Philosophy Forum Hosts Dr. Achille Varzi from Columbia University

Dr. Achille Varzi addressed the Philosophy Forum on “Surviving Change: The Problem of Change and Identity through Time.” Dr. Varzi introduced the audience to one of the oldest questions in philosophy: how can things change through time yet remain the same? How, for instance, can I be so different from the form I took 10 years ago, yet still be the same person? Dr. Varzi discussed the possibility that the problem can be dissolved by reconsidering the nature of objects. Instead of thinking of things as having only three spatial dimension—height, width, and depth—we can instead conceive of things as having a fourth temporal dimension—what we might call temporal extension. Reconceiving things as four dimensional seems to show that it is quite simple how one object can change through time. Dr. Varzi is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and is a beloved instructor of a number of current and former USMA faculty. The talk was well attended and the discussion that followed was very lively.