Trenton Merricks defends endurantism by arguing that an endurantist understanding of various
expressions used to formulate the “problem” of qualitative change shows that there is no such problem.
Your goal is to explain Merricks’s argument.
A. Provide Merricks’s reductio ad absurdum argument against the possibility of qualitative change.
Be sure to explain and motivate each of the four premises of that argument. You may find it
helpful to use an example of a particular object undergoing a particular change (e.g. a banana
changing colors).
B. According to Merricks, what definite description does the endurantist associate with expressions
of the form “O at t”? How are expressions of the form “existing at t” defined? How are
expressions of the form “being F at t” defined? Does “O exists at t” imply “O exists”? Does “O
exists” imply “O exists at t”? Does “O is F at t” imply “O is F” Does “O is F” imply “O is F at t”?
C. Given your discussion in B, you now have the tools to refine the argument you presented in A in
one of two ways. Neither of these refinements, according to Merricks, is sound. Provide both of
these ways of articulating the “problem” of qualitative change, and explain why that argument is
(according to Merricks) not sound.
Sample Solution