Here’s a quote from Sally Haslanger’s “Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics,” criticizing the perdurantist resolution of the problem of temporary intrinsics
(here the “perdurers” refers to the four-dimensional worms, which are composed out of instantaneous temporal parts):
It is important to note that Lewis’s solution, like the others he mentions, requires a trade off in our intuitions about intrinsic change. Although on his view it is
true that there are persisting objects (the perdurers), and it is also true that properties such as shape are genuinely intrinsic (to the stages), there is nothing
such that it persists through a change in its intrinsic properties. The intrinsic properties of the stages are not properties of the perdurer. The perdurer itself is
not simply bent and then straight; if it were we’d be left with the original problem. The perdurer has properties which are significantly correlated with these,
e.g. the property of having a part which is bent (and one which is straight), but these properties involve a relation between the perdurer and one of its
momentary parts. Even if one were to hold that a perdurer’s relations to its distinct parts are intrinsic (which is not obviously correct), at any rate such
properties of the perdurer are not temporary. So what persists is not what has
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the relevant temporary intrinsic. Like the other ‘solutions’, Lewis must say that it is not possible for an object to persist through a change in its intrinsic
properties. So why are we forced to make Lewis’ compromise? (119-120)
Summarize the objection Haslanger is raising here in your own words. Do you think it succeeds? How might perdurantists like Lewis and Sider reply?
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