Process and persistence
The task of an ontological interpretation of persistence is to define a
model structure ('truth-makers') in terms of which we can justify
inferential space of statements about transtemporal sameness and
change for instances of as many of our general classificatory concepts
as possible (things, persons, events, actions, features, relationships
etc.). The contemporary debate about persistence seems deadlocked in
an opposition between endurance and perdurance accounts:
endurantists hold that transtemporal sameness is identity, perdurantist
insist that transtemporal sameness is, at bottom, to be defined in terms
of a relation. I present a new, third option, the 'recurrence account' of
persistence that is embedded within an ontology of non-particular
individuals (a process ontology). As I try to show, relative to the data
and evaluative criteria of a theory of persistence accepted in the
current debate, the recurrence account performs better than (certain
representatives of) perdurance and endurance theories.