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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.

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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 Caesar now that he no longer exists simpliciter — how we can speak about 'that which is not.'

My understanding is that 'no longer' is a marker of a tensed verb. So Lowe appears to be using 'to exist simpliciter' as if it were tensed. This leaves me somewhat confused. I'm not at all sure that 'simpliciter' adds (or subtracts) anything here. Lowe's paragraph, minus the 'simpliciter', makes sense as ordinary tensed English.

BV: As you see it, David, 'Caesar no longer exists' and 'Caesar no longer exists simpliciter' express exactly the same thought. That same thought is expressed by 'Caesar existed but Caesar does not exist (present tense). 'Simpliciter' adds nothing to 'exists.'

I suppose that you will say that the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing — how can we speak about 'that which is not' when that which is not is not 'there' to be spoken of — is a pseudo-problem, at least when raised with respect to wholly past items. I suppose that you will say that we can now refer to Caesar because he existed, and that nothing more need be said. Your view, I take it, is that Caesar can, at the present time, be an object of successful reference and a logical subject of true predications without existing simpliciter or tense-neutrally. It suffices for successful reference to Caesar who is now nothing that he was something, i.e., that he existed. You might take it a step further and argue that the Platonic pseudo-problem arises from a failure to stick to ordinary tensed English, and that the 'problem' is dissolved (as opposed to solved) by simply using the tenses of our beloved mother tongue in their ordinary work-a-day ways and not allowing language to "go on holiday" (Wittgenstein).

To put words in your mouth: you are saying that there is no genuine problem about the reality of the past; said reality consists solely in the fact that we can use the past tense to make true statements, e. g., 'Churchill smoked cigars.'

Have I understood your position? If I have, then what we are really discussing is whether the debate that divides presentists and 'eternalists' is a genuine debate or instead a pseudo-debate sired by a misuse of language.

Also, further down you say,

However things stand with respect to the future, the past surely seems to have a share in reality.

Could you not have said '…the past seems to have had a share…'? Again,

The question is whether what WAS has a share in reality as opposed to being annihilated, reduced to nothing, by the passage of time. [my emphasis]

BV: I don't say it your way because I believe that 'existence simpliciter' has a specific, non-redundant use. I believe that one can sensibly ask whether what exists (present tense) exhausts what exists simpliciter. I believe that both of the following are substantive claims:

a) Only what exists (present tense) exists!

b) It is not the case that only what exists (present tense) exists!

For me, (a) is not a tautology, and (b) is not a contradiction. Why not? Because, for me, if x exists simpliciter, it does not follow that x exists (present tense). So if (a) is true, it is true as a matter of metaphysics, not as a matter of formal logic. And if (a) is false, it is not false as a matter of formal logic but as a matter of metaphysics.

You, David, do not admit the distinction between what exists (present tense) and what exists simpliciter. For you, 'exists simpliciter' collapses into 'exists' (present tense).

You then return to the truthmaker objection. It seems to me quite natural and unproblematic to say that the past both had a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing. Problems only appear when we say the past both has a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing.

BV: But of course I don't say that. It is contradictory to say that the past has a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing. I say that there are very good reasons to hold that the past is not nothing, that is is real (actual, not merely possible; factual not fictional) but merely lacks temporal presentness.

Suppose that a certain building B has been completely demolished. On your view B has been reduced to nothing. All will agree that B is now nothing. But you want to say more. You want to say that what is now nothing is nothing sans phrase (without qualification). You want to say that what is nothing now is nothing without any temporal qualification. Can you prove that? Can you refute the view that wholly past items, which by definition are nothing now, have (tenselessly) a share in reality? Can you prove that the past — past times, past events, processes, continuants, etc. — are simply nothing as opposed to nothing now?

The past is arguably actual, not merely possible, and factual, not fictional. If so it is (tenselessly) real, and therefore not nothing. The passage of time does not consign what has become wholly past to nothingness. Can you refute this view? I grant that it has its own problems. The main problem, as it seems to me, is to specify what it means to say that a temporal item — an item in time — exists tenselessly.

My view is that these problems about the relation of time and existence are genuine but insoluble. Your view, I take it, is that the problems are pseudo-problems susceptible of easy dissolutions if we just adhere to ordinary ways of talking.

Have I located the bone of contention? Or have I 'dislocated' it? (A pun I couldn't resist.)

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 into the cave or having been told 'There's a bear in the cave', I approach the cave with caution. Through my contact with the external world I come to accept that all external things come into existence, exist for a while, and then pass out of existence. The ceasing to exist of things that I am familiar with and am attached to is an everyday experience. When I have such an experience, or have a thing's passing described to me, my idea of that thing becomes modified. None of the idea itself passes away, at least not initially. Instead the idea (not the thing it's an idea of) acquires a new attribute, analogous to the label 'Account Closed' on the front of a business ledger, signifying that, to a first approximation, the content of the idea can be safely ignored for purposes of guiding my life. I might express this label by saying 'The thing is past' or 'The thing is in the past' or 'The thing has ceased to exist'. The important point here is that, despite appearances, these assertions are not predicating something of the thing itself but rather of my idea of it, namely that the idea is redundant.

Suppose that a monument M, of which I had direct sensory acquaintance, has been demolished. M no longer exists, but my memorial ideas, my memories, of M still exist. Consider the most vivid of these, idea R. R is obviously distinct from M because R is a mental representation of M. R exists now 'in' my mind; M does not exist now, and, being a physical chunk of the external world, never existed 'in' any (finite) mind either spatially or merely intentionally. When I learn that M no longer exists, R undergoes a modification; it "acquires a new attribute" as David puts it. This new attribute is not an attribute of M, which no longer exists, but solely an attribute of R. We could describe this attribute as the property of not being of or about anything real or existent. It comes to the same if we call this attribute the property of being non-veridical. This simply means that R is not true of anything. R has thus undergone a modification: it was veridical when M existed, but is now non-veridical when R no longer exists. (In my example, R is a memory, but it might be a past-directed description, say, 'the only statue at the corner of Third and Howard.'

You can see where David is going with this. He is proposing that we analyze 'M is (wholly) past, ' M is in the past,' and 'M has ceased to exist' in terms of 'R has ceased to be veridical.'

One virtue of this analysis is that R is available, and available at present, which satisfies the demands of presentism according to which only what exists (present tense) exists. But I don't think the analysis is workable even as a specification of truth conditions. The cup out of which Socrates drank the hemlock existed but no one now has any ideas about it, that very cup. And there are innumerable things that existed but no longer exist about which no one now or ever had any ideas whether singular or general. What existed cannot depend for its having existed on the present contents of any finite mind. But there is worse to come when we ask about truthmakers.

