What is a Continuant?

Helen Steward (Leeds)

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the question what a continuant is, in the context of a very interesting suggestion recently made by Rowland Stout, as part of his attempt to develop a coherent ontology of processes. Stout claims that a continuant is best thought of as something that primarily has its properties at a time, rather than atemporally – and that on this construal, processes should count as continuants. While accepting that Stout is onto something here, I reject his suggestion that we should accept that processes are both occurrents *and* continuants; nothing, I argue, can truly occur or happen (unless it is instantaneous), which does not have temporal parts. I make an alternative suggestion as to how one might deal with the peculiar status of processes without jettisoning a very natural account of occurrence; and assess the consequences for the category of continuant.

Biography

Helen Steward is Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Action at the University of Leeds. She joined Leeds in 2007, having previously been a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford for many years. Her areas of research include the free will debate; the metaphysics of causation and action; and the philosophical understanding of animals. She is the author of The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes and States (1997) and A Metaphysics for Freedom (2012).

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