Description
Book SynopsisSince antiquity, philosophers have investigated how change works. If a thing moves from one state to another, when exactly does it start to be in its new state, and when does it cease to be in its former one? In the late Middle Ages, the "problem of the instant of change” was subject to considerable debate and gave rise to sophisticated theories; it became popular and controversial again in the second half of the twentieth century. The studies collected here constitute the first attempt at tackling the different aspects of an issue that, until now, have been the object of seminal but isolated forays. They do so in through a historical perspective, offering both the medieval and the contemporary viewpoints. Contributors are Damiano Costa, Graziana Ciola, William O. Duba, Simo Knuuttila, Greg Littmann, Can Laurens Löwe, Graham Priest, Magali Roques, Niko Strobach, Edith Dudley Sylla, Cecilia Trifogli and Gustavo Fernández Walker.
Table of ContentsIntroduction Frédéric Goubier and Magali Roques Indivisible Temporal Boundaries from Aristophanes until Today Niko Strobach Change and Contradiction in Henry of Ghent Simo Knuuttila The Blessed Virgin and the Two Time-Series: Hervaeus Natalis and Durand of St. Pourçain on Limit Decision Can Laurens Löwe Quasi-Aristotelians and Proto-Scotists William O. Duba Walter Burley on the Incipit and Desinit of an Instant of Time Cecilia Trifogli Mathematics and Physics of First and Last Instants: Walter Burley and William of Ockham Edith Dudley Sylla William of Ockham on the Instant of Change Magali Roques Nicholas of Autrecourt’s Quaestio de intensione visionis Revisited: The scola Oxoniensis and Parisian Masters on Limit Decision Problems Gustavo Fernández Walker Marsilius of Inghen on incipit and desinit in Consequentiae II, Chapters 4-5 With an Edition of the Text Graziana Ciola The Limit Decision Problem and Four-Dimensionalism Damiano Costa Contradiction and the Instant of Change Revisited Graham Priest Contradictory Change Greg Littmann Index