If you are wondering what the difference is between a truth condition and a truthmaker, our old friend Alan Rhoda in an old blog post does a good job of explaining the distinction:

. . .truthmakers are parcels of reality . . . .

Not so with truth conditions. Truth conditions are semantic explications of the meaning of statements. They tell us in very precise terms what has to be true for a particular statement to be true. For example, a B-theorist like Nathan Oaklander will say that the truth conditions of the sentence "The 2006 Winter Olympics are over" is given by the sentence "The 2006 Winter Olympics end earlier than the date of this utterance". Thus truth conditions are meaning entities like statements that are used to spell out or analyze the meaning of other statements.

'M existed' is true, true now, and contingently true now (it might not have been true now and would not have been true now if the Antifa thugs hadn't dynamited the monument). We have here a truthbearer that clearly needs a truthmaker. So I ask a simple question of the presentist: What makes it true that M has ceased to exist? (In general: what makes any presently true, past-tensed, contingent truth true?) The truthmaker cannot be or involve M because M, on presentism, does not exist.

Note that the truthmaker of 'M has ceased to exist' cannot be the fact that the memorial representation or idea R has ceased to be veridical. This answer avails nothing since it merely postpones the question, which becomes: what makes it true that R has ceased to be veridical? 'R is no longer veridical' is true, presently true, and contingently true. It needs a truthmaker.

If the presentist says instead that 'M has ceased to exist' had a truthmaker in the past, what makes true this tensed claim, namely, the claim that the truthbearer in question had a truthmaker in the past?

Could past-tensed contingent truths be brute truths? (A brute truth, by definition, has no need of a truthmaker.) I may come back to this topic in a separate entry. But if you grant me that the true, present-tensed, contingent 'BV is seated' (assertively uttered at t) needs a truthmaker, then how could the mere passage of time do away with the need for a truthmaker of the presently true, contingent, past-tensed 'BV was seated' (assertively uttered at t* > t)?

Finally, the presentist might reject the need for any truthmakers at all. I would respond by hitting him over the head with Aristotle's Categories, figuratively speaking of course.

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 wholly past, no longer exists. This does not mean it never occurred or never existed, just that the passage [of] time brought that event or process to an end. Bill would argue that if the passage of time annihilated my birth then my birth certificate would record nothing (no real event). This could only be true under a strict and literal interpretation of 'annihilation' as making a thing (and the world) as if [it] never existed. Elsewhere Bill calls this 'absolute annihilation'. It seems to me, however, that [E. J.] Lowe is operating with a weaker notion of annihilation as a bringing to an end—a mere ceasing to be rather than a ceasing to having been.

I too believe that the past is (was?) real, but I suspect my understanding of this claim differs from Bill's. Bill appears to contrast 'reality' with 'nothingness'. I contrast 'real' with 'imaginary'. We need to look into this difference of view. Arguably a blank birth certificate records no event. A falsified birth certificate records an event, but an imaginary or unreal one.

I will first summarize our points of agreement and then try to locate the bone of contention.

David and I agree about birth certificates. Some are blank, some are forged/falsified, and some record actual births, and in most cases wholly past actual birth events. We agree that for an event or process to exist (present tense) is for it to be ongoing or occurring. We agree that there are events. We agree that some events no longer exist in the sense that they are not now occurring, but did occur. We agree that there is an important distinction between what did exist and what never existed. (For example, Kierkegaard's engagement to Regine Olsen did exist whereas his marriage to her never existed.) And we both believe that the past is real. That is, we both assertively utter tokens of 'The past is real.' But I am pretty sure that the contents of our assertions, i.e., the propositions (thoughts) we assert when we make those assertions, are different. To anticipate, I believe that past items are real in that they exist simpliciter. I suspect that David will balk at this and say that past items are real in that they existed, and leave it at that. I will explain existence simpliciter in a moment.

Note that when David informs us of his belief about the reality of the past, he tellingly waffles in his formulation: "I too believe that the past is (was?) real . . . " David is trying to get by with ordinary tensed English. He senses, however, that to say that the past is (present tense) real is false, indeed, absurd (self-contradictory). Bear in mind that this discussion is about the reality of what is wholly past. Surely it would be absurd to say that what is wholly past is present. But if he says that the wholly past was real, then he says something tautological. Of course the past was real. If we stick with tensed English we won't be able to formulate the problem.

To locate the bone of contention in the philosophy of time over which presentists and 'eternalists' fight, we must navigate, if we can, between the Scylla of self-contradiction and Charybdis of tautology. Mixed metaphors aside, the issue is whether the past exists simpliciter. When I say that the past is real, I mean that past items exist simpliciter. I do not mean that past items exist now — which would be self-contradictory — or that they existed — which would be trivial. What I mean, and what the dispute is about, cannot be understood without this notion of existence simpliciter. And the issue is meaningful only if this notion is meaningful. So what is existence simpliciter?

E. J. Lowe's (correct) answer is that to exist simpliciter is to be a part of reality as a whole. (Monist article, 284) To deploy a Jamesian trope, to exist simpliciter is to be part of the "furniture of the world." Or you could say that to exist simpliciter is to be listed in the final ontological inventory. Equivalently, to exist simpliciter is to be in the range of our logical quantifiers when they are taken 'wide open.' To exist simpliciter is simply to exist. Existence simpliciter abstracts from when an item exists if it exists in time, and indeed whether an item is in time at all.

So the issue cannot be whether the wholly past is real or was real. The issue is whether the wholly past exists simpliciter. Presentists deny this. They maintain that, with respect to temporal items, everything that exists simpliciter exists at present, and thus that nothing non-present exists simpliciter. (The present in question is what William James calls the "specious" or short-term present.) The presentist thesis is not trivially true. It is not the thesis that whatever exists (present tense) exists (present tense). That is of course true, but of no philosophical interest. Presentism is the metaphysically substantive claim that whatever exists simpliciter exists (present tense). And of course the converse holds as well for the presentist: whatever exists (present tense) exists simpliciter. Presentism is a biconditional thesis.

David needs to tell me whether he accepts the notion of existence simpliciter. It is of course not my invention but is standard in the literature. David also needs to tell me whether he agrees with me that the thesis of presentism cannot even be formulated without the notion of existence simpliciter. By 'presentism' I of course intend a metaphysically substantive thesis about the 'relation' of time and existence, not the mere tautology that whatever exists (present tense) exists (present tense) and such related trivialities as 'What no longer exists did exist but does not exist' and 'What still exists, did exist and exists (present tense).'

