Perdurantists think of continuants as mereological sums of stages from different times. This view of persistence would force us to drop the idea that there is genuine change in the world. By exploiting a presentist metaphysics, Brogaard proposed a theory, called presentist four-dimensionalism, that aims to reconcile perdurantism with the idea that things undergo real change. However, her proposal commits us to reject the idea that stages must exist in their entirety. Giving up the tenet that all the stages (...) are equally real could be a price that perdurantists are unwilling to pay. I argue that Kit Fine ’s fragmentalism provides us with the tools to combine a presentist metaphysics with a perdurantist theory of persistence without giving up the idea that reality is constituted by more than purely present stages. (shrink)

The main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By “logical equivalence” I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have (...) cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about “what there is”. In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as in the case of the presentism/eternalism debate, one can be both a perdurantist and an endurantist, depending on which linguistic framework is preferred. (shrink)

Pace Benovsky's ‘Presentism and Persistence,’ presentism is compatible with perdurantism, tropes and bundle-of-universals theories of persisting objects. I demonstrate how the resemblance, causation and precedence relations that tie stages together can be accommodated within an ersatzer presentist framework. The presentist account of these relations is then used to delineate a presentist-friendly account of the inter-temporal composition required for making worms out of stages. The defense of presentist trope theory shows how properties with indexes other than t may be said (...) to exist at t. This involves an account of how times other than t exist at t, and how times may be multiply located at any given time. Benovsky's objection to bundles of universals is shown to assume that a bundle of properties must have the properties of its element properties. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine various theories of persistence through time under presentism. In Part I, I argue that both perdurantist views (namely, the worm view and the stage view) suffer, in combination with presentism, from serious difficulties and should be rejected. In Part II, I discuss the presentist endurantist view, to see that it does avoid the difficulties of the perdurantist views, and consequently that it does work, but at a price that some may consider as being very high: (...) its ontological commitments to platonic universals and to the substratum theory, that as we shall see follow from the combination of endurantism with presentism, will perhaps not be to everyone's taste. (shrink)

Until recently, perdurantism has been considered to be incompatible with the presentist ontology of time. However, discussions about presentist theories of perdurance are now surfacing, one of the most prominent arguments for which being Berit Brogaard’s essay: “Presentist Four-Dimensionalism”. In this paper, I examine Brogaard’s argument in contrast to Ted Sider’s arguments for (an Eternalist theory of) the “Stage View”. I then argue for another (and, I think, novel) view of presentist perdurantism, which avoids the problematic consequences that (...) Brogaard’s view faces, and which also successfully solves philosophical puzzles without the difficulties that Sider’s view faces. This view, which I call “Stage View Presentism,” thus seems to be an appealing alternative for presentists who remain impartial to both the endurantist and the worm theories of persistence. (shrink)

Four-dimensionalism and eternalism are theories on time, change, and persistence. Christian philosophers and theologians have adopted four-dimensional eternalism for various reasons. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that four-dimensional eternalism conflicts with Christian thought. Section I will lay out two varieties of four-dimensionalism—perdurantism and stage theory—along with the typically associated ontologies of time of eternalism and growing block. I shall contrast this with presentism and endurantism. Section II will look at some of the purported theological benefits of (...) adopting four-dimensionalism and eternalism. Section III will examine arguments against four-dimensional eternalism from the problem of evil. Section IV will argue that four-dimensional eternalism causes problems for Christian eschatology. (shrink)

It is standardly assumed that there are three — and only three — ways to solve problem of temporary intrinsics: (a) embrace presentism, (b) relativize property possession to times, or (c) accept the doctrine of temporal parts. The first two solutions are favoured by endurantists, whereas the third is the perdurantist solution of choice. In this paper, I argue that there is a further type of solution available to endurantists, one that not only avoids the usual costs, but is structurally (...) identical to the temporal-parts solution preferred by perdurantists. In addition to providing a general characterization of this new type of solution, I discuss certain of its anticipations in the literature on bundle theory, as well as provide a detailed development of it in terms of my own preferred metaphysics of ordinary objects — namely, a distinctive form of substratum theory tracing to Aristotle. (shrink)

