We examine moving spotlight theories of time: theories according to which there are past and future events and an objective present moment. In Section 1, we briefly discuss the origins of the view. In Section 2, we describe the traditional moving spotlight view, which we understand as an ‘enriched’ B-theory of time, and raise some problems for that view. In the next two sections, we describe versions of the moving spotlight view that we think are better and which solve those (...) problems. In Section 3, we describe a version of the view that combines permanentism – the thesis that all things always exist – with propositional temporalism, the thesis that some propositions are sometimes true and sometimes false. In Section 4, we discuss a version of the view that is like an ‘enriched’ presentism. We conclude with some brief thoughts on issues that remain outstanding. (shrink)

As a main challenge to the growing block theory (GBT), the epistemic objection is intended to show that GBT is untenable because it leads to the ignorance of the objective present. What is worse, extant solutions to this objection, the dead past view (DPV) and strong tense views (STV), are unsatisfactory on the ground that their semantic explanations of tensed statements undermine the purported semantic unity of GBT and thus make GBT collapse into a version of presentism. In contrast to (...) extant solutions, I recommend growing blockists to adopt a new “biting the bullet” solution: They should accept the ignorance of the absolute present for the dual purpose of retaining GBT’s semantic unity and theoretical independence. Moreover, I argue that ignorance is not a big loss for growing blockists: Although they lose the so-called “Moorean common advantage” over B-theorists and include some “deeply mysterious” and epistemically inaccessible fundamental posit in their ontology, growing blockists thereby protect the semantic unity of their theory and most of ordinary knowledge about B-relations between moments of time and their temporal locations. Theory choice, in essence, is a matter of balancing benefits and costs. I believe that versions of GBT which accept the ignorance of the objective present are indeed tenable intermediate positions in the philosophical debate about the nature of time, and they deserve serious considerations of B-theorists. (shrink)

According to First-Person Realism, one's own first-person perspective on the world is metaphysically privileged in some way. After clarifying First-Person Realism by reference to parallel debates in the metaphysics of modality and time, I survey eight different arguments in favor of First-Person Realism.

Very roughly, the epistemic objection to the growing block theory (GBT) says that according to that theory there are many past times at which persons falsely believe they are present. Since there is nothing subjectively distinguishable about a situation in which one truly believes one is present, from a situation in which one falsely believes one is present, the GBT is a theory on which we cannot know that we are present. In their articulation and defence of the GBT, Correia (...) and Rosenkranz (C&R) argue that the epistemic objection fails miserably. In what follows I try to unpack their response to the objection, and locate it amongst others. Along the way I flag some confusions I have about how we are to think about the GBT as articulated by C&R. (shrink)

Lange’s collection of expanded, mostly previously published essays, packed with numerous, beautiful examples of putatively non-causal explanations from biology, physics, and mathematics, challenges the increasingly ossified causal consensus about scientific explanation, and, in so doing, launches a new field of philosophic investigation. However, those who embraced causal monism about explanation have done so because appeal to causal factors sorts good from bad scientific explanations and because the explanatory force of good explanations seems to derive from revealing the relevant causal (or (...) ontic) structures. The taxonomic project of collecting examples and sorting their types is an essential starting place for a theory of non-causal explanation. But the title of Lange’s book requires something further: showing that the putative explanations are, in fact, explanatory and revealing the non-causal source of their explanatory power. This project is incomplete if there are examples of putative non-causal explanations that fit the form but that nobody would accept as explanatory (absent a radical revision of intuitions). Here we provide some reasons for thinking that there are such examples. (shrink)

The hyper-Russellian skeptic is someone who thinks that only one of all your experiences was, is, and will ever be conscious. Which one? The very one you are having now. Before you were always a zombie, and you will be a zombie for ever after. In the present literature on the metaphysics of passage of time, there is disagreement on whether our feeling that time passes — the “dynamic flavor” of our ordinary experience — provides support to the A-theory, that (...) is, the thesis that the passage of time is an objective feature of reality. Lately, several philosophers have argued against this idea. In this paper I want to push this line of reasoning further by exploiting the hyper-Russellian scenario against the A-theory of time. (shrink)