Let us now consider a concrete example, Winston Churchill. The gross facts or Moorean data are not in dispute. WC existed, but does not now exist. So far, no metaphysics. Just ordinary tensed English, and a bit of uncontroversial historical knowledge. Reflecting on the data, we note that some of what is said now about WC is true, and some false. WC is now the logical subject of both true and false predications (predicative statements). And this despite the fact that WC does not now exist. At this point a philosophical problem arises for the presentist. On presentism, only that which presently exists exists simpliciter. What did exist and what will exist does not exist simpliciter. How can something that does not exist simpliciter be the logical subject of such presently true past-tensed contingent affirmative statements as 'WC smoked cigars'? This is the question to which presentism has no good answer. It would be a very bad answer to say that the past-tensed sentence is true now because WC existed. For on presentism, WC is nothing; he is not just nothing now — which is trivially true — but simply nothing, i.e., nothing simpliciter. And if WC is simply nothing, then he is not 'there' (read existentially, not locatively) to be the logical subject of predications. I am assuming the following principle.

Veritas sequitur esse. (VSE) Truth follows being in the sense that, necessarily, if a statement about a thing is true, then that thing exists simpliciter. There are no truths about nonexistent 'things.' I take the principle just enunciated to be very secure, epistemically speaking, though not self-evident. (Meinong did not find it self-evident; indeed he rejected it.) Accepting the VSE principle as I do, I say that WC exists simpliciter and that therefore presentism is false.

What then are David and I disagreeing about? We agree that WC is actual, not merely possible, and real as opposed to fictional/imaginary. So there is a clear sense in which we both accept the reality of the past. The difference between us may be that David hasn't thought through what it means to say of a past item that it is real. He contents himself with platitudes. No doubt WC is real as opposed to imaginary or fictional. But what is it to be real given that (a) WC is wholly past and that (b) presentism is true?

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 Sherlock Holmes is, in fact, a part of reality . . . . This, of course, raises the question of how we can so much as talk about Caesar now that he no longer exists simpliciter — how we can speak about 'that which is not.' It also raises the question of how we can still distinguish between the ontological status of Caesar and that of Holmes, and resist saying that Caesar has 'become' a fictional object in something like the sense in which Holmes is. But these questions are not, perhaps, so difficult to answer, once we understand aright the metaphysical picture that is being proposed. With regard to the second question, we can still say that Caesar really did exist, unlike Holmes. And with regard to the first, we can say that the proper name 'Julius Caesar' is perfectly meaningful, not because it now has an existing referent, but because its use is historically traceable back to a referent that did exist — pretty much in line with the 'causal' theory of reference advanced by Saul Kripke. ("How Real is Substantial Change?" The Monist, vol. 89, no. 3, 2006, p. 285. Italics in original.)

What no longer exists did exist but does not now exist. That's just what 'no longer exists' means. But is it true that what no longer exists does not exist at all? Lowe answers in the affirmative. Of course, what no longer exists does not exist now, but that is tautologically true and of no metaphysical interest. Lowe is telling us something of metaphysical interest about time, existence, and their 'relation.' He is telling us that what no longer exists and is wholly past has been annihilated. Not only does a past item not exist now, it simply does not exist: it does not exist simpliciter as we say in the trade. It is no longer a member of the sum total of what exists. When a thing passes away it falls off the cliff of Being into the abyss of Nonbeing. And so I cannot say, now and with truth, of Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) that he would have been 100 years old this year had he lived. But I just did! I referred to him successfully and I made a true statement about him, that very person. And what were the birthday celebrations in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts about if they were not celebrating his birth? However things stand with respect to the future, the past surely seems to have a share in reality. If the past has no share in reality, what do historians study? Will you tell me that they study the causal traces in the present of past events? But if the past has no share in reality, if the past is not, then those traces are traces of nothing, and the historian is not an historian but a student of some weird merely present things. Will you tell me that the past WAS? Well, that's surely true, but not to the point. The question is whether what WAS has a share in reality as opposed to being annihilated, reduced to nothing, by the passage of time.

In general, what should a Lowian presentist say about past-tensed contingent truths? There are plenty of them, whether we know them or not, and whether or not the things they are about have left any causal traces in the present. And they are true now. It is the case that Julius Caesar was assassinated. What makes it true now that Caesar was assassinated? Surely nothing that now exists makes it true, and if only what exists now exists simpliciter, then nothing makes true contingent past-tensed truths. Some say that such truths are brute truths: they are just true without anything that explains their being true, or that grounds their being true, or that 'makes' them true. This is a very bad answer as I could easily show; in any case it appears not to be Lowe's answer given his acceptance of truthmakers:

I should also reveal that I am an adherent of the truthmaker principle, according to which all truths — all contingent positive truths — require the existence of a truthmaker; something which, by existing, makes them true. (288, bolding added)

On the face of it, there is a tension, if not a contradiction, in Lowe's position. His presentism commits him to saying that nothing that now exists could serve as the truthmaker of a past-tensed positive (affirmative) truth such as the one expressed by 'Julius Caesar existed.' But if all contingent affirmative truths need truthmakers, as per the quotation, then so does the truth that Julius Caesar existed, in which case Lowe is telling us both that past-tensed truths must have, and cannot have, truthmakers. That certainly appears to be a contradiction. Is there a way around it? For maximal logical clarity, I cast the puzzle in the mold of an aporetic triad:

a) All contingent affirmative truths need truthmakers.
b) 'Julius Caesar existed' expresses a contingent affirmative truth.
c) 'Julius Caesar existed' cannot have a truthmaker.

This trio is collectively inconsistent: its members cannot all be true. Since (b) records a pre-philosophical datum, it cannot be philosophically denied. (An historian might attempt to show it false, but then I would simply change the example.) So the question boils down to whether we accept the truthmaker principle as explained by Lowe (to which explanation I have no objection) or accept instead Lowe's (non-ersatzist) presentism. (Lowe rejects ersatzism.) We cannot accept both, as Lowe appears to do. Thus I smell a logical contradiction. Or is this an olfactory hallucination on my part?

