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Change and Location: A New and Old Case against Functionality

  • Florian Marion ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: February 26, 2025

Abstract

In this paper, I shall discuss the question whether a concrete object can be multi-located while it is moving or not. I shall say nothing on the vexed issue of multi-location in and for itself. Instead, my discussion will support a ‘might’-conditional claim: ‘if multi-location were possible, then change might imply multi-location’. To do this, after a very short clarification of the various meanings of ‘to be located’, I will first present and discuss Diodorus’ arguments against the reality of motion, since they focus on the question of what the location of the moving item is, and then scrutinize Hegel’s reply to Diodorus’ reasonings, insofar as his answer consists in claiming that an object in motion is in many locations at once. This paper aims to explore the various metaphysical possibilities concerning the logic of location underlying change.


Corresponding author: Florian Marion, Institut Supérieur de Philosophie/Centre De Wulf-Mansion, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du cardinal Mercier 14, bte L3.06.01, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, E-mail: 

Compliance with Ethical Standards: I would like to inform you that the research presented in this paper is free of any conflict of interest and did not involve human or animal participants.


Abbreviations

Diogène Laërce
DL De vitis, dogmatis et apophthegmatis eorum qui in philosophia claruerunt
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
A Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (ed.). 1923-?. Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, Berlin.
Locke, John
EHU An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Sextus Empiricus
AM Adversus Mathematicos
PH Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes

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Received: 2024-05-21
Accepted: 2024-09-08
Published Online: 2025-02-26
Published in Print: 2025-04-28

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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