David Lewis (*On the Plurality of Worlds* -(Lewis, David, 1986)) names the problem of temporary intrinsics; a simple case makes it vivid: a banana is green at t1 and yellow at t2, and the banana cannot be both green and yellow simpliciter (in the unqualified, unrelativized sense), since those properties are incompatible. Some way of relativizing the predication is needed, and the analysis one chooses for it is largely determinative of one's metaphysics of persistence and change.

The problem is sharp because the available solutions all carry costs. Presentism (only the present is real) avoids the contradiction by holding that the banana is yellow simpliciter at t2 (t2 is the present) and there is no greenness for the contradiction to obtain with. But presentism faces difficulties about cross-time relations and historical truth. Four-dimensionalism (perdurance) holds that the banana is a four-dimensional object with temporal parts; the t1-stage is green, the t2-stage is yellow, and there is no contradiction because the green and yellow are properties of distinct stages. But four-dimensionalism faces the standard objection (Lewis himself raises it) that ordinary objects do not seem to have temporal parts in the way they have spatial parts. The relational-properties account holds that 'green at t1' and 'yellow at t2' are time-relativized properties that the banana has wholly and simpliciter; the contradiction is dissolved because the properties have time-indices built in. But the relational-properties account makes intrinsic properties relational, which Lewis argues is to misdescribe what 'intrinsic' means.

The target of the present reply is the structural claim that the temporary-intrinsics analysis, in any of its three forms, undermines the account of [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>). The argument the objector might run: change, on every available analysis, turns out to be either the difference of intrinsic properties at different times (presentism, with cross-time relations as a separate problem), or the difference of intrinsic properties of different temporal parts (perdurance), or the relational property of the same object at different times (relationalism). On none of these analyses is change a single thing standing in different conditions across time, the picture [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names. So the present account is, at best, a description of one of these analyses, and likely a description of none of them.

The reply is that the present account is consistent with all three analyses of temporary intrinsics, and indeed is the structural fact each of them is an analysis of. The structural conditions [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names, Time (T), Space (S), and Substance (Φ), generating the structural features of ordering, distinctness, and persistence, are at a level above the metaphysics of how persistence is realized; they are conditions any analysis of persistence must satisfy. Each of the three analyses satisfies them in a distinct way. The dispute among the three is internal to the metaphysics of persistence; the present account is what the disputes are disputes about.

Three forms of the move develop the position at three depths: the presentist form, the perdurantist form, and the relationalist form. Each is consistent with the present account.

*First.* Presentism (Prior, Bigelow, Markosian) holds that only the present is real. The banana is yellow simpliciter at the present moment t2; the banana was green at the past moment t1, but that past moment is not now real, only its having-been-real is now real. Tensed truths are taken as primitive: 'the banana was green' is true now, but its truth-maker is not a present-tense fact about a past entity but a primitive past-tense fact.

Presentism is consistent with the present account at each present moment. The banana at t2 is distinct from the seed it grew from and from the compost it will become (S). Presentism cannot straightforwardly relate the present banana to presently nonexistent past and future stages. It instead invokes primitive tensed facts, ersatz times, or another truthmaking account. Those resources may realize the ordering role, and the reply assumes no literal relations to non-real relata. The banana persists across changes (the banana that is now yellow is the same banana that was green) and the persistence is the structural fact that the cross-time identity obtains, however the metaphysics of cross-time relations is specified (Φ). Presentism's specific contribution to the metaphysics of temporary intrinsics is to hold that the cross-time relations are tensed primitives rather than relations to wholly-real past or future entities.

*Second.* Four-dimensionalism (Lewis, Sider, Heller, Hudson) holds that the banana is a four-dimensional object with temporal parts. The t1-stage of the banana is green; the t2-stage of the banana is yellow; the four-dimensional banana itself, the whole, is partly-green-and-partly-yellow in the way a striped flag is partly-red-and-partly-white. There is no contradiction because the green and yellow are properties of distinct temporal parts.

Four-dimensionalism is structurally a maximally clean specification of T ∧ S ∧ Φ. The temporal parts are distinct (S). They stand in temporal relations of earlier and later (T). The four-dimensional whole does not endure from one time to another; it has temporal parts at different times. Its perdurance and the relations unifying those parts offer one realization of the Φ-role, but calling the timelessly extended whole persistence in the strongest sense would beg the question against endurantism. The four-dimensionalist has not eliminated persistence; they have given the most explicit possible analysis of it.

*Third.* Relationalism (Mellor, Lowe in some moods, Wasserman) holds that 'green' and 'yellow' are not strictly intrinsic but covert relations to times: 'the banana is green-at-t1 and yellow-at-t2.' The contradiction is dissolved because 'green-at-t1' and 'yellow-at-t2' are compatible properties; the banana has them both wholly and simpliciter, in the way it has the property of being-three-feet-from-the-window and the property of being-five-feet-from-the-door wholly and simpliciter without contradiction.