Lowe tells us that the proposition that Julius Caesar exists "is now false but was once true." (289) For "it formerly had a truthmaker — namely, Julius Caesar himself — but no longer does." (289) If a proposition can change its truth value from true to false, then, given the truthmaker principle, the proposition in question had a truthmaker, but has one no longer. Fine, how is this relevant? The question concerns the truthmaker of the proposition that Julius Caesar existed. The question is not whether the proposition that Caesar exists had a truthmaker. The question is: what makes it true that Caesar existed is true? What makes it true now that Caesar existed can't be the fact that Caesar exists had a truthmaker but has one no longer. For what makes it true now that the proposition that Caesar exists had a truthmaker? Nothing at all if presentism is true.

Lowe maintains that a truthmaker is "something which, by existing, makes them [positive contingent truths] true." Truthmakers, then, must exist to do their jobs: there are no nonexistent truthmakers. But on presentism only what exists at present exists simpliciter. Wholly past truthmakers do not exist. So it is simply irrelevant to invoke them if the question concerns the truthmakers of presently true past-tensed truths.

As I see it, Lowe cannot solve what is called the 'grounding problem,' a problem that ineluctably arises for him because of his (laudable) commitment to truthmakers. The problem, simply put, is that past-tensed contingent affirmative truths (true propositions) need ontological grounds, i.e., truthmakers. He cannot solve the problem because of his creationist-annihilationist version of presentism.

I now turn to the other problem Lowe mentions in the passage quoted above, the problem of referring to what no longer exists given the presentist view that what no longer exists does not exist at all. Lowe tells us that "the proper name 'Julius Caesar' is perfectly meaningful, not because it now has an existing referent, but because its use is historically traceable back to a referent that did exist . . . ." Lowe mentions Kripke's causal theory of reference. It is difficult to see how there could be any historical tracing if all of past history has been annihilated by the passage of time.

More needs to be said. But brevity is the soul of blog, as some wit once opined.

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 thoughts of the Vice President, thoughts that rival in depth those of Aurelius Augustinus and John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, and that push the philosophy of time in a new direction and away from the notorious B-theory of time much loved by previous Veeps.

I will leave the reader to decide whether Kamala's insights reach the level of those proffered by President Bill Clinton some years ago when he breathed new life into philosophical logic with his penetrating observation that matters of great moment often ride on what the meaning of 'is' is.

___________________

*The motto is modelled on Terentius: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. "I am a human being; I consider nothing human to be foreign to me." One also sees the thought expressed in this form: Nihil humanum a me alienum puto. Our motto is based on this variant. Horace Jeffery Hodges informs me of a Satanic variant to be found in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: "Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto." (I am Satan, and nothing human is foreign to me.)

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 two extremes on a daily basis. The latter is a source of hope and peace, the former a source of anxiety and unrest. Focusing more on one at the expense of the other seems to only intensify the problem, since doing that seems to downplay the importance of one of the extremes, when what I am after is a reconciliation of the two that does not dismiss or downplay either. But perhaps that goal itself is unattainable.

We are made for eternity, but we find ourselves in time. Both spheres are real and neither can be dismissed or pronounced unreal. You and I agree on that. You want a reconciliation of the two "that does not dismiss or downplay either" while suspecting that such a reconciliation is "unattainable."

Here I think lies the germ of an answer. One of the spheres needs to be "downplayed." For if there are these two spheres, they cannot be equally important.

Why can't they be equally important?

Within time, we rightly value the relatively permanent over the relatively impermanent. We reckon him a fool who sacrifices a lifetime of satisfactions for a moment's pleasure. John Belushi, for example, threw away his life and career for a ride on the 'Speedball Express.' Elliot Spitzer trashed his career and marriage to a beautiful woman because he could not resist the siren songs of the high-class hookers. And then there is David Carradine who died of auto-erotic asphyxiation in Bangkok. Examples are easily multiplied beyond necessity.

Infinitely more foolish is one who sacrifices an eternity of bliss for a lifetime of legitimate mundane satisfactions. One who believes that both spheres are real, and thinks the matter through, ought to understand that the temporal is inferior to the eternal in point of importance. That there are these two spheres is a matter of reasoned faith, not of knowledge. (It is 'metaphysical bluster' to claim to have certain knowledge in this area. One cannot prove God, the soul, or man's eternal destiny. Or so say I; plenty of dogmatists will disagree.)

I therefore make the following suggestion in alleviation of my reader's existential problem. Devote the majority of your time and energy to the quest for the Absolute, but without ignoring the temporal. The quietist must needs be a bit of an activist in a world in which his spiritual life and quest is endangered by the evildoers in the realm of time and change.

For spiritual health a daily partial withdrawal from society is advisable. It needn't be physical: one can be in the world but not of it.

A partial withdrawal can take the form of a holding free of the early morning hours from any contamination by media dreck. Thus no reading of newspapers, no checking of e-mail, no electronics of any sort. Electricity is fine: you don't have to sit in the dark or burn candles. No talking or other socializing. Instead: prayer, meditation, spiritual and philosophical reading and writing, in silence, and alone.

So for a few pre-dawn hours each day you are a part-time monk.

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 outstrip me, you who were once so puny! I towered above you, but you have made me small."

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. Rhoda goes on to claim that presentism is "arguably the common sense position." I beg to differ.

It is certainly common sense that the past is no more and the future is not yet. These are analytic truths understood by anyone who understands English. They are beyond the reach of reasonable controversy, stating as they do that the past and the future are not present. But presentism is a substantive metaphysical thesis well within the realm of reasonable controversy. It is a platitude that what no longer exists does not now exist. But there is nothing platitudinous about 'What no longer exists does not exist at all, or does not exist period, or does not exist simpliciter.' That is a theoretical claim of metaphysics about time and existence that is neither supported nor disqualified by common sense and the Moorean data comprising it. The presentist is making a claim about the nature of the existence of that which exists. He is claiming that the existence of what exists either is identical to, or necessarily equivalent to, temporal presentness. Is it not just common sense that common sense takes no stand on any such high-flying metaphysical thesis?

In the four sentences that begin his article, Rhoda has two platitudes sandwiched between two metaphysical claims. This gives the impression that the metaphysical claims are supported by the platitudes. My point is that the platitudes, though consistent with the metaphysical theory, give it no aid and comfort.

Compare the problem of universals: It is a Moorean fact that my coffee cup is blue and that I see the blueness at the cup. But this datum neither supports nor disqualifies the metaphysical theory that blueness is a universal, nor does it either support or disqualify the competing metaphysical theory that the blueness is a particular, a trope. Neither common sense, nor ordinary language analysis, nor phenomenology can resolve the dispute. Dialectical considerations must be brought to bear. It is common sense that things have properties. That they are, common sense is equipped to establish; what they are, however, common sense leaves wide open.