Relativity theory is often said to support something called ‘the four-dimensional view of reality’. But there are at least three different views that sometimes go by this name. One is ‘spacetime unitism’, according to which there is a spacetime manifold, and if there are such things as points of space or instants of time, these are just spacetime regions of different sorts: thus space and time are not separate manifolds. A second is the B-theory of time, according to which the (...) past, present, and future are all equally real and there is nothing metaphysically special about the present. A third is perdurantism, according to which persisting material objects are made up of different temporal parts located at different times. We sketch routes from relativity to unitism and to the B-theory. We then discuss some routes to perdurantism, via the B-theory and via unitism. (shrink)

In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis’ problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart’s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122–127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart’s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intrinsics that also succeeds against McTaggart, Craig claims, (...) is presentism. This gives us prima facie reason to be presentists. But there is a strategy Craig does not consider-indexing, or relativizing, the copula. In this paper, I show that to the degree that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics, it also shows the invalidity of McTaggart’s argument. The upshot: the copula-indexer needn’t affirm the unreality of time, nor need she embrace presentism. (shrink)

There are several intertwined debates in the area of contemporary philos- ophy of time. One field of inquiry is the nature of time itself. Presentists think that only the present moment exists whereas eternalists believe that all of (space-)time exists on a par. The second main field of inquiry is the question of how objects persist through time. The endurantist claims that objects are three-dimensional wholes, which persist by being wholly1 present, whereas the perdurantist thinks that objects are four- dimensional (...) and that their temporal parts are the bearers of properties. The third debate in the field of contemporary philosophy of time is about tense- versus tenseless theory. Tensers are at odds with detensers about the status of the linguistic reference to the present moment. These are only very crude characterizations and it is even disputed by some ad- vocates of the corresponding positions that they are accurate. However this very sketchy picture already reveals a fundamental difference: The eternalism/presentism and endurance/perdurance discussions belong to the field of metaphysics, whereas tense is in the first instance a linguistic phenomenon. (shrink)

Timelines is an inquiry into the nature of time, both as an apparent feature of the external physical world and as a fundamental feature of our experience of ourselves in the world. The principal argument of Timelines is that our coventional ideas about time are largely mistaken and that what we think of as independent physical time is actually our calibration of a certain relation between events. Namely, the relation between time-keeping events and the causal sequential differences of physical processes (...) which are real and independent of us. (shrink)

What does it mean for an object to persist through time? Consider the statement, ‘My car is filthy, I need to wash it.’ Consider the response, ‘How did it get that way?’ The answer is that dirt, dust and other particles have collected on the car’s surface thus making it filthy. Its properties have changed. At one point in the car’s career, none of that dirt and grime existed on its surface and the car was said to be clean. The (...) fact is that for a car to get dirty, the extension of time is necessary. The standard view of identity is that each thing is entirely itself at any given time. So how can an object remain identical with itself over time, if it changes its properties? In many ways I have different properties now than those I had last week. But if I am different, how then can I be the same? The objective of this article is to answer the question of what it means to say that we and other things persist through time. First I’ll lay out two popular philosophical views of persistence through time, then I will present possible problems with both views. After that, I will outline another possible answer that lies outside of these views. Finally, I will providemy own answer. (shrink)

There has been a growing charge that perdurantism—with its bloated ontology of very person-like objects that coincide persons—implies the repugnant conclusion that we are morally obliged to be feckless. I argue that this charge critically overlooks the epistemic situation—what I call the ‘veil of ignorance’—that perdurantists find themselves in. Though the veil of ignorance still requires an alteration of our commonsense understanding of the demands on action, I argue for two conclusions. The first is that the alteration that is (...) required isn’t a moral one, but rather an alteration of prudential reasoning. Second, and more importantly, this alteration isn’t necessarily a repugnant one. In fact, given that it prudentially pushes one towards greater impartiality, it may be seen as a point in favor of perdurantism. (shrink)

This paper has three main sections. The first section provides a general characterisation of presentism, eternalism and growing blockism. It presents a pair of core, defining claims that jointly capture each of these three views. This makes clear the respects in which the different views agree, and the respects in which they disagree, about the nature of time. The second section takes these characterisations and considers whether we really do have three distinct views, or whether defenders of these views are (...) somehow talking past one another when they claim to disagree. The third section looks at the key objections to each view and considers some of the replies that can be made to those objections. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts about how future research might help us resolve the debate between defenders of these three views. (shrink)

Presentism and Eternalism are competing views about the ontological and temporal structure of the world, introduced and demarcated by their answers to questions about what exists and whether what exists changes. The goal of this chapter is to give the reader a clear understanding of Presentism and Eternalism, and a sense of some considerations used to critically assess the views by briefly rehearsing some of the main philosophical problems facing them.

