Cosmic-Perdurantism.

Perdurantists hold that persons have temporal parts. But which of the objects is conscious—persons, their temporal parts, both? In this paper, I argue that Perdurantists have good metaphysical motivation to believe that, strictly speaking, it is the cosmos and only the cosmos that exhibits conscious...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 104; no. 2; pp. 521 - 536
Main Author: Longenecker, Michael Tze-Sung
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jun2026
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=195834757&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 195834757
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        00048402
        BHK
      jtl: Australasian Journal of Philosophy
      issn: 00048402
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Jun2026
      vid: 104
      iid: 2
      pid: 377
      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
    artinfo:
      ui:
        195834757
        10.1080/00048402.2025.2517264
      ppf: 521
      ppct: 15
      formats:
        fmt:
          – @attributes:
              type: T
          – @attributes:
              type: P
              size: 547KB
      tig:
        atl: Cosmic-Perdurantism.
      aug:
        au: Longenecker, Michael Tze-Sung
        affil: Institute of Modern Foreign Philosophy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
      su:
        Consciousness
        Metaphysics
        Microcosm & macrocosm
        Awareness
        Materialism
        Mass (Physics)
      sug:
        subj:
          Consciousness
          Metaphysics
          Microcosm & macrocosm
          Awareness
          Materialism
          Mass (Physics)
      keyword:
        Disappearing Mass
        Gunk
        Perdurantism
        Personites
        Priority Monism
        Problem of the Many
      ab: Perdurantists hold that persons have temporal parts. But which of the objects is conscious—persons, their temporal parts, both? In this paper, I argue that Perdurantists have good metaphysical motivation to believe that, strictly speaking, it is the cosmos and only the cosmos that exhibits consciousness—hence, strictly speaking, neither persons nor their temporal parts are conscious. I argue for such Cosmic-Perdurantism by arguing that only the cosmos exhibits mass, and pairing this claim with reductive physicalism about the mind.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      custom: Copyright of Australasian Journal of Philosophy is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
      item: Australasian Journal of Philosophy
      holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2026
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N