Relationalism is consistent with the present account. The relations to times require times for the relations to be relations to (T). The relations distinguish the banana's condition at t1 from its condition at t2 (S in the relational structure). The persistence of the banana (the same banana having both relations) is the structural fact that one entity stands in both (Φ). The relationalist's specific cost (making intrinsic properties relational) is a cost internal to the metaphysics of properties, not a cost to the structural account.

A kindred move is the adverbialist account (van Inwagen, in "Four-Dimensional Objects"): the banana is green at t1 in the sense of being t1-ly green, where 'green' is modified adverbially by the time. The adverbialist hopes to keep intrinsic properties intrinsic by relocating the time-relativization from the property to the manner of having the property. The reply is that the structural conditions are satisfied either way: the manner of having the property at t1 is distinct from the manner of having the property at t2 (S in the manners), the manners stand in temporal relations (T), and the entity persists across the manners (Φ).

Another kindred is the soft-presentist combination (Crisp, Markosian's later work): only the present is real, and tensed truths are primitive, but the structural fact that the world has been and will be in determinate ways is itself a primitive feature of present reality. The reply is that the structural facts the soft-presentist takes as primitive are the structural facts [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) names, taken as primitive. The present account is consistent with primitivism about the structural facts.

*What converges.* Three forms and each instantiates the structural conditions of [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) at a level the account operates above. Presentism instantiates them at each present moment with cross-time relations specified by tensed-fact primitivism. Four-dimensionalism instantiates them in the timelessly-extant four-dimensional manifold. Relationalism instantiates them in the relational structure of properties indexed to times. Across the three forms, the temporary-intrinsics problem is a problem about the metaphysics of persistence, and the present account is what the metaphysics is the metaphysics of. The level-above placement is a deliberate trade, worth stating in Lewis's own cost-benefit idiom. What it buys: neutrality, the structural conditions are secured without adjudicating the persistence dispute, and what all three rivals share is made explicit rather than left implicit. What it costs: discriminating power, the account does not, and does not try to, settle which of presentism, perdurance, or relationalism is correct, and it commits to structural facts of ordering, distinctness, and persistence whose own individuation is specified at [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) rather than here. For the present argument the purchase is the right one: the thesis of [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>) needs only what every analysis of persistence must satisfy, so buying neutrality at the price of adjudication costs the argument nothing it required and secures exactly what it did.

Sibling counter-constructions: the changeless-ground objection, on which a timeless being grounds the structure from outside, is [§4.2.1](<4.2.1 The Changeless Ground.md>). The B-theoretic block, on which the four-dimensional manifold is a static reality, is [§4.2.6](<4.2.6 Block Universe.md>). The momentariness objection, on which persistence is illusory, is [§4.2.8](<4.2.8 Stage Theory.md>). The McTaggart-unreality objection is [§4.2.5](<4.2.5 The Unreality of Time.md>).

What the temporary-intrinsics literature genuinely establishes is worth preserving: ordinary change is harder to analyze than the pre-analytic vocabulary suggests. The banana that ripens is not in the simplest possible relation to its earlier self; the relation requires either a metaphysics of temporal parts, or a metaphysics of relational properties, or a metaphysics of tensed primitives, or some other specification of how cross-time identity is sustained. The present account does not adjudicate among these. It makes a weaker claim: whatever specification of cross-time identity is correct, the cross-time identity itself is a structural fact of the kind Φ names. The banana that ripens is analyzed differently across the views: as one enduring object, as a four-dimensional whole with differently qualified parts, or as appropriately related stages. What survives neutrally is an ordered continuity structure, not strict numerical identity on every account. The present account is the level at which the same is sameness regardless of which specification is correct.

Lewis introduced the temporary-intrinsics problem in 1986, in the brief passage on endurance and perdurance in *On the Plurality of Worlds* (pp. 202–204) that has occupied subsequent metaphysics for decades. Lewis's own resolution was perdurance, but the problem outlived his answer; presentism, perdurance, and relationalism remain the three dominant analyses, and the dispute among them is one of the central debates of contemporary metaphysics of persistence. The banana ripens, on the present reading, by being one banana standing in successive conditions across an ordering of times, with the metaphysics of how the standing-across is realized to be specified separately. The standing-across is the structural fact. The metaphysics of its specification is the topic of the dispute. The former is named by [§2.6](<2.6 Triconditionality of Nature.md>); the philosophy of persistence elaborates the latter.


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← [4.2.6 Block Universe](<4.2.6 Block Universe.md>) | [4.2.8 Stage Theory](<4.2.8 Stage Theory.md>) →
