The problem of temporary intrinsic: constituency theories

By Ana María Pulido Sarmiento

The problem of temporary intrinsics as named by David Lewis is the problem of the same
object exhibiting different intrinsic properties at a certain time, and intrinsic property pertain
to a thing and that thing does not need anything exterior in order to have that property e.g the
capacity of the dog to bark is an intrinsic property whereas the colour of his hair after dyeing
would be and extrinsic property. The problem is how to explain that an object as Socrates
standing at t2 and Socrates bent at t2 undergo change in is intrinsic property as straightness,
most solutions answer that change is possible in t relation to time name them perdurantist but
others think that change is possible by the thing itself name them endurantist. Before of David
Lewis this problem was simply called the problem of change and the classical response by
accidental and substantial (essential) change and the doctrine of hylomorphism, most
academics take this account as being purely definitory and non-explicative as relays in the
potentiality and actuality of the capacities (intrinsic properties), even so authors like Lowe and
Brower take advantage of this theory in order to offer a renewed responses that exhibit a
solution different from perdurantism and endurantism, theyd do so by reflecting on
constituency and this is just to say that an object perdures and changes in virtue of being part
of longer objects. Brower and Lowe share the same intuition of constituency although
differently. The interesting part about this concept and it’s strong relation with Aristotle theory
is that answers to two different intuitions when an object change like e.g Socrates straight at t1
and Socrates bent at2 something remains that is Socrates Brower tries to keep identity in an
endurantist perspective and in Lowe’s case in an adeverbialist one. The present will show what
benefits has the constituent solution and what problems will face, paying special attention to
Brower account.

1. Accidental and substantial change

To understand neo-aristotelian responses is important to know what Aristotle’s account on

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when the same persisting particular overcomes a change1 e.g a dog barks when he wasn’t
barking. 2) substantial change happens when something comes into existence or ceases to exist
e.g. the dog dies. The two types of change become a problem if they are not thought together,
in the first place if the accidental change occurs then seems that a real change wasn’t actually
happening because as a persisting particular the change wouldn’t affect the subject, in second
place substantial change requires that something comes out of nothing, and that seems
unconceivable, coming out of nothing would make change arbitrary, nothing would explain
spontaneous appearance of things coming and going out from existence.

In order to solve the issue of accidental change which means e.g the change that occurs when
a car collapses with other car is due by something exterior whereas the persistence of the
objects that supervenes accidental change is due to its substance it. The problem with
substantial change solves in a different way the object has an intrinsic property that does not
depend from any exterior perturbation but itself e.g when a plant grows. The perdurance instead
is based in something accidental the matter : “it can be said that early on he took the view
that what persists over time and through change, the substrate, can be identified
with matter, and that it is the form of matter which is acquired or lost”(Hawley, Stanford,
2015), to understand this might help the distinction between matter and form: what a thing is
made of and what is essential to it ow what gives its form, its characteristics, in accidental
change substance must persists, in substantial change matter must persists. When a particular
ceases to exist immediately the substance informs a new unformed matter. This co-depency of
the two ways of change and persistence is due to the fact that for Aristotle subjects as humans
are compounds between matter and form and this doctrine is called hylomorphism, a matter is
informed by a form that gives its characteristics to conform a subject if is merely essential or
to conform various subjects if is an accidental form.

2. Theories of temporary intrinsics

The problem of temporary intrinsics or problem of change, as mentioned above is related with
an object exhibiting different properties at different times, but this is also related with another

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Accidental change also underlines three categories: a change of quality when something is altered e.g when the
dog is called under rain but warm inside the house, a change of quantity e.g when the dog grows in size from a
puppy to a mature dog, and a change of place that is motion, e.g when de dogs moves to fetch the sitck.

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problem that two objects can share the same special properties and at a simple glance the same
intrinsic properties. An intrinsic property is essential to a thing an cannot change without
falling into substantial change, this properties appear to be a derivate of Aristotle’s capacities.
The problem with two objects occupying the same space and time challenges our intuition that
is also reflected by the Principle of the Identity of Indecernibles, “ which says that if an object
share all their properties, they must be one and the same thing” (Hawley, Stanford, 2015), but
could be said that given the case of a statue and a lump of bronze in a plinth as they are one at
the same at one point they do can be count as different entities the lump is older and will
survive melting they differ in properties but then instead Leibniz Law is being violated that
expresses “if objects differ in their properties, they cannot be one and the same thing”
(Stanford), which challenges again the principle of identity thus many theorists have come into
discussion here following brower are offered some mixtures between perdurantism and
enduratism in order to offer a positive reflection of constituency theories.