It is the same in the philosophy of time. Dialectical considerations must be brought to bear. JFK existed. It is true now that he existed. Indeed, it is true now that he actually existed. If there are merely possible past individuals, JFK is not one of them: he is an actual past individual. What's more, JFK really existed: he existed outside of people's minds. He was never imaginary or purely fictional. If you meditate carefully on these points you should be able to appreciate how dubious, if not preposterous, is the claim that only what exists now exists simpliciter. The past is not nothing; the past was.

The case against presentism is strong. In fact, I hold that presentism cannot be true. Must I then be an 'eternalist'? Why? Both positions might be untenable. And this could be case even if they are logical contradictories. We would then be up against an aporia in the strict sense. But I don't go that far now.

Consider the gladiatorial combats in Rome. They are a thing of the past. That is a truism. They are no longer occurring. That too is a truism. But to say, with the presentist, that what no longer occurs is nothing at all, is not truistic but highly dubious if not preposterous. Or will you tell me that the historians of ancient Rome have no subject matter? On the other hand, the battles are not still going on, the besotted Romans drunk with blood lust are not still roaring, the gladiators are not still expiring in anguish. So in what sense are the gladiators, their doings and sufferings actual? How can anything wholly past be actual? How can an event such as a beheading, whose mode of being is to occur, and thus elapse over time, occur tenselessly or timelessly?

This is but a sketch of the intricacies of the dialectic that envelops the presentist and the eternalist. The 'present' point is that common sense plays no role in deciding between them. In particular, and pace my friend Alan Rhoda, presentism cannot rightfully draw upon the support of common sense.

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 any horrendous evil.

2) If there is a solution to the problem of evil, it must entail that God eventually defeats evil and, to defeat evil, God must not only compensate the victims of evil but destroy evil's existence.

3) If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist, even if they do not exist now.

4) But this implies that a horrendous evil that occurred in, say, 1994 (the Rwandan genocide, for example) still exists. Not only that, it will always exist. As will every other horrendous evil throughout human history.

5) God may be able to vanquish evil at the eschaton, but all of the horrendous evils will persist throughout all eternity. Even while the blessed are enjoying heaven, the horrendous evils will continue to exist. All of the past evils will remain real and hence undefeated, even if God can assure that no further evil will occur post-eschaton.

6) So God ultimately cannot vanquish evil if presentism is false.

7) Therefore, God doesn't exist if presentism is false.

The problem is with (3). If presentism is not true, then presumably eternalism is true. Presentism is the view that only temporally present items (times, events, . . .) exist. That is, everything that exists exists at present. On eternalism, this is not the case: past and future items also exist. Now for these two views to be contradictory, 'exist(s)' must be used in the same sense. But what sense is that? It cannot be the present-tensed sense because that would reduce presentism to a tautology and eternalism to a contradiction. How so?

Well, 'Everything that exists (present tense) exists at present' is a trivial logical truth devoid of metaphysical import. On the other hand, 'Past, present, and future items all exist (present tense)' is logically contradictory since wholly past and wholly future items are not temporally present. Presentism and eternalism are substantive metaphysical theses that contradict each other only if 'exist(s)' is taken tenselessly.

Now glance back at (3). It reads, in part, "If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist . . . " This is arguably a presentist misunderstanding of what the eternalist is saying. 'Still exists' means 'existed and exists (present tense).' That is not what the eternalist is saying. He is not saying, for example, that the gladiatorial combat in the Coliseum is still going on. He is saying that past events, i.e., events earlier than his speaking, exist simpliciter, i. e., tenselessly, whatever that comes to.

Note also that if past events still exist, then they do exist now, which contradicts the rest of (3): " . . . even if they do not exist now."

So Schneider's argument needs some work.

My view is that both eternalism and presentism are fraught with insuperable difficulties. Using either for theological purposes is not likely to get us anywhere.

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 how to avoid triviality and tautology. After all, (P) is a miserable tautology if 'exists' is present-tensed. It is clear that the typical presentist does not consider the thesis to be a tautology. It is also clear that there is a difference, albeit one hard to articulate, between presentism and the various types of anti-presentism. Consider the difference between presentism and eternalism. The presentist holds that only present items exist whereas the eternalist holds that past, present, and future items exist. The disagreement obviously presupposes agreement as to what is meant by 'exists.' There is a substantive metaphysical dispute here, and our task is to formulate the dispute in precise terms. This will involve clarifying the exact force of 'exists' in (P). If not present-tensed, then what?

A similar problem arises for the actualist. One is very strongly tempted to say that to exist is to be actual. If 'exists' in (A) means 'is actual,' however, then (A) is a tautology. But if 'exists' in (A) does not mean 'is actual,' what does it mean?

We seem to have agreed that Disjunctive Presentism is a nonstarter:

DP. Only present items existed or exists or will exist.

This is equivalent to saying that if x existed or x exists or x will exist, then x presently exists. And this is plainly false. Now corresponding to the temporal modi past, present, and future, we have the modal modi necessary, actual, and merely possible. This suggests Disjunctive Actualism:

DA. Only the actual necessarily exists or actually exists or merely-possibly exists.

This too is false since the merely possible is not actual. It is no more actual than the wholly future is present.

We must also bear in the mind that neither the presentist nor the actualist intends to say something either temporally or modally 'solipsistic.' Thus the presentist is not making the crazy claim that all that ever happened or ever will happen is happening right now. He is not saying that all past-tensed and future-tensed propositions are either false or meaningless and that the only true propositions are present-tensed and true right now. The presentist, in other words, is not a solipsist of the present moment.

Similarly with the actualist. He is not a solipsist of this world. He is not saying that everything possible is actual and everything actual is necessary. The actualist is not a modal monist or a modal Spinozist who maintains that there is exactly one possible world, the actual world which, in virtue of being actual and the only one possible, is necessary. The actualist is not a necessitarian.

There is no person like me, but I am not the only person. There is no place like here, but here is not the only place. There is no time like now, but now is not the only time.

In sum, for both presentism and actualism, tautologism, disjunctivism, and solipsism are out! What's left?

To formulate presentism it seems we need a notion of tenseless existence, and to formulate actualism we need a notion of amodal existence (my coinage).

We can't say, on pain of tautology, that only the present presently exists, and of course we cannot say that only the present pastly or futurally exists. So the presentist has to say that only the present tenselessly exists.

