89:3 July 2006
Coming Into Being and Passing Away 

Advisory Editor: David Hershenov, University at Buffalo

Philosophers investigating the processes of coming to be and passing away soon find themselves entangled in a number of semantic, logical, and ontological puzzles that are familiar from other contexts. These problems then appear even less tractable when the topic is existence than when other, more mundane predicates are involved. Thus processes of change in persisting substance lend themselves more readily to explanation than do those changes that result in substances themselves coming into or going out of existence. And likewise for vagueness. Even those theorists convinced that existence is a property and that there is vagueness in the world find assertions to the effect that an individual exists indeterminately, or exists only to some degree, far more counterintuitive than claims, for example, to the effect that it is vague whether or not someone is rich. Despite all the problems of indeterminate existence, it is also philosophically disconcerting to posit a first, perhaps unknowable, determinate moment at which something has come to exist or ceases to exist. Problems arise, too, when it comes to the issue of how we can succeed in referring to what does not exist at times prior to or posterior to its existence. Some philosophers believe that the solution is to allow into our ontology real individuals which do not determinately have the property of existence. Others admit into their ontology possible but nonexistent individuals which may acquire the property of existence.

Contributions are invited on these and related topics. Discussions of historical treatments and of biomedical and other applications are welcome. The primary focus should however be in each case on the solution of the problems themselves.

Table of Contents:

E. J. Lowe

How Real is Substantial Change?

Antony Galton

On the Process of Coming into Existence

Lynne Rudder Baker

Everyday Concepts as a Guide to Reality

S. Matthew Liao

The Organism View Defended

Rose Koch

Conjoined Twins and the Biological Account of Personal Identity

Christopher Belshaw

My Beginnings

Eric T. Olson

The Paradox of Increase

Allan Hazlett

Disassembly and Destruction