress which Lewis had argued haunts the relation of
exemplification.
Thus, the problem which Lewis raised in “Tensing the Copula”
seems to me to be a general problem concerned with the nature
of predication and does not have any special consequences for
the problem of temporary intrinsics. A solution to the problem of
the nature of predication along the lines suggested by Lewis, will
not make it any easier than it otherwise would be to generate the
problem of temporary intrinsics; nor will it, even if that problem
can be generated, make it any easier to solve.45
NOTES
1
See David Lewis ‘Extrinsic Properties’, originally published in Philosophical
Studies, 44 (1983), 197–200, reprinted in his Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 111–115; and David
Lewis and Rae Langton, ‘Defining ‘Intrinsic’, originally published in Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research 58 (1998), 335–345, also reprinted in Papers in
Metaphysics and Epistemology, 116–132.
2 Being exactly as tall as Smith also seems to be a relational property, and hence
it seems to be not intrinsic; but Smith himself has it independently of the existence
of other things and their properties. So, is that relational property intrinsic with
respect to Smith and extrinsic with respect to others?
THE LOWE ROAD
3
183
This is one sort of case which prompted Plato to object to the ancient criterion;
see Theaetetus 155b11-14. See also Aristotle’s Physics, Bk. I, Ch. 7, 191a3-7.
4 See, for example, David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1986), pp. 202–205; Trenton Merricks, ‘On the Incompatibility
of Enduring and Perduring Entities’, Mind 104(414) (July, 1995), 523–531,
esp. pp. 526–528; and Mark Hinchliff, ‘The Puzzle of Change’, Philosophical
Perspectives 10: Metaphysics, 1996 (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996),
pp. 99. 119–136.
5 Hinchliff, p. 122.
6 Hinchliff, p. 123.
7 Merricks, p. 523.
8 Merricks, p. 526f.
9 Mark Johnston, ‘Is there a Problem about Persistence’, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 104(Suppl.) (1987), 89–105; Peter van Inwagen, ‘FourDimensional Obejcts’, Noûs XXIV(2) (April, 1990), 245–255.
10 See his ‘The Problem of Intrinsic Change: Rejoinder to Lewis’, Analysis
48 (March, 1988), 72–77, and his The Possibility of Metaphysics (Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 129–135. See also Sally Haslanger, ‘Endurance and
Temporary Intrinsics’, Analysis 49 (June, 1989), 119–125.
11 Merricks, pp. 526–527.
12 If a thing endures through a change from being F to not being F, it does not
merely come to lack F; it acquires a property which is one of F’s contraries. But
a thing cannot, it is said, possess contrary properties. Thus, again, it is argued,
change in enduring things is impossible.
13 Merricks, pp. 523f. But see my reply in ‘On the Alleged Incompatibility
of Presentism and Perduring Entities’, Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of
Israel 27(1–2) (March, 1999), 253–260.
14 But see Hinchliff, p. 123.
15 See ‘Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe’, originally published in
Analysis 48(2) (March, 1988), 65–72, and reprinted in his Papers in Metaphysics
and Epistemology, p. 188f.
16 See Merricks, p. 526. See also Michael Jubien, Ontology, Modality, and the
Fallacy of Reference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 24–27,
and David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, pp. 202–204.
17 See §IV, below.
18 However, it is unclear to me that there is this sense of (2) with ‘now’ having
“moderately” small scope.
19 See Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, pp. 202–204, Lowe, The Possibility
of Metaphysics, pp. 130f., and Lewis, ‘Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to
Lowe’.
20 See Merricks, pp. 527–528.
21 Of course, one might then reject the idea of change as variation in property in
favor of something like this: an object changes if and only if it has the properties
expressed by ‘is F at t1 ’ and ‘is not F at t2 ’ (for some t1 = t2 ).
184
22
LAWRENCE B. LOMBARD
When reading this argument, do not read the parenthetical material; but do
understand premise and conclusion in light of that material when detecting and
exposing the fallacy.
23 See Hinchliff, p. 121.
24 I owe this point to Larry Powers and Michael McKinsey. See also Fraser
MacBride’s ‘Four New Ways To Change Your Shape’, Australasian Journal of
Philosophy 79(1) (2001), 81–89.
