This paper discusses a philosophical answer about the question “in relativistic cosmology, is space really expanding?” In general cosmology which is called a big-bang theory, cosmological space is said to have been expanding like a balloon gradually pumped up since a big-bang, which is shown by a co-moving coordinate of which the scale gets bigger as a proper time of observers in the earth passes. In this paper, I would like to interpret this phenomenon from a structural spacetime realism's viewpoint in which spacetime is real as different whole structures for different coordinates you arbitrarily choose depending only on a metric/gravitational field. Through my remark, I get a new conclusion of what spacetime really means,thus the role of specetime in contemporary physics.

Four-dimensionalism and three-dimensionalism are two rival theories of persistence. They give contrasting pictures of persistence of material objects, but it is still under dispute what is the proper formulation of their difference. In this paper, I aim to propose a new formulation of it, in light of which each theory can be properly understood. To this end, first I set three theoretical desiderata for a desirable formulation of the difference between two theories. Next, I consider three representative formulations, which I call respectively, ‘the temporal part formulation,’ ‘the temporal instantiation formulation,’ and ‘the spatiotemporal location formulation.’ I argue that they fail to meet the desiderata in some way or other. The temporal part formulation fails to meet all of three. The temporal instantiation formulation, properly understood, captures important aspects of the distinction, but fails to meet at least one desideratum. The spatiotemporal location formulation fares the best among the three formulations, but still has some deficiencies. Third, I argue that an appropriate combination of the temporal instantiation formulation and the spatiotemporal location formulation is even better and meets all the desiderata. Finally, I draw some implications from the previous discussion for the incompatibility of four-dimensionalism and presentism.

This paper argues for the event view of the story. According to the event view, stories are the specific type of complex events. Another competitor is the content view, according to which stories are abstract contents. First, I explain the event view is an attractive option for narrative approach in philosophy. Narrative approach regards lives as narratives. We can understand this, considering lives as the same type events as stories. Next, I argue that the event view can explain the identity of stories. The same story could be retold in different media with different details. The content view has trouble explaining that. Finally, in the case of fictional narratives, retelling of stories is amounts to trans-work transposition of fictional entities. This position is quite simple and respects much intution.

The concept of mental illness has been challenged by various parties and with various background concerns. In this paper, I will discuss how mental illness is defined, as far as it is considered as a title to special treatment. The essentialism about mental illness insists that mental illness is distinguished from other harmful human conditions by some scientific criteria. Three essentialistic theories―physical lesion, biological disadvantage,and evolutionary dysfunction theories―are reviewed, and it is shown that they all fail to appropriately distinguish illness from normality. I will alternatively defend the anti-essentialism about mental illness,which characterize mental illness as harmful human conditions that are best treated by psychiatric professionals.