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The Meta‐Problem of Change
Author(s) -
Hofweber Thomas
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
noûs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.574
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1468-0068
pISSN - 0029-4624
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2009.00707.x
Subject(s) - metaphysics , chapel , philosophy , supervenience , relation (database) , citation , object (grammar) , theology , computer science , linguistics , library science , database
The problem of change plays a central role in the metaphysics of time and material objects, and whoever does best in solving this prob- lem has a leg up when it comes to choosing a metaphysics of time and material objects. But whether this central role of the problem of change in metaphysics is legitimate is not at all clear. This is in part since it is not clear what the problem of change is, and why it is a prob- lem in metaphysics. We will investigate what metaphysical problem the problem of change might be, and how it relates to various other problems related to change that are studied in the empirical sciences. The problem of change can thus be a case study of what makes a prob- lem a metaphysical one and how metaphysics relates to the empirical sciences. We conclude that the central role the problem of change is given in the contemporary metaphysics of time is not justied.