Propositional temporalism is the view that there are temporary propositions: propositions that are true, but not always true. Factual futurism is the view that there are futurist facts: facts that obtain, but that will at some point not obtain. Most A-theoretic views in the philosophy of time are committed both to propositional temporalism and to factual futurism. Mark Richard, Jeffrey King and others have argued that temporary propositions are not fit to be the contents of propositional attitudes, or to be (...) the semantic values of natural language utterances. But these discussions have overlooked another role that the A-theorist’s posits struggle to play: the role of facts in explaining other facts. Focusing on the case of action explanation by reasons, this paper presents the challenge that explanation poses for factual futurism. It then brings that challenge to bear against propositional temporalism and the A-theory more generally. My argument saddles the factual futurist with surprising commitments concerning reasons, facts and explanation. The futurist might accept those commitments and pay the price. The alternative – which I prefer – is to reject factual futurism, and with it the A-theory. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that non-presentist A-theories problematically imply that we cannot know that this moment is present. The problem is usually presented as arising from the combination of the A-theoretic ideology of a privileged presentness and a non-presentist ontology. The goal of this essay is to show that the epistemic problem can be rephrased as a pessimistic induction. By doing so, I will show that the epistemic problem, in fact, stems from the A-theoretic ideology alone. Hence, once it is properly (...) presented, the epistemic problem presents a serious threat to all A-theories. (shrink)

One argument for the moving spotlight theory is that it better explains certain aspects of our temporal phenomenology than does any static theory of time. Call this the argument from passage phenomenology. In this paper it is argued that insofar as moving spotlight theorists take this to be a sound argument they ought embrace a new version of the moving spotlight theory according to which the moving spotlight is a cresting wave of causal efficacy. On this view it is more (...) than just presentness that is temporary: a range of other fundamental properties are also temporary because presentness synchronically changes the fundamental properties that are instantiated in the present moment, from those instantiated when that moment is future, or past. On this view having experiences as of presentness co-varies with the presence of presentness, allowing the moving spotlight theorist to provide a compelling explanation for why we have the temporal phenomenology we do, and to explain how we can know that we are present by reflecting on the nature of said phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new theory in temporal ontology, ‘wave theory’, and argues for its attractions over and above existing tensed theories of time.

According to the A-theory of time some instant of time is absolutely present. Many reject the A-theory on the grounds that it is inconsistent with current spacetime physics, which appears to leave no room for absolute presentness. However, some reject the A-theory on purely philosophical grounds. In this article I describe three purely philosophical arguments against the A-theory and show that there are plausible A-theoretic responses to each of them. I conclude that, whatever else is wrong with the A-theory, it (...) is not obviously a philosophically suspect theory. (shrink)

Some theories in the philosophy of time combine a commitment to the existence of non-present regions of spacetime with the view that there is a perspective-independent present time. We call such theories 4D A-theories. There is a well-known objection to 4D A-theories, as follows: 4D A-theories entail that the vast majority of subjects across time believe falsely that they are present. But if the vast majority of subjects across time believe falsely that they are present, we do not know that (...) we are present. We call this the Epistemic Objection to 4D A-theories. In this paper we do two things: first, we describe and assess a number of different versions of the Epistemic Objection. We argue that there is only one version of the objection—the version due to Russell that we call the Safety Argument—that does not rely on implausible epistemic principles which entail radical scepticism. Second, we raise objections to the main strategies adopted by 4D A-theorists in response to the Safety Argument. We conclude that the Epistemic Objection—in the form of the Safety Argument—remains a threat to 4D A-theories. (shrink)

I reply to Miller, Sider and Skow’s comments on my book The Moving Spotlight. I aim to make clearer the epistemic argument against non-presentist A-theories of time, and why I avoid it. I provide further elaboration of the moving spotlight view, and why I think there is real change in important features of things on this metaphysic. I explain further what I think is required for there to be genuine temporal passage, and why there is such a thing according to (...) the moving spotlight view. I defend my argument that endurantism is incompatible with the B-theory. (shrink)