endurantism

Endurantism is a position in the metaphysics of persistence that addresses how objects continue to exist through time. The central claim is that objects persist by being wholly present at every moment of their existence. An enduring object, such as a statue, remains the same object from one time to another without having its being divided into temporal parts.

According to endurantism, change in an object’s properties over time does not require the object to acquire new temporal parts. Instead, an object’s properties can vary across different times while the object itself remains numerically identical. This view treats persistence as a matter of continued, full presence rather than as a succession of distinct stages.

Endurantism is commonly contrasted with perdurantism (four-dimensionalism). Perdurantists hold that objects are extended in time and are composed of temporal parts or stages; identity is determined by the whole of these parts. Both theories aim to explain how objects persist, how they change, and how they relate across time, but they offer different ontologies about temporal features.

The view faces several philosophical challenges. The problem of temporary intrinsics asks how an object can have different intrinsic properties at different times while remaining the same object. Critics also point to intuitions about growth or dissolution that some see as better handled by temporal parts. Proponents respond by invoking time-relative properties or by arguing that intrinsic properties can be time-indexed without sacrificing the core idea of full, time-spanning persistence.

See also: four-dimensionalism, three-dimensionalism, temporal parts, persistence.