Recently, some have attempted to reformulate debates in first-order metaphysics, particularly in the metaphysics of time and modality, for reasons due to Williamson. In this paper, we focus on the ways in which the likes of Cameron, Correia and Rosenkranz, Deasy, Ingram, Tallant, Viebahn, inter alia, have initiated and responded to attempts to capture the core of presentism using a formal, logical machinery. We argue that such attempts are doomed to fail because there is no theoretical core to presentism. There (...) is no single view or family of views that is presentism. (shrink)

In this paper we propose and defend the _Synonymy account_, a novel account of metaphysical equivalence which draws on the idea (Rayo in _The Construction of Logical Space_, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) that part of what it is to formulate a theory is to lay down a theoretical hypothesis concerning logical space. Roughly, two theories are synonymous—and so, in our view, equivalent—just in case (i) they take the same propositions to stand in the same entailment relations, and (ii) they (...) are committed to the truth of the same propositions. Furthermore, we put our proposal to work by showing that it affords a better and more nuanced understanding of the debate between Quineans and noneists. Finally we show how the _Synonymy account_ fares better than some of its competitors, specifically, McSweeney’s (Philosophical Perspectives 30(1):270–293, 2016) epistemic account and Miller’s (Philosophical Quarterly 67(269):772–793, 2017) hyperintensional account. (shrink)