I argue that the conjunction of perdurantism (the view that objects are temporally extended) and universalism (the thesis that any old class of things has a mereological fusion) gives rise to undesired complications when combined with certain plausible assumptions concerning the semantics of tensed statements.

The distinction between presentism and eternalism is usually sought in some formula like ‘Only presently existing things exist’ or ‘Past, present, and future events are equally real’. I argue that ambiguities in the copula prevent these slogans from distinguishing significant opposed positions. I suggest in addition that one can find a series of significant distinctions if one takes spacetime structure into account. These presentisms and eternalisms are not contradictory. They are complementary elements of a complete naturalistic philosophy of time.

Presentists face a challenge from truthmaker theory: if you hold both that the only existing objects are presently existing and that truth supervenes on being, then you will be hard pressed to identify some existent on which a given true but traceless claim about the past supervenes. One reconciliation strategy, advocated by Cameron (2011), is to appeal to distributional properties so to serve as presently existing truthmakers for past truths. I argue that a presentist ought to deny that distributional properties (...) can serve as truthmakers. (shrink)

Ostrich presentists maintain that we can use all the expressive resources of the tensed language to provide an explanation of why true claims about the past are true, without thereby paying any price in terms of ontology or basic ideology. I clarify the position by making a distinction between three kinds of explanation, which has general interest and applicability. I then criticize the ostrich position because it requires an unconstrained version of the third form of explanation, which is out of (...) place in metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that presentism -- the view that the way things are is the way things presently are -- is not undermined by the objection from being-supervenience. This objection claims, roughly, that presentism has trouble accounting for the truth-value of past-tense claims. Our demonstration amounts to the articulation and defence of a novel version of presentism. This is brute past presentism, according to which the truth-value of past-tense claims is determined by the past understood as a fundamental (...) aspect of reality different from things and how things are. (shrink)

Ross Cameron proposes to reconcile presentism and truth-maker theory by invoking temporal distributional properties, instantiated by present entities, as the truth-makers for truths about the past. This chapter argues that Cameron's proposal fails because objects can change which temporal distributional properties they instantiate and this entails that the truth-values of truths about the past can change in an objectionable way.

Abstract- Presentism And Temporal Experience Intuitively, we all believe that we experience change and the passage of time. Presentism prides itself as the most intuitive theory of time. However, a closer look at how we would experience temporality if presentism was true reveals that this is far from obvious. For if presentism was really so intuitive, then it would do justice to these intuitions. In the course of this article I examine how presentism fares when combined with various leading theories (...) of perception and temporal perception. I focused on two Central Questions. Can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of change and duration? And can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of time as passing? I argue that there is no possible combination which allows for an experience of time as passing. This result alone undermines the alleged intuitive advantage of presentism and with it the motivation for the view. Presentism, it remains safe to say, is not as intuitive a theory as its adherents like to portray it. (shrink)

We lay out the fatalist’s argument, making sure to clarify which dialectical moves are available to the libertarian. We then offer a more robust presentation of Ockhamism, responding to obvious objections and teasing out the implications of the view. At this point, we discuss presentism and eternalism in more detail. We then present our argument for the claim that the libertarian cannot take Ockham’s way out of the fatalism argument unless she rejects presentism. Finally, we consider and dispense with objections (...) to our argument. In the end, it ought to be clear that the libertarian must make a choice between Ockham’s way out and presentism. (shrink)

This paper gives a theory of quantum gravity based on the Presentist Fragmentalist interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is a dialogue with the AI Claude Ultra 3.0.

Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a discrete present that, however, (...) suffers from the same difficulties that the instantaneous present is prone to. After introducing the main phenomenological models of our experience of time that are discussed in the literature, I show that none of them favors presentism. I conclude by arguing that if even the phenomenology of time sides against presentism, the latter metaphysical theory has no scientific evidence in its favor and ought to be dropped. (shrink)

Two philosophical arguments gave the novel interpretation of quantum mechanics Presentist Fragmentalism. This paper gives the resulting theory of quantum gravity.

In this paper I will consider a number of responses to the grounding problem for presentism. I don’t think that the grounding problem is a damning problem for the presentist (it seems to me that presentism has much more serious problems with cross-time relations and relativity). But each of the solutions comes at a cost, and some are much pricier than others. I will set out what I take these costs to be when I examine each response to the grounding (...) problem. (shrink)

∗ Apologies to Mark Hinchliff for stealing the title of his dissertation. (See Hinchliff, A Defense of Presentism. As it turns out, however, the version of Presentism defended here is different from the version defended by Hinchliff. See Section 3.1 below.).

