Category: Time and Change
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Back to Time, Tense, and Existence
What follows is a comment by David Brightly which just came in but is buried in the comments to an old entry. I have added my responses in blue. ………………………… I have just spotted that you quote EJL as saying, This, of course, raises the question of how we can so much as talk about…
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The Gist of Brightly’s Presentism
An excerpt from a comment by David Brightly to this entry: My mind is populated with ideas of things. I acquire these ideas (a) directly through acquaintance with external objects and (b) indirectly by description in language and image. These ideas of things guide my interaction with the outside world. Having seen a bear go…
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More on the Reality of the Past: Reply to Brightly
In an earlier thread, David Brightly offers the following penetrating comment: My birth certificate purports to record the event of my birth which occurred on such and such a day to such and such parents, etc. For an event or process to exist is for it to be ongoing or occurring. So my birth, being…
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E. J. Lowe’s Presentism and the Reality of the Past
We lost the brilliant E. J. Lowe (1950-2014) at an early age. We best honor a philosopher by thinking his thoughts, sympathetically, but critically. Lowe writes, When we say that Caesar has ceased to exist, what we really should mean is that he is no longer a part of reality at all, any more than…
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Kamala Harris on the Passage of Time
We here at Maverick Philosopher are classically liberal in our openness to a variety of points of view on the enduring questions of philosophy. As long-time readers know, one of our mottoes is Nihil philosophicum a nobis alienum putamus. "We consider nothing philosophical to be foreign to us."* In that spirit, we offer the profound…
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Between Time and Eternity
Tom O. asks, How does one reconcile the temporal with the eternal, in a personal/spiritual or experiential manner? The political situation of our time strikes me as dire and incredibly important. Yet such things are transitory and will, ultimately, pass away, and so in another sense are not so important. I am torn between these…
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The Tree and the House
A parable about envy. Substack latest. Opening: A man planted a tree to shade his house from the desert sun. The tree, a palo verde, grew like a weed and was soon taller than the house. The house became envious, feeling diminished by the tree’s stature. The house said to the tree: "How dare you…
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Is Presentism Common Sense?
Not by my lights. But then I might be a dim bulb. For Alan Rhoda, Presentism is the metaphysical thesis that whatever exists, exists now, in the present. The past is no more. The future is not yet. Either something exists now, or it does not exist, period. This is my understanding of presentism as well.…
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Presentism and Evil: If Presentism is False, then God does not Exist
Bradley Schneider sent me the following argument and would like my opinion. I am happy to accommodate him. (I have edited his argument for the sake of brevity, the soul of blog. I have also given it a title.) PRESENTISM FALSE? THEN GOD DOES NOT EXIST! 1) An all-good, omniscient, omnipotent God should not allow…
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Presentism and Actualism: Tenseless Existence and Amodal Existence
The analogy between presentism and actualism has often been noted. An unpacking of the analogy may prove fruitful if it doesn't perplex us further. Rough formulations of the two doctrines are as follows: P. Only the (temporally) present exists. A. Only the actual exists. Now one of the problems that has been worrying us is…
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The Future as the Most Completely Temporal of the Temporal Modi and the Least like Eternity
A tip of the hat to Brother Inky for reminding me of the following intriguing passage from C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. The following is lifted verbatim from Powerline: Another classic passage that bears on the essential maliciousness of the modern “Progressive” mind comes from C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. If you’re not familiar with this…
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On the Consolations of Tense Logic
What has been, though it needn't have been, always will have been. What time has mothered, no future time can touch. What you were and that you were stand forever inscribed in the roster of being in indelible ink whether or not anyone will read the record. And all your deeds and misdeeds with you. You will…
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Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust
"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. How real can we…
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Of Time, Annihilation, and the Reality of the Past
This is the third in a series on Lowe's presentism. It has two prerequisites. Here is the first entry; here is the second. We have seen that for E. J. Lowe, temporal passage is real, objective, mind-independent. Temporal passage "consists in the continual coming into and going out of existence of entities . . .…
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The Presentism of E. J. Lowe: Summary
This entry is Part One of a multi-part attempt to understand and evaluate the late E. J. Lowe's 'untimely' version of presentism. It is 'untimely' in that he resists what he takes to be the reification of time and times, and because his presentism is very different from its contemporary competitors. I am basing my…