Perdurantism believe that objects have temporal parts and Endurantists believe that a thing
persists by being wholly present and thus undergoes change as a material object, this two
accounts are in the antipodes because for the first temporal parts are significant and thus an
element is belongs to four dimensional world and for second temporal parts don’t exist and
therefore an object only has the three dimensions physicist sustain. Both of them tend to agree
that processes and events have temporal parts. They are many versions of perdurantism and
endurantism each other author Brower distinguishes between them and its derivates:

1. Serious-tenser solutions
a. Edurantists who embrace presentism
b. Endurantist who are mere serious tensers.
2. Relativizer solutions
a. Endurantist who relativize properties, property possession, or propositions to times
b. Perdurantist (or temporal-parts theorists) who relativize objects to times.
3. Consituent solutions
a. Edurantists who identify ordinary objects with bundles of properties that successively
enter into larger bundles of which they are proper parts or constituents.
b. Endurantists who identify ordinary objects with complexes of substrata and properties
that successively enter into larger complexes of which they are proper parts or
constituents. (Brower, p.904)

For now is important to mention serious tenser solutions and relativizer solutions in a broad
sense as we will deal with the constituent solution in the next section. For each solution Brower
does offer a detail premise like argumentation. The problem of temporary intrinsics can be

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thought in non-extreme situations e.g when a dog that wasn’t barking barks, for any person this
seems perfectly possible, but we do not know how it does. A serious-tenser solution states that
given certain dog the dog who is silent at a time1 and the dog who barks at t2 is not the same
dog, because it only exists wholly in an specific moment 1a., the presentists, 1b., believe that
only present exists, thus endurantistm can allow persisting object to possess incompatible
properties at different times, this theory deals with the problem of the STR and the fact of the
transitivity of identity as well as the violation of the truth supervenes on being not knowing
what can make true A-theory statements because they are contingent. A relativizer solution
means to accept that dog at t1 and the dog at t2 is the same dog which is compatible with our
intuitions, 2a. will accept that properties as being silent or bark are relative to times which
means they are not instrinct properties simpliciter, as we experience that the change occur in
the dog not in something exterior to it. 3a. will accept that dog at t1 and dog barking at t2 are
different objects with different properties because dog has different temporal parts against this
the change will seem not occur and violates the principle of identity.

3. Lowe and Brower account on constituency

Part of the problem with the solution mentioned above is that they seem to take objects as
simple and non-complex this will require an extreme of persist through time or to cease to exist
every time a change happens. Lowe and Brower do take into account the complex substances,
and constituency as part of their arguments but they do not hold the same type of theory Lowe
does not agreed with perdurantism and endurantism either and his theory is called adverbialism
that is more related to a relativizer theory and Brower has given a constituency solution. For
their compound account and for their arguments background they fall under neo-aristotelianism
this type of theory defend hylomorphism as key to understand change and is criticized for its
complexity as may not be a good answers to Lewis statement that intrinsic properties are
simpliciter. Lowe as Aristotle doesn’t worry for non-composite substances although he thinks
anything can be reducible to simple parts as Democritus’ atoms, but to be fully compromise
with the simple objects will be denying the existence of ordinary objects as humans that are
instead composed individuals, what it means is that the way the substance is arranged or
rearranged is the way in which they come into or cease to exist. In the same line Brower also
chooses composite over simple objects for him the problem of temporary intrinsic always
misses two intuitions; when the dog is silent at t1 and barks at t2 the dog still being the same

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object and does not so complex objects would explain that type of change without risking
missing out any intuition. It means neo-Aristotelianism has a compromise with mereology.

