What follows in two parts is a critique of John Bigelow's Presentism and Properties. This installment is Part One.
Bigelow begins by telling us that he is a presentist: "nothing exists which is not present." (35) He goes on to say that this was believed by everyone, including philosophers, until the 19th century. But this is plainly false inasmuch as Plato maintained that there are things, the eidē, that exist but are not present, and this for the simple reason that they are not in time at all. Moreover, many theologians long before the 19th century held that God is eternal, as opposed to omnitemporal, and therefore not temporally present. (To underscore the obvious, when presentists use 'present' they mean temporally present, not spatially present or present in any other sense.)
But let's be charitable. What Bigelow means to tell us is that nothing exists in time that is not present. His is a thesis in temporal ontology, not in general ontology. What is there in time? Only present items, which is to say: no wholly past or wholly future items.
Bigelow also assures us that presentism "is written into the grammar of every natural language . . ." (ibid.) But this can't be right, for then anyone who denied presentism would be guilty of solecism! Surely 'Something exists which is not present' is not ungrammatical. The same holds for 'Something exists in time which is not present.' There is nothing ungrammatical in either sentence. If presentism "is written into the grammar of every natural language," then presentism reduces to a miserable tautology.
Tautologies, however, though of logical interest, are of no metaphysical interest. Luckily, Bigelow contradicts himself on the very next page where we read, "Presentism is a metaphysical doctrine . . . ." That is exactly right. It therefore cannot be a logico-grammatical truth. It is a substantive, non-tautological answer to a metaphysical/ontological question about what there is in time: only present items, or past, present, and future items?
What has to be understood is that, when a presentist claims that nothing exists that is not present, his use of 'exists' is not present-tensed, but tense-neutral. His claim is that only what exists (present-tense) exists simpliciter. For present purposes (pun intended), an item or category of item exists simpliciter if it must be mentioned in a complete inventory of what there is. I will use 'exists*' to refer to existence simpliciter and 'exists' in the usual present-tensed way.
Can presentism thus understood be refuted?
The argument from relations
1) All relations are existence-entailing. In the dyadic case, what this means is that if x stands to y in the relation R, then both x and y exist*, and necessarily so. In the n-adic case, it means that all of the relata of a relation must exist if the relation is to hold or obtain.
2) Some relations are such that they hold between a non-present item and a present item. For example, my non-present birth is earlier than my present blogging. The two events are related by the earlier-than relation.
Therefore
3) Both events, my birth and my blogging, exist*.
Therefore
4) It is not the case that only present items exist*: presentism is false.
This is a powerful argument, valid in point of logical form, but not absolutely conclusive, or as I like to say, rationally coercive, inasmuch as (1) is open to two counterexamples:
a) If there is a relation that connects an existent item to a nonexistent item, then (1) is false. Some hold that intentionality is such a relation. Suppose Tom, who exists, is thinking of Pegasus, who does not exist. For details, see The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann Solution to the Problem of Intentionality.
b) Premise (1) is also false if there are relations that connect one nonexistent item to another nonexistent item. It is true that Othello loves Desdemona. The truth-maker here is a state of affairs involving two nonexistent individuals. So a Meinongian might argue that not all relations are existence-entailing, and that (1) can be reasonably rejected, and with it the argument's conclusion. (See pp. 37-39)
To sidestep the second counterexample, Bigelow proposes a weaker premise according to which relations are not existence-entailing but existence-symmetric. A relation is existence-symmetric iff either all its relata exist or all do not exist.
The argument from causation
Causation is existence-symmetric: if an event exists and it is a cause of some other event, then that other event exists; and if an event exists and is caused by some other event, then that other event exists. Some present events are caused by events that are not present. And some present events are the causes of other events which are not present. Therefore things exist which are not present. (p. 40)
How can presentism be upheld in the face of these two powerful arguments? That is the topic of Part II.
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