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In the philosophy of time, four dimensionalism is a term sometimes used to refer to the view that the past, present and future are all equally real, and that (tenselessly) there exist dinosaurs, people and (if there will be such things) cities on Mars. These things don't exist now but they do exist, with the analogy often being that, if I am in London, New York doesn't exist here even though it does exist. It is to be contrasted with presentism. 'Four dimensionalism' is also sometimes used to refer to this view plus the B-Theory of time.
But sometimes the term is instead used to refer to the view that objects persist by having temporal parts.
[edit] External links
- Brown, C.L., 2006, "What is Space?" A philosophical, largely Wittgensteinian, approach towards a dissolution of the question: "What is space?"
- Rea, M. C., "Four Dimensionalism" in The Oxford Handbook for Metaphysics. Oxford Univ. Press. Describes presentism and four dimensionalism.