For Brower ordinary objects persist through change by successively entering into larger wholes
of which they and their temporary intrinsics are proper part or constituents, and the larger
wholes have the relevant intrinsic properties simpliciter. Thus if Socrates is bent at t1 and
Socrates is straight at t2 a larger object Socrates endures by being part of two different objects.
“Neo-Aristotelian theories hold that enduring objects are constituents of mereologically greater
yet momentary hylomorphic compounds: an enduring object is part of a qualitatively greater
but temporally lesser entity” (Giberman, p.949,2016) by hylomorphic compound is understood
an union between matter and form, as said before matter is informed by form, but that “stuff”
mater has to be arrange in a way that is able to possess the complex organizational property of
the form, hylomorphic compounds only possess properties by being part (constituency) of a
substance that is qualitative greater because it possess the properties simpliciter. The change
of Socrates being straight at t1 and bent ant t2 and also cases of a statue and the lump of bronze
occupying the same place at the same time, is explained by matter sharing but is the
hylomorphic compound that inherits that other thing properties in the sense of coming to be
characterized by them, the statue was accidentally informed by the properties of the matter of
the lump of bronze therefore they are numerically the same but essentially different, this is
called accidental sameness.

But to say that Socrates at t1 and Socrates at t2 are essentially different is to say they don’t
have the same instrinct properties, even if a larger object exhibits the simpliciter property they
this does seem relational and not monadic, and this is natural because they are two distinct
object at those moments in time. Also, the compounds become so complex that does not seem
necessary to even hold them in a theory, the generation or destruction of new hylomorphic
compounds by a numerical sense is hard to track how many times a new compound is generated
each time given the conditions the form informs the new matter.

In Brower case constituency depends on being constituent of larger objects that expresses the
property simpliciter and for that reason they are different objects that have numerical sameness
in Lowe’s Case constituency is being a part of an object but the objects are non-identical in the
sense that are distinct in every sense, their properties don’t coincide they have different
histories, in the case of the lump of bronze and the statute, the lump of bronze existed before

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and the statue could have been built from a different material, this properties are called
persistence-conditions and are non-visible properties that make an object able to persist at
different times. As Brower, Lowe thinks that “Constitution only ever obtains between
persisting objects which are composite objects” (Lowe, p.157,2003) and this constitution is an
asymmetrical relation; in the case of the lump of bronze and the statue in which the statue is
not a component of the lump of bronze, “namely because a part of the statue such as its head
has different persistence-conditions from those of the part of the lamp of bronze” (Lowe,
p.157,2003). An object persist change by inheritance of the persistent conditions of the kind of
the object is an instance of thus inherited them derivatively and this does not seem to represent
a problem for Lowe, rather to dissolve the problem and he does so by without using
hylomorphism in the contrary to Brower he does not thing that matter and form are the
components of the substance but only definitory concepts he rather deals exclusively with
categories, the fact that a particular substance as Socrates belongs to a substance kind like
humanity and that are the same time belongs to an accidental bentness at a certain time and that
he shares bentness as a certain kind, shows that he is thinking in a four category solution. Every
change in this view is an instantiation of a kind.

Conclusion

With Lowe requires further research to understand all implications that a view that takes
constitution as an explicative concept has. It is necessary some further reflection in the
simplicity of an object and to think it along with perspectives that don’t fully deal with
categories, otherwise to accept that there is not puzzle about intrinsic properties changing. In
the case of Brower having a temporal part can be also add an entity without necessity and
change can be explained by belonging and stop to compose a wider part and still the physical
object at a time will remain wholly present, his arguments against presentism show a possible
relation with eternalism that is the more plausible theory of time although some eternalists
also use temporal parts to explain change, a complex theory of spaciotemporal objects will
exhibit the problem of vagueness as many objects could come or cease to exist in Brewer
theory. The importance of aristotelian arguments of change for cotemporary metaphysics is not
conclusive but can constitute a guide towards new solutions as the one who dissolves the
problem or the one that sustain that is possible to hold two different intuitions of change.

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 References

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E. J. Lowe (2003) Substantial Change and Spatiotemporal Coincidence, Ratio, 2: 140-160.

Giberman, Daniel.(2015) Bent, Not Broken: Why Exemplification Simpliciter Remains a

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Jonathan Barnes (2000) chapter 11 of Aristotle, Oxford University Press.

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