What do I mean by amodal existence? Consider the following 'possible worlds' definitions of modal terms:

Necessary being: one that exists in all possible worlds
Impossible being: one that exists in no possible world
Possible being: one that exists in some and perhaps all possible worlds
Contingent being: one that exists in some but not all possible worlds
Merely possible being: one that exists in some possible worlds but not in the actual world
Actual being: one that exists in the actual world
Unactual being: one that exists either in no possible world or not in the actual world.

In each of these definitions, the occurrence of 'exists' is modally neutral analogously as 'exists' is temporally neutral in the following sentences:

It was the case that Tom exists
It is now the case that Tom exists
It will be the case that Tom exists.

My point, then, is that the proper formulation of actualism (as opposed to possibilism) requires an amodal notion of existence just as the proper formulation of presentism requires an atemporal (tenseless) notion of existence.

But are the atemporal and amodal notions of existence free of difficulty? This is what we need to examine. Can the requisite logical wedges be driven between existence and the temporal determinations and between existence and the modal determinations? If not then presentism and actualism cannot even be formulated and the respective problems threaten to be pseudo-problems.

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 work, it is the fictional ironic letters written to a junior officer in Satan’s army with instructions on how to corrupt the particular human assigned to this junior tempter. Although geared to higher spiritual matters, here and there are passages of great perception about modern ideology. Like this one from Chapter 15, which illuminates the malignancy of Progressivism’s fixation on “the Future” and the “side of history” that they always want to help move along at a faster pace:

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. . . It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men’s affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.

To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too — just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future — haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth — ready to break the Enemy’s commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other — dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

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 die, but your having lived will never die. But how paltry the ersatz eternity of time's progeny! Time has made you and she will unmake you. In compensation, she allows your having been to rise above the reach of the flux. Thanks a lot, bitch! You are one mater dolorosa whose consolation is as petty as your penance is hard.

………………….

The entry above, posted 10 March 2010, caught the sharp eye of Alan Rhoda who isolated the animating tense-logical principle:

You here express the tense-logical idea that p–>FPp, that if something is the case, then it will thereafter always be the case that it has been the case. In Latin, facta infecta fieri non possunt.

Believe it or not, this has been denied, by the famous Polish logician Lukasiewicz, no less. He seems to have accepted a version of presentism according to which (1) all (contingent) truths depend for their truth on what presently exists, and (2) what presently exists need not include anything that suffices to pick out a unique prior sequence of events as "the" actual past. Accordingly, truths about the past may cease to be true as the passage of time obliterates the traces of past events. Lukasiewicz apparently found this a comforting thought:

"There are hard moments of suffering and still harder ones of guilt in everyone’s life. We should be glad to be able to erase them not only from our memory but also from existence. We may believe that when all the effects of those fateful moments are exhausted, even should that happen only after our death, then their causes too will be effaced from the world of actuality and pass into the realm of possibility. Time calms our cares and brings us forgiveness." (Jan Lukasiewicz, "On Determinism" in Selected Works, ed. L. Borkowski, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1970, p. 128.)

This is an amazing passage from Lukasiewicz both because of his denial of what strikes me and Rhoda as a self-evident axiom of tense logic and because of the consolation he derives from its denial. (Is it really consolation if that from which it derives is false?)

I myself find it very hard to believe that there wasn't a unique actual past. And I find it impossible to believe that, with the passage of enough time, past events will somehow go from being actual to being merely possible.

What Lukasiewicz is maintaining is really quite preposterous. He is saying, in effect, that a past-tensed truth such as 'Poland was invaded by Hitler's Wehrmacht on 1 September 1939,' which is true now, and was true at every time after the event, will cease to be true in the future when all of the presently existing traces of the invasion have been obliterated. And surely such a time will come. When our sun goes supernova . . . .

Lukasiewicz is assuming that (a) contingent past-tensed truths need truth-makers, but (b) the only available truth-makers are presently existing causal traces of the events recorded by the past-tensed truths. (B) is a consequence of presentism, roughly, the view in the philosophy of time according to which the temporally present alone exists simpliciter, which implies that wholly past and wholly future times and events do not exist, and are now nothing at all. If so, actual past events and merely possible past events are on an equal ontological footing.

But to me it seems obvious, a plain datum, that there is an importance ontological difference between a past event such as Kierkegaard's engagement to Regine Olsen, and a merely possible (past) event such as his marriage to her. Now that datum tells against presentism — unless you bring God into the picture.

This is what Rhoda does in an excellent article of his, Presentism, Truthmakers, and God.

Abstract: The truthmaker objection to presentism (the view that only what exists now exists simpliciter) is that it lacks sufficient metaphysical resources to ground truths about the past. In this paper I identify five constraints that an adequate presentist response must satisfy. [. . .] Consideration of how these responses fail, however, points toward a proposal that works, one that posits God’s memories as truthmakers for truths about the past. I conclude that presentists have, in the truthmaker objection, considerable incentive to endorse theism.

But if we don't put God to work, or find other ways to supply presently existing truth-makers for past-tensed truths, and want to hold to presentism, then we are stuck with the preposterous view that the passage of time will not only erase individual and collective memory of past events, but will also erase the events themselves, and, to add to the absurdity, transform their modal status from actual to merely possible.

The past is a realm of fact, not fiction, actuality, not mere possibility. What was. actually was, and will remain actual even though it is no longer present. The passage of time cannot alter the past. You may hope that your transgressions will be forgotten, but one cannot reasonably hope that they will cease to be. The waters of Lethe merely hide the past from view; they do not undo the past.

As for consolation, I hope we can agree that a view's being consoling or the opposite is irrelevant to the question whether it is true. If Lukasiewicz found consolation in his doctrine, that is no indicator of its truth since a doctrine doesn't have to be true to be consoling. It merely has to be believed. And if consolation were the touchstone of truth, then, the contradictory consolation deriving from p–>FPp would would cancel it out.

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 and this world be if in a little while we all will be nothing but dust and ashes?

Genesis 3, 19 is true whether or not God exists and whether or not man is spirit.

The typical secularist is a reality denier who hides from the unalterable facts of death and impermanence. This is shown by his self-deceptive behavior: he lives as if he will live forever and as if his projects are meaningful even though he knows that he won't and that they aren't. If he were to face reality he would have to be a nihilist. That he isn't shows that he is fooling himself. If our secularist is a leftist utopian, then he pins his hopes on developments no reasonable person could believe in, and that he won't be around to enjoy in any case. His erasure of the historical record allows him to persist in his self-deception. The Left is at war with memory and its lessons.