We construct a presentist semantics on which there are no truth-makers for past and future tensed statements. The semantics is not an expressivist or projectivist one, and is not susceptible to the semantical difficulties that confront such theories. We discuss how the approach handles some standard concerns with presentism.

Presentist Fragmentalism is a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper develops the resulting theory of Quantum Gravity.

In a series of recent papers Francesco Orilia has presented an argument for the moral desirability of presentism. It goes, in brief, as follows: since the existence of painful events is morally undesirable, presentism, which denies that past painful events (tenselessly) exist, is morally more desirable than non-presentism, which instead affirms that past painful events (tenselessly) exist. An objection against this argument, which has already been taken into consideration by Orilia, is the ugly history objection or radical objection: what really (...) matters in the moral appraisal of a world is the history of it, and since the presentist and the non-presentist versions of our world share the same ugly history, they are morally on a par. This paper aims at corroborating this objection and defending it from Orilia’s criticisms. This will be done by bringing into play various thought experiments and a distinction between relevance (of an event or a fact about the occurrence of an event) to the moral evaluation of a world and moral (and psychological) involvement (in an event or in a fact about the occurrence of an event). (shrink)

There is an objection to divine timelessness which claims that timelessness shouldn’t be adopted since on this view evil is never “destroyed,” “vanquished,” “eradicated” or defeated. By contrast, some divine temporalists think that presentism is the key that allows evil to be destroyed/vanquished/eradicated/defeated. However, since presentism is often considered to be inconsistent with timelessness, it is thought that the presentist solution is not available for defenders of timelessness. In this paper I first show how divine timelessness is consistent with a (...) presentist view of time and then how defenders of Presentist-Timelessness can adopt the presentist solution to the removal of evil. After this, I conclude the paper by showing that it’s far from clear that the presentist solution is successful and that unless one weakens what is meant by the destruction/vanquishing/eradication/defeat of evil, one can only make the presentist solution work by adopting a number of additional assumptions that many will find unattractive. (shrink)

(The downloadable document, posted 07/23/22, incorporates post-publication corrections/refinements, mainly of section II.) The article gives a novel argument to show that there is sense of 'exists' suitable for posing a substantive issue between presentists and eternalists. It then seeks to invigorate a neglected variety of presentism. There are seven doctrines, widely accepted even among presentists, that create problems for presentism. Without distinguishing existence and being, presentists can comfortably reject all seven. Doing so would dispose of the majority of presentism’s problems. (...) Further, it would enable presentists to reduce A-judgments to B-judgments, thereby insulating presentism from doubts about the intelligibility of A-theories. For reasons indicated very briefly, it might also make presentism less difficult to reconcile with special relativity, though the point is not pursued here. (shrink)

I argue that, for all we know, there are perfectly ordinary actual entities that are temporal in the usual sense and yet never present, past, or future. This epistemic fact requires us to modify the theses of presentism and eternalism. More importantly, it generates three new and quite serious objections to presentism, which I formulate and partially evaluate in this paper.

Some Presentists—according to whom everything is present—identify instants of time with propositions of a certain kind. However, the view that times are propositions seems to be at odds with Presentism: if there are times then there are past times, and therefore things that are past; but how could there be things that are past if everything is present? In this paper, we describe the Presentist view that times are propositions ; we set out the argument that Presentism is incompatible with (...) the view that times are propositions ; and then we describe three possible responses to that argument on behalf of Presentists who identify times with propositions. We argue that each of these responses comes with significant costs. Finally, we describe a fourth possible response—according to which times are irreducibly higher-order entities—which appears to avoid the costs of the other three. We also describe and respond to two objections to the higher-order strategy. (shrink)

In “A Defense of Presentism ”, Ned Markosian addresses the problem of singular propositions about non-present objects. The proposed solution uses a paraphrasing strategy that differentiates between two kinds of meaning in declarative sentences, and also distinguishes between two truth-conditions for singular propositions. The solution, however, is unsatisfactory. I demonstrate that the both truth-conditions suffer from the same problems in spite of the examples used to support the claim that one is a proper treatment for singular propositions. Part of the (...) difficulty is in the limited expressivity of logical formalisms, a limitation not unique to the philosophy of time, but which calls for greater attention. (shrink)

According to orthodoxy, our best physical theories strongly support Eternalism over Presentism. Our goal is to argue against this consensus, by arguing that a certain overlooked aspect of our best physical theories strongly supports Presentism over Eternalism.

