and Persistence

This paper aims at bringing together two debates in metaphysics that so far have been .kept separate: the debate about determinism vs. indeterminism as de re modality on the one hand, and the debate about persistence on the other hand. Both debates significantly involve talk of things. We will show that working out a proper semantics for singular terms and an accompanying theory of things, motivated by considerations of quantified modal logic, can significantly further the persistence debate. We will use our semantic framework to give an argument in support of the endurantist (3-dimens.ionalist) position as the best theory of persistence.