Ludwig Jaskolla

Der vorliegende Text untersucht das Verhältnis von Alfred North Whiteheads Philosophie und der philosophischen Denkschule, die im weiteren Sinne als ‚analytische Philosophie‘ oder ‚analytische Tradition‘ bezeichnet werden könnte. Erschwert wird dieses Unterfangen durch den Umstand, dass der Begriff der analytischen Philosophie selbst schwer zu fassen ist: Einerseits hat die analytische Philosophie, deren zeitlichen Beginn Michael Dummett unter dem Stichwort „post-Fregean philosophy“ (Dummet 1977, 309) festmacht, einen starken Veränderungsprozess vollzogen, der zu teils inkompatiblen inhaltlichen Schwerpunkten führte. Andererseits zogen diese inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte auch Konsequenzen dafür nach sich, was methodisch als analytische Philosophie aufzufassen war und ist.

The third chapters provides a general summary of the argumentative structure of my work: My argument proceeds in three major steps and aims to substantiate the following conditional claim: If philosophers are opting for a realistic 4-dimensional theory of persistence, then becoming Real Fourdimensionalists poses a coherent and adequate option. The structure of this essay is as follows: One of the main theories of persistence is 4-dimensionalism. There have been various challenges to 4-dimensionalism; those are developed in this essay and arranged in a taxonomy. Real Fourdimensionalism is a version of panexperiential stage theory and its alleged model of persistence-as-deciding answers the questions raised by the taxonomy.

Alfred North Whitehead bietet in seiner philosophischen Kosmologie einen Deutungsrahmen, mit dem Wirklichkeit primär von ihrer Prozesshaftigkeit begriffen werden kann. Eine solche prozesshafte Konzeption der Wirklichkeit hat folgerichtig auch Auswirkungen darauf, wie Religion und damit zusammenhängend das Gott-Welt-Verhältnis gedacht wird. Der Band möchte einen Beitrag zu einer systematischen Rekonstruktion von Whiteheads Religionstheorie und -philosophie leisten und zugleich zeigen, wie ihr Potential für die aktuelle Debatte fruchtbar gemacht werden kann.

Panpsychism has become a highly attractive position in the philosophy of mind. On panpsychism, both the physical and the mental are inseparable and fundamental features of reality. Panentheism has also become immensely popular in the philosophy of religion. Panentheism strives for a higher reconciliation of an atheistic pantheism, on which the universe itself is causa sui, and the ontological dualism of necessarily existing, eternal creator and contingent, finite creation. Historically and systematically, panpsychism and panentheism often went together as essential parts of an all-embracing metaphysical theory of Being. The present collection of essays analyses the relation between panpsychism and panentheism and provides critical reflections on the significance of panpsychistic and panentheistic thinking for recent debates in philosophy and theology.

Sometimes the thesis has been put forth that the languages of 3- Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are completey translatable into each other without any loss of meaning. Prominently, this thesis has recently been defended by Jonathan Lowe and Storrs McCall. A global inter-translatability would show that there is no deeper systematic or even ontological difference between these philosophical positions despite that both are using a different vocabulary to describe the same features of reality. In this paper, I want to argue that the thesis of 3D-4D-Equivalence covers some interesting aspects of the discussion between 3-Dimensionalists and 4-Dimensionalists, but is not able to grasp fully the ontological intuitions of both positions. At the end of the day, it seems necessary to refute the thesis that 3-Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are eqivalent in the sense that both are completely translatable into each other.

This book explores persistence, taking human beings as an example case. It investigates how concrete particulars stay the same during their temporal carriers while changing significantly. Themes of relativity, structural realism, 4-dimensional ontologies and different strains of panpsychism are amongst those addressed in this work. Beginning with an exploration of the puzzle of persistence, early chapters look at philosophers’ perspectives and models of persistence. Competitors in the debate are introduced, from classical 3-dimensionalism to two flavors of 4-dimensionalism, namely worm theory and stage theory. The second part of the book explores the various challenges to 4-dimensionalism and develops a positive taxonomy of those questions that the reasonable proponent of 4-dimensionlism needs to answer. In the third part of the book readers may explore an ontology at the interface of analytic metaphysics and philosophy of mind, called Real Fourdimensionalism, or more specifically: Physicalistic Stage-Panexperientialism. This is a version of panexperiential stage theory and its alleged model of persistence-as-deciding answers the questions of the taxonomy. This book makes a substantial contribution to debates concerning the status, extent and viability of both stage theoretic models of persistence as well as non-reductive, naturalistic models of persistence. It will be of interest to graduates and scholars involved in analytic metaphysics, as well as the philosophy of mind, especially those specializing in questions of persistence and the ontology of the mind.

The ninth chapters argues that S-natural individuals constrain their possible developments by means of internal representation of future states of affairs and by means of phenomenologically validated decisions for certain future developments. Those constraints allow for identification of strains of developments of S-natural individuals. One is able to pick out series of those individuals by means of the relevant constraints. On the basis of those constraints S-natural individuals can be said to be present at different times. I show that this theory of PSP-as-Persistence is (formally) a version of the stage theory of persistence.

Sometimes the thesis has been put forth that the languages of 3- Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are completey translatable into each other without any loss of meaning. Prominently, this thesis has recently been defended by Jonathan Lowe and Storrs McCall. A global inter-translatability would show that there is no deeper systematic or even ontological difference between these philosophical positions despite that both are using a different vocabulary to describe the same features of reality. In this paper, I want to argue that the thesis of 3D-4D-Equivalence covers some interesting aspects of the discussion between 3-Dimensionalists and 4-Dimensionalists, but is not able to grasp fully the ontological intuitions of both positions. At the end of the day, it seems necessary to refute the thesis that 3-Dimensionalism and 4-Dimensionalism are eqivalent in the sense that both are completely translatable into each other.