Presentism is the view that only present temporal entities (tenselessly) exist. A widely-discussed problem for presentism concerns causation and, more specifically, the supposed cross-temporally relational character of it. I think that the best reply to this problem can already be found in the literature on temporal ontology: it consists, roughly, in showing that (at least) some of the main approaches to causation can be rephrased so as to avoid commitment to any cross-temporal relation, including the causal relation itself. The main (...) purpose of this paper is to extend this reply to the process view, an approach to causation that has not been considered within this debate until now. I shall do this by taking into account Dowe’s conserved quantity theory—a recent and prominent theory of this sort— and employing it as a proxy for the other major process theories of causation. In dealing with Dowe’s process theory of causation, however, two additional problems must be faced: one concerns the four-dimensional spacetime framework on which its formulation relies; the other concerns the very notion of causal process (and the companion notion of causal interaction). While the presentistic account of Dowe’s theory (and, virtually, of the process view of causation in general) put forth in this paper is intended primarily as a contribution to the mentioned paraphrase- based enterprise of reconciliation between presentism and causation, I shall also offer some reasons for presentists to prefer the process view of causation to the other views of causation that have already been reconciled with presentism. (shrink)

This paper is a partial defence of presentism against the argument from cross-time relations. It is argued, first, that the Aristotelian view of causation and persistence does not really depict these phenomena in terms of relations between entities existing at different times, and indeed excludes the possibility of such cross-time relations obtaining. Second, it is argued that to reject the existence of the past—and thereby be unable to ground the truth of claims about the past—does not lead to any absurd (...) consequences. (shrink)

A recent account of presentist time travel involves a causal relation between events at two different and discontiguous times, and presentists cannot have such causal relations because presentism rules out the existence of at least one of the two relata in such a relation due to it being non-present. Additionally, presentists cannot have parodies of such causal relations for use in time travel stories because parodies are subject, at least, to the same limitations as the things being parodied. So, the (...) presentist has not successfully given an internally consistent account of presentist time travel. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that presentism has a problem accounting forthe truth of statements whose truth conditions seem to require therebe relations that hold between present and non-present objects. Imotivate the problem and then examine several strategies for dealingwith the problem. I argue that no solution is forthcoming, and thispresents a prima facie problem for presentism.

It is a common criticism of presentism – the view according to which only the present exists – that it errs against truthmaker theory. Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection against presentism proceed by restricting truthmaker maximalism (the view that all truths have truthmakers), maintaining that propositions concerning the past are not made true by anything, but are true nonetheless. Support for this view is typically garnered from the case for negative existential propositions, which some philosophers contend are exceptions (...) to truthmaker maximalism. In this article, we argue that a ‘no truthmakers’ approach to the truthmaker objection is critically flawed. (shrink)

There is a philosophical tradition of arguing against presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I grant that presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but argue that presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. I reply to various objections to this defense of presentism, and point out a flaw in Gödel's modal argument (...) for the ideality of time. This paper provides an interesting case study of the interplay between physics and philosophy. (shrink)

The Triviality Argument against presentism maintains that we should reject presentism because there is no way to define the view that is not either trivially true or obviously false. We suggest that this style of argument over-emphasises purely linguistic means of representing a philosophical thesis. We argue that there is no reason to suppose that all philosophical theses must be linguistically representable, and thus that the failure to linguistically represent presentism is no big deal. It certainly shouldn’t lead us to (...) reject the view. We offer a more general moral for philosophy, and that is to look beyond purely linguistic methods of representing philosophical views and embrace a wider range of representational media. (shrink)

There has been a growing worry that perdurantism—and similarly ontologically abundant views—is morally untenable. For perdurantism posits that, coinciding with persons, are person-like objects, and giving them their moral due seems to require giving up prudentially driven self-sacrifice. One way to avoid this charge is to adopt consequentialism. But Mark Johnston has argued that the marriage of consequentialism and perdurantism is in moral trouble. For, depending on the nature of time, consequentialist perdurantists either are unable to do (...) more than one good act or they are morally obliged to adopt a repugnant form of ageism. I argue both that perdurantist consequentialism doesn’t have the latter implication, and that there’s at least one plausible form of consequentialism that perdurantists can adopt to avoid the former implication. (shrink)