I will be coming back to this theme in connection with Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies (Encounter Books, 2018). A quotation to tantalize: "Communism, as a system that started history anew, had to be, in essence, and in practice, against memory." (9) We saw that play out in our cities last summer, as the Left stood idly by, and in many instances encouraged, the destruction of statues and other monuments for reasons that are no reasons at all but nihilistic ventings from the pit.

Our plesance here is all vain glory,
This fals world is but transitory,
The flesche is brukle, the Feynd is slee;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

No stait in Erd here standis sicker;
As with the wynd wavis the wicker,
Wavis this wardlis vanitie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

(William Dunbar c. 1460 — c. 1520, from "Lament for the Makers.")

Here lie I by the chancel door;
They put me here because I was poor.
The further in, the more you pay,
But here lie I as snug as they.

(Devon tombstone.)

Here lies Piron, a complete nullibiety,
Not even a Fellow of a Learned Society.

Alexis Piron, 1689-1773, "My Epitaph"

Why hoard your maidenhead? There'll not be found
A lad to love you, girl, under the ground.
Love's joys are for the quick; but when we're dead
It's dust and ashes, girl, will go to bed.

(Asclepiades, fl. 290 B.C., tr. R. A. Furness)

The world, perhaps, does not see that those who rightly engage in
philosophy study only death and dying. And, if this be true, it
would surely be strange for a man all through his life to desire
only death, and then, when death comes to him, to be vexed at it,
when it has been his study and his desire for so long.

Plato, Phaedo, St. 64, tr. F. J. Church

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 . . . ." ("Presentism and Relativity," 137) Lowe insists more than once that the italicized phrases are to be taken seriously and literally: what passes out of existence is absolutely annihilated. A thing's ceasing to be present, and becoming (wholly) past is an existential change that reduces the thing to utter nonexistence.

What Lowe is telling us is that a correct metaphysics must take the ordinary language locution 'ceases to exist' to mean that what becomes wholly past becomes nothing at all. It cannot be taken to mean that what has become wholly past exists in some sense but at an earlier temporal location. For if that were so, the wholly past would not be absolutely annihilated. Similarly with other ordinary language expressions such as 'no longer exists.' For Lowe, what no longer exists is nothing at all. It has been annihilated by the passage of time.

One ought to find this puzzling. Scollay Square, to invoke my favorite example, did exist, and we know that it did. We also know that what did exist is different from what never existed. That is an obvious distinction that must be accommodated by any adequate theory of time. Can Lowe accommodate it?

Perhaps we can make some headway with this question by distinguishing between absolute and relative annihilation.

AA. X is absolutely annihilated by the passage of time iff said passage brings it about that x ceases to exist in such a way that after x ceases to exist there is no distinction between x's having existed and x's never having existed.

RA. X is relatively annihilated by the passage of time iff said passage brings it about that x, upon ceasing to exist, is nothing now or at present.

It seems to me that (AA) is what we ought to mean when we speak of absolute annihilation. For what the phrase suggests is a reduction to nonbeing that is unconditional. Absolute annihilation is the ultimate in annihilation. Imagine that there are no constraints, logical or non-logical, on divine power: God can do anything. If so, he can bring it about that Socrates never existed despite his having existed. God would then have the power, not to re-write history, but the power to 're-write' that of which history is the record. That would be a type of absolute annihilation.

Of course, I am not saying that God has this power, or that the passage of time has this power. I am not even saying that it is really possible that anything have this power of absolute annihilation. To the contrary! Given that Socrates existed, I say that there is no power on earth or in heaven that can 'undo' this fact. (Similarly for his having drunk the hemlock: given that he drank hemlock, there is no power that can bring it about that he never drank hemlock.) All I am saying is that (AA) is what we ought to mean by 'absolute annihilation' if we are to use that phrase seriously and precisely.

Given the above definition of 'absolute annihilation,' I say to Lowe: the passage of time, which we assume is mind-independently real in opposition to all B-theories of time, does not have the power of absolute annihilation; it has only the power of relative annihilation. I say this because I take it to be a non-negotiable datum that (i) what did exist is different from what never existed, and (ii) what did exist cannot be retroactively consigned to absolute nonexistence, and (iii) what ceases to exist, when it ceases to exist, does not become something that never existed. (Corollary: when a contingent being, and thus a possible being, ceases to exist, it does not, upon ceasing to exist, become an impossible being.)

So all Lowe is entitled to say is that what ceases to exist is relatively annihilated by the passage of time: said passage brings it about that the thing, upon ceasing to exist, is nothing now or at present. It is nothing now, but it was something yesterday, and so it cannot be the case that it is now nothing at all. It retains some sort of reality. It is difficult to say exactly in what the reality of the past consists; but the past is real. Lowe cannot accommodate the reality of the past.

The Argument Summarized

1) What was is not the same as what never was.
2) The wholly past was.
Therefore
3) It is not the case that the wholly past never was. (1,2)
4) If temporal passage brings about the absolute annihilation of the present and its contents, as per (AA), then it is the case that the wholly past never was.
Therefore
5) Temporal passage does not bring about the absolute annihilation of the present and its contents. (3, 4)
Therefore
6) Lowe's presentism is untenable: it is not the case that what passes out of existence is absolutely annihilated.
7) On the other hand, if the passage of time effects merely a relative annihilation of the present and its contents, as per (RA), then triviality results: if a thing, ceasing to exist, is relatively annihilated, then the thing is now nothing. But this is trivially true. If what exists, exists now, then the wholly past, which by definition does not exist now, does not exist.
Therefore
8) Lowe's presentism is either untenable or trivial.

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 interpretation mainly on "Presentism and Relativity: No Conflict" in Ciuni, et al. eds., New Papers on the Present (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2013, 133-152) and on "How Real is Substantial Change," The Monist, vol. 89, no. 3 (2006), 275-293. Page references in parentheses refer to the first article unless otherwise noted. All emphases are in the original.

1) Lowe insists on "The ontological primacy of present reality and the objective status of temporal passage." (133) These commitments justify calling him a presentist.

2) But he "repudiates [what he takes to be] the reification of time and 'times,' including the 'present moment' . . . ." (133) To reify is to treat as real what is not real. Lowe appears to be saying that there are no such items as times, and thus no such item as the present time. If so, one cannot quantify over times. This would seem to scotch fairly standard definitions or definition-schemata of 'presentism' along the following lines:

(P1) Always, only present items exist.

That is: every time is such that only what is non-relationally present at that time exists simpliciter.

