Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Better ‘Has Been’ than ‘Never Was’

Why, if the present alone is real? 

The wholly past no longer exists. But this truism, accepted by all who understand English and its verb tenses, is not what the presentist in the philosophy of time maintains. He intends something substantive and non-tautological: what no longer exists does not exist at all, and what does not yet exist does not exist at all.  But if the first half of the substantive thesis is true, then why is it better to be a has-been rather than a never-was? X cannot be better than y unless x is different from y.

Presentism, taken full-strength, implies that there is no difference between what has been and what never was. For the wholly past has fallen into the same hole out of which the 'never was' never arose. How then can presentism be common sense as many of its noted contemporary defenders say? It appears to conflict with the widespread commonsensical intuition that 'has been' is better than and therefore different from 'never was.' 

Sometimes, when we reflect upon our accomplishments, we append the thought, "And no one can ever take that away from me." You are no longer at the top of your game, but you once were — and no one can take that away from you. They said you couldn't do it but you did, and they can't take that away from you. 

Interestingly, not even divine omnipotence extends to the erasure of the past. What was is forever inscribed in indelible ink in the roster of being.  Aquinas admitted it: not even God can restore a virgin. 

Two points. First, what was has an ontological status superior to that which never was — which has no ontological status at all. Second, what was, though logically contingent at the time of its occurrence, is now in a sense necessary, but without ceasing to be logically contingent.  The mere passage of time works  a modal promotion, from contingency to necessitas per accidens, accidental necessity.  Socrates freely drank the hemlock, hence his drinking was logically contingent.  But once past, the deed cannot be undone by god or mortal, chance or fate. Cannot. Under the aspect of eternity, however, the heroic act remains logically contingent.

How curious the reality of the past!  On the one hand, the wholly past seems to possess a lesser degree of being than the present and is therefore inferior to the present in point of reality. On the other, the wholly past, unlike the present, is unalterable. Bad news and good news.

The main point however, is that the past is real, a realm of actualities, not mere possibilities. How that fact jibes with presentism is a nice question.  We can expect from the presentists  some fancy footwork.

Why has presentism been so 'popular' these past ten or twenty years?

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Bill Vallicella

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One response to “Better ‘Has Been’ than ‘Never Was’”

  1. David Brightly Avatar
    David Brightly

    Bill,
    You seem to be saying that there is a common sense intuition that it is better to be Julius Caesar (example of a ‘has-been’) than to be Sherlock Holmes (example of a ‘never-was’), merely on the grounds that JC existed and SH didn’t. I’m afraid that’s a bit too subtle for my common sense. Rather, I suspect that the widely-held intuition in this vicinity, as your examples suggest, is that it is better to be able to look back on a life of incident and achievement than otherwise. But this is a matter of human psychology and has little to do with our understanding of time.
    You say,

    …what was has an ontological status superior to that which never was — which has no ontological status at all.

    As an instance of this general claim let’s take,

    Julius Caesar has an ontological status superior to that of Sherlock Holmes.

    How might a presentist interpret this? I don’t think we can read it as ascribing a property to objects, or as setting objects in some relation. We must be mentioning the names here rather than using them. We seem to be reminding ourselves that ‘Julius Caesar’ names a long gone historical personage whereas ‘Sherlock Holmes’ names a character in a work of mere fiction, and the former outranks the latter in ‘ontological status’. What can we find in the present that makes this true? Both names are known only by description and each of us knows a rough biographical account of each man. I suggest that ‘ontological status’ attaches to these accounts. In the one case we know that there once was a man that matched the account and in the other case we know there never was such a man. Our understanding of time is not independent of wider philosophical considerations.

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