Opponents of presentism have often argued that the presentist has difficulty in accounting for what makes true past-tensed propositions true in a way that is compatible with her metaphysical view of time and reality. The problem is quite general and concerns not only strong truth-maker principles, but also the requirement that truth be grounded in reality. In order to meet the challenge, presentists have proposed many peculiar present aspects of the world as grounds for truths concerning the past, such as (...) uninstantiated haecceities, Meinongian non-existents, ersatz times, and dispositional and distributional properties. The main problem with all such solutions is that any explanation of what grounds a TptP that involves the past is eo ipso a better explanation than any that involves only the present. Thus, the quest for an account of grounding for TptP that is compatible with the presentist ontology and ideology is doomed to be explanatorily deficient with respect to eternalism. In a recent article, Ben Caplan and David Sanson have claimed that presentists should change their strategy and, rather than seeking for exotic grounds for TptP, should adopt a more liberal view of explanation. That is, they should allow themselves to resort to “past directed” explanations, even if they do not accept the past in their ontology and ideology. I argue that such a proposal is not compatible with the tenet that there is a substantial distinction between the ideology of such a version of presentism and that of eternalism. Therefore, the presentist cannot endorse such “deflationist” explanations as an easy way out to the problem of the grounding of TptP. (shrink)

It is surprisingly hard to define presentism. Traditional definitions of the view, in terms of tensed existence statements, have turned out not to to be capable of convincingly distinguishing presentism from eternalism. Picking up on a recent proposal by Tallant, I suggest that we need to locate the break between eternalism and presentism on a much more fundamental level. The problem is that presentists have tried to express their view within a framework that is inherently eternalist. I call that framework (...) the Fregean nexus, as it is defined by Frege’s atemporal understanding of predication. In particular, I show that the tense-logical understanding of tense which is treated as common ground in the debate rests on this very same Fregean nexus, and is thus inadequate for a proper definition of presentism. I contrast the Fregean nexus with what I call the original temporal nexus, which is based on an alternative, inherently temporal form of predication. Finally, I propose to define presentism in terms of the original temporal nexus, yielding original presentism. According to original presentism, temporal propositions are distinguished from atemporal ones not by aspects of their content, as they are on views based on the Fregean nexus, but by their form—in particular, by their form of predication. (shrink)

Future-biased agents care not only about what experiences they have, but also when they have them. Many believe that A-theories of time justify future bias. Although presentism is an A-theory of time, some argue that it nevertheless negates the justification for future bias. Here, I claim that the alleged discrepancy between presentism and future bias is a special case of the cross-time relations problem. To resolve the discrepancy, I propose an account of future bias as a preference for certain tensed (...) truths properly relativized to the present. (shrink)

According to presentism, everything that exists is present. According to the truthmaker principle, for every true proposition there is a truthmaker – an entity that suffices for the truth of that proposition. According to realism about the past, there are true propositions about the past. Together these claims necessitate presently existing truthmakers for truths about the past (presentist truthmakers). Cameron (2010) argues that temporal distributional properties (TDPs) can play the role of presentist truthmakers. Corkum (2014) argues that they cannot. I (...) argue against Corkum’s objections. In §2, I introduce and outline the motivation for TDPs. In §3, I show that unless TDPs are stipulated to be fundamental, as Cameron does, they can be reduced to temporal non–distributional properties, which are unable to play the role of presentist truthmakers. In §4, I argue against Corkum’s two objections to Cameron’s stipulation. Corkum’s first objection is that Cameron has no grounds on which to stipulate that TDPs are fundamental, and that the reducibility of TDPs to temporal non–distributional properties (as discussed in §3) shows that they are not. I argue that the burden of proof is not on Cameron to argue that TDPs are fundamental, but on Corkum to argue that they are not, and that to argue from the reducibility of TDPs to their non–fundamentality is to beg the question against Cameron: the reduction is only possible once their non–fundamentality is assumed. Corkum’s second objection is that if Cameron is allowed to stipulate that TDPs are fundamental in order to escape objections, then Bigelow's (1996) account is allowed to make the same move, rendering Cameron’s account redundant. I argue that the cases are asymmetric: the alternative account faces a legitimate objection whilst Cameron’s account does not. (shrink)

Even hard-core metaphysicians should admit that certain disputesmay indeed turn out not tobe substantive. The debate between presentism and eternalism has recently come undersceptical attack. The aim of the paper is to argue that a certain approach to presentism is indeedin danger of succumbing to the sceptic, and thus a no-go for the presentist.