25 See Merricks’ ‘On the Incompatibility of Enduring and Perduring Entities’,
p. 528, and his ‘Endurance and Indiscernibility’, The Journal of Philosophy 91(4),
p. 170.
26 See Peter van Inwagen, ‘Four-Dimensional Objects’, pp. 249–250.
27 See references in note 9, above.
28 In ‘Endurance and Indiscernibility’, pp. 168–70, Merricks considers this idea
that exemplification is a three-place relation that relates things, properties and
times; at least I think that is how one is to take the idea that objects do not
(primarily) exemplify properties simpliciter, that they, rather, exemplify properties in “t-ly” way. But, his only objection to this idea is his insistence that the
three-place relation ‘x exemplifies y at t’ should be analyzed in terms of the
two-place relation ‘x exemplifies y’, and should not be taken to be primitive, for
that gets the order of analysis backwards. However, as noted above, I reject this
objection.
29 David Lewis, ‘Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe’, p. 66, note 2; I
have changed Lewis’s example.
30 Well, one can say that some things just exemplify redness; but that would be
saying something ambiguous, due to the ambiguity in the tense of ‘is’, between
‘x exemplifies F now’ and ‘x exemplifies F at all times’.
31 This idea arose in the course of (or as a result of) separate conversations with
Ted Sider and Larry Powers.
32 So, it is insisted that it is true that some objects (just plain) exemplify intrinsic
properties. But just when is this supposed to be true? – on occasion? sometimes?
at all times? This question is also a good introduction to Lowe’s variation on the
exemplification solution which is to be discussed in §V.
33 Lewis,‘Rearrangement of Particles: Reply to Lowe’, quoted in Lowe, The
Possibility of Metaphysics, pp. 131–132.
34 Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics, p. 132.
35 Despite the fact that we can generate the infinite series consisting of: p, ‘p’
is true, ‘ ‘p’ is true’ is true, ‘ ‘ ‘p’ is true’ is true’ is true, etc., we get no vicious
regress, since there is nothing in the shorter sentences that needs analysis in terms
of the longer ones.
36 Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics, pp. 132–133.
37 Lowe does not mention a fourth response – relativizing broadness and narrowness to places – so that to say that the Thames is broad in London is to say that the
Thames has the relational property of being broad-in-London. On this view, to say
that x is broad simpliciter is to say equivocally either that x is broad everywhere
(that x is) or that x is broad here.
THE LOWE ROAD
38
185
Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics, p. 132.
See his ‘The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts’, Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly 62(2) (April, 1981), 123–137.
40 Lowe’s account treats spatial and temporal predication on a par. But it is
at least in part for that reason that I think that there is something wrong with
Lowe’s account. After all, our verbs are tensed and not placed. To treat spatial
and temporal predication on a par, especially in the context of a discussion of
the problem of temporary intrinsics, which is supposed to be a problem with the
very idea that enduring things change, is to encourage us to think of change over
time as fundamentally no different from variation over space. But this plays into
the hands of those who think that to explain the possibility of change one must
think of physical objects as related to time in much the way that they are related
to space. And this is a view that Lowe’s account of exemplification is meant to
avoid. Thus, from Lowe’s point of view (and, indeed, mine), it is not a virtue of
any account of predication that it treats exemplification at a place in the same
terms as it treats exemplification at a time.
41 David Lewis, ‘Tensing the Copula’, Mind 111(441) (January, 2002), 1–13.
42 It is more likely that, when I read that paper, I finally understood what Lewis
had in mind all along.
43 ‘Tensing the Copula’, p. 5.
44 Ibid., p. 6.
45 A distant ancestor of this paper was read at the Pacific Division meetings of
the American Philosophical Association, in April, 2000, and I wish to think Dan
Kervick, for his insightful and helpful commentary on that paper, and members of
the audience, particularly Ted Sider, for their comments. A more recent draft was
read to the Philosophy Department at Wayne State, and I would like to thank the
audience there for their helpful comments. I also wish to thank Michael McKinsey
for his helpful comments on a late draft of this paper, and an anonymous referee
for forcing me to be clearer on some points than I would otherwise have been.
39
Department of Philosophy
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
E-mail: L.B.Lombard@wayne.edu
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.