3) The focus for Lowe is not on the present moment, but on the "fundamental reality of change . . . ." (133)

4) Change, however, is in every case "existence change — that is, the coming into or going out of existence of entities of one kind or another . . . ." (133) We are being told that all change is existential or substantial change. (See The Monist article cited above.) Now one kind of change is qualitative change as when a tomato goes from being green to being red. This can be understood to be a species of existence change if properties are assayed as tropes. The greenness trope in the tomato goes out of existence and a redness trope comes into existence while the tomato stays in existence. On this way of thinking, both the coming into existence of the tomato and its change of color are existential changes.

5) Objects (individual substances) change, but there are no events in addition to these changes. We need only the object and its tropes: we need no events such as the event of a leaf's turning brown. Furthermore, there is no event of a trope's going out of existence or coming into existence. If there were, a vicious infinite regress would ensue. (150) Events are "shadows cast by language rather than fundamental ingredients of temporal reality." (151) There are changes, but no events. I take Lowe to be saying that an event is an (illicit) reification of a change. If an animal dies, there is no such event as the animal's death in addition to the dead animal. There is just the animal which ceases to exist. (137)

6) Because there are no events, change cannot be ascribed to events. Because there is no such entity as my birth, my birth has no properties such as occurring at a certain place or being past. Because there are no events, no events change in their A-determinations, their monadic (non-relational) pastness, presentness, and futurity. There is thus no event, my birth, that was once future, then present, then past, and then ever more past. To think otherwise is to confuse events with objects, which amounts to a reification of events, an illicit treatment of them as if they are objects when all they could be are changes in objects.

7) It is not just that nothing has A-determinations; there are no such determinations to be had. McTaggart's A-determinations are pseudo-properties based on a "false analogy between events and objects." (136) There are no times, no events, and no A-determinations. This puts paid to McTaggart's claim that the A-series is contradictory, which is a key lemma in his overall argument for the unreality of time. That lemma requires that there be events and A-determinations. Very roughly, what McTaggart argues is that time is unreal because (i) time requires the A-series, but (ii) said series is contradictory in that each event has all three of the A-determinations. D. H. Mellor is a contemporary philosopher of time who accepts McTaggart's argument against the A-series, but concludes, not that time is unreal, but that time is exhausted by the B-series.

8) But if there are no events, then there is no B-series either. There is no series of events ordered by the so-called B-relations, earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with. This puts paid to the view of D. H. Mellor and others that real time (to allude to the title of Mellor's book) is exhausted by the B-series. For Lowe, then, there are no times, no events, no A-series, and no B-series.

9) For Lowe, time is objectively real; it is not unreal as on McTaggart's view, nor is it in any sense transcendentally ideal (Kant) or constituted in consciousness (Husserl). But it is not real in the manner of a container or a dimension. Time is just temporal passage. Since time is objectively real, temporal passage is also objectively real and in no way mind-dependent. Temporal passage "consists in the continual coming into and going out of existence of entities . . . ." (137) Lowe is referring to temporal entities only, those that are not timeless such as propositions. He has in mind objects (individual substances) such as a cat and its properties (assayed as tropes) such as being asleep. This ceaseless existential change is what temporal passage consists in. In sum, for Lowe, time = temporal passage = the ever ongoing creation and annihilation of entities.

As I read him, Lowe is not maintaining that to exist = to be temporally present tout court, but that for temporal items, to exist = to be temporally present. This makes him an existence presentist with respect to temporalia. Recall that for Lowe, all change is existential (substantial) change. See (4) supra.

10) We tend to think of time as the dimension of change, a fourth dimension in addition to the three spatial dimensions. We tend to assume that "time is a dimension in which reality as a whole is extended." (Monist, 283) If you think that objects persist by perduring, by having different temporal parts at different times, then you are making this assumption. But most, though not all, endurantists make the same assumption when they say that an object endures by being 'wholly present' at each time at which the object exists. Lowe denies that time is a dimension. For if there are no times ordered by the B-relations, earlier and later, then time is not a dimension. Reality is not temporally extended. Lowe seeks to uphold an endurantism that does not presuppose that time is a dimension.

11) Lowe's view of time is thoroughly dynamic by contrast with the static character of time on eternalism, and with the partially static and partially dynamic theories of Growing Block and Spotlight. The reality of time "consists simply in the reality of change . . . . (140) The latter "constitutes" temporal passage. This of course implies that without change, there is no time; but we can live with that. What's more, there are no events and there are no times, and so there is no present time. Lowe concludes that we need no account of what times are, and in particular, no "ersatzist" account of time in terms of abstract objects such as propositions. He is opposing views like that of Craig Bourne, for whom "a time is a set of propositions that states the other truths about what happens at that time." (A Future for Presentism, Oxford UP, 2006, 52.)

12) The view that all change is existential change commits Lowe to the view that properties of things in time are not universals but tropes or modes (particularized properties). These are not temporal parts of objects. (141) Tropes are therefore consistent with endurantism. Suppose that a changes from being F at t1 to G at t2. "We can continue to say that a itself exists at both t1 and t2 despite having no temporal parts, thus being, in that sense, 'wholly present' at both of these times." (141) I note in passing how Lowe helps himself to talk of times.

13) The object that has tropes is neither a bundle of tropes not a bare particular or substratum that supports them. The 'relation' between an object and its tropes is left unclear. (141).

14) Objects persist through changes in intrinsic properties. How? Change in intrinsic properties occurs when "monadic tropes" successively "come into and go out of existence while it (the object) stays in existence." (142)

15) Lowe's presentism: "When 'time passes' the content of reality itself changes — entities come into and go out of existence." This is intended "literally and absolutely." Going out of existence is absolute annihilation. (146) But then coming into existence would have to be creation out of nothing, would it not?

16) Yet "some things that exist today already existed yesterday." (146) For example, the very same person who exists and is 'wholly present' now also existed and was 'wholly present' yesterday. (146)

17) Only present objects and tropes exist. The sum-total of these entities is ever changing. What ceases to be present is annihilated. But not everything that exists at present is annihilated at the same time. Suppose Elliot, who was drunk yesterday, is sober today. Elliot yesterday co-existed with a D-trope, and Elliot today co-exists with an S-trope. The tropes, however, are not coexistent with each other since the D-trope was annihilated by the passage of time while the S-trope presently exists. Lowe's presentism thus implies the non-transitivity of co-existence. It also implies that, while temporal reality is ever created and annihilated by the passage of time, not everything is annihilated or created at the same time. The annihilation of Elliot's drunkenness left Elliot the object unscathed.