Abstract
The following statement is characteristic of the application of the either-wayoption to describe the moment of change:
It is correct to say that the old as well as the new state obtains at the limiting instant, although only in a certain sense, so that no contradiction results.
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Notes
Roderick Chisholm: Beginnings and Endings, in: Peter van Inwagen (ed.): Time and Cause, Dordrecht 1980, pp.17–25.
Brian Medlin: The Origin of Motion, in: Mind, April 1963, pp.155–175.
Franz Brentano: Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum, ed. by Stephan Körner and Roderick Chisholm, Hamburg 1976. Chisholm refers to a short, undated manuscript from the bequest entitled ‘Megethologie [Nr.] 15’ and to pp.50–52 of an unpublished manuscript (M96) from Brentano’s ‘Würzburger Metaphysik-Kolleg’.
Chisholm: Beginnings..., p. 17.
Ibid.,p.l8.
Ibid., p. 19.
Cf.ch. 1,2.3. §1 and Phys. 263b9f.
Cf. ibid.
Chisholm: Beginnings..., pp.l8f.
Ibid.
Ibid.,p.l9.
Chisholm: Beginnings..., p. 19.
Cf. ch. 1,1.3.4.2.
Chisholm: Beginnings..., p. 19: “One may ask: ‘If the thing both begins to move and also ceases to rest at t, then is it in motion at t or is it at rest at t?’ [...] We find the answer to these questions if we say what it is for a thing to move at instant t.”
Ibid., pp.l9f.
Ibid.,p.l8.
Ibid., pp.l8f.
Cf. ch. I, 2.1. §3.
The ‘either...or’ is meant as an inclusive disjunction here. Otherwise one would exclude that a has ever been in motion at any instants which are not limiting instants. An inclusive use of ‘either...or’ appears in Medlin, too. I may remark that if one learns English as a foreign language at school, one will usually learn that ‘either...or’ is exclusive. The international communication of scientists might be facilitated if some convention — in analogy to ‘iff’ and‘if’ — was accepted, consisting in, say, using ‘or’ for the inclusive disjunction and ‘orr’ for the exclusive disjunction.
Chisholm: Beginnings..., p.20.
Ibid., pp.21ff.
Ibid., p.22.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp.22f.
Ibid., p.23:“And so if t is the first moment of the thing’s existence and the last moment of its nonexistence, then the thing exists at t. And if t is the last moment of the thing’s existence and the first moment of its nonexistence, then the thing also exists at t.” (sic!)
Ibid., p.23.
Ibid.: “...the moments at which he was not alive [after he once had been so...] are of two different kinds: [...] the moments such that Socrates failed to exist up to those moments and also failed to exist from those moments on; [...] a moment such that Socrates existed from a certain time up to that moment but did not exist from that moment on.”
This is, of course, based on Quine’s famous doctrine of indeterminacy of translation as stated in ch.2 of ‘Word and Object’ and, even more readably, in his article ‘Ontological Relativity’.
Brian Medlin: The Origin of Motion, Mind, April 1963, pp.155–175.
Cf. e.g. Medlin, p.165.
Ibid., p.155: “The paradox appears to be quite general. It concerns not only motion but every thing or property that begins or ceases to exist. Here I have found that my remarks are not quite so easily extended. For this reason the task of extending them is left entirely to the reader.”
Ibid., p.174.
Ibid.
Medlin, pp.165f. Medlin formulates his definitions using the specific example of a body at 12:00.
This ‘either..or’ is inclusive again.
I am afraid Medlin does not even notice that his definition of ‘motion 2 ’ (p.165) is equivalent with his ‘motion [at an instant]’ (pp.169f.) (at least, he does not mention this important feature). There can be no doubt that it is in fact equivalent. The definition of motion at an instant Medlin gives is: “Either the body was moving throughout a period beginning at 12:00 or the body was moving throughout a period ending at 12:00.”, while he explicitly asserts that the ‘either...or’ is meant as a ‘non-exclusive disjunction’(p.170).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp.163f. Medlin says he wants to give a ‘more fundamental explanation’ for this in part III of his article. I have been unable to find it.
Ibid., p.162 (footnote): “I mean by ‘implies’ something like ‘strongly suggests’ rather than ‘ entails’ .”
Ibid., p.170: ”...‘The body was both in motion and at rest at 12:00’ is not a contradiction.”
Ibid., p.172.
In this case, in (1) and (2) ‘motion’ and ‘rest’ would mean ‘motion2’ and ‘rest2’, but in (1 +) and (2+) ‘motion1’ and ‘rest1’.
Ibid., p.171.
Ibid., p.172.
Ibid., pp.171f.
Ibid., p.171: “The propositions (1) and (1+) differ in that while (1) is the propositional negation of (1), (1 +) like (2) is merely the predicate negation.”
The same is true for existence claims involving uniquely identifying descriptions. This can be seen by, plausibly, identifying the primary negation of Russell’s ‘On Denoting’ with predicate negation for this case and his secondary negation with propositional negation. Russell’s analysis of the proposition expressed by this statement can be rendered as follows, in the usual notation of predicate logic and with ‘KoF’ standing for ‘is King of France in 1905’ and ‘B’ for ‘is bald’:
For example the proposition (if it is one) that it is not the case that the Golden Gate Bridge is friendly might fail to imply the proposition that it is unfriendly. Remember in this context the non-prefix as applied in ch. I,1.
Ibid., pp.171f.
Sorabji: Time..., p.408.
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Strobach, N. (1998). The Either-Way-Option. In: The Moment of Change. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9127-0_7
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