ABSTRACT
In Chapter Three, we said that concrete particulars are entities with temporallybounded careers. They come into existence at a time; they pass out of existenceat some later time; and they exist at all the times in between. Concrete particulars, then, are things that persist through time. I existed yesterday when I was putting the finishing touches to Chapter Five, and I exist today as I begin Chapter Six. The Loux of today is the same person as the Loux of yesterday. Claims of this sort, claims in which we assert that an individual existing at one time is the same object as an individual existing at some other time, are called claims of diachronic sameness. Such claims are commonplace, and the assumption that they are often true underlies some of our most fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. Each of us views himself or herself as a conscious being with an experience of the world. But unless we believed that we are beings who persist through time, we could make little sense of the notion of experience; and unless we believed that the things around us likewise persist through time, we could make little sense of the idea that our experience is the experience of a world.
