Category: Time and Change
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The Past Present
The past is gone, you say? But it has brought you to this fullness of life, this level of accomplishment, this richness of memory, and this wealth of experience. Thus is the past present.
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Ostrich Presentism
The following remark in Wittgenstein's Zettel seems to fit my sparring partner, Bad Ostrich, to a T. 456. Some philosophers (or whatever you like to call them) suffer from what may be called "loss of problems." (Problemverlust) Then everything seems quite simple to them, no deep problems seem to exist any more, the world become…
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“Only the Present Exists”
The above title gives the gist of presentism in the philosophy of time. It is an answer to Quine's ontological inventory question: What is there? What, by category, should we count as existent? The presentist answer is that only (temporally) present items exist: wholly past and wholly future items do not exist. Among these items…
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What is Time?
Si nemo a me querat, scio, si quarenti explicare velim, nescio. Augustinus (354-430), Confessiones, lib. XI, cap. 14. Maximae res, cum parvis quaeruntur, magnos eos solent efficere. Augustinus, Contra Academicos, 1. 2. 6 Time is a tangle of the most elusive and difficult topics in philosophy. For a mere mortal to grapple with any of…
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Feser on Vallicella on Feser on the Truth-Maker Objection to Presentism
I argued in my first critical installment that Edward Feser in his stimulating new book, Aristotle's Revenge, does not appreciate the force of the truth-maker objection to presentism in the philosophy of time. Ed's response to me is here. I thank Ed for his response. Herewith, my counter-response. So, as I say, I don’t think the…
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Is the Past Wholly Determinate? Edward Feser’s Presentism, Part III
This is the third in a series. Part I here; Part II here. On the principle of bivalence, every proposition is either true, or if not true, then false. Given that bivalence holds for what presently exists, it is difficult to see how it could fail to hold for what did exist. Why should the…
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Presentism and Existence-Entailing Relations: A Problem and Feser’s Solution
The is is the second installment in my critique of Edward Feser's defense of presentism in his latest book, Aristotle's Revenge. Here is Part I of the critique. ……………………………………. It is plausibly maintained that all relations are existence-entailing. To illustrate from the dyadic case: if R relates a and b, then both a and b…
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Existence Simpliciter
Here is London Ed, recently returned from his African sojourn, raising some good questions anent my entry, A Critique of Edward Feser's Defense of Presentism, Part I: >> the presentist idea is not adequately captured by saying that wholly past items no longer exist, since all who understand English will agree to that. The presentist…
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A Critique of Edward Feser’s Defense of Presentism, Part I
Ed Feser very kindly sent me a copy of his latest book, Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science (Editiones Scholasticae, 2019). As I noted in my journal: Synchronicity. Feser's latest book, with its section on time and its defense of presentism, has arrived at just the right time — as I…
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Presentism: A Bit of Discussion with Dale Tuggy
The topic of presentism in the philosophy of time came up during Dale Tuggy's visit last weekend. Dale anounced that he's a presentist. So I pressed him a bit. I had him consider some such grammatically past-tensed truth as 'JFK was assassinated.' This sentence is contingently true and indeed contingently true at present. Although the…
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On Ceasing to Exist: An Aporetic Tetrad
John F. Kennedy ceased to exist in November of 1963. (Assume no immortality of the soul.) But when a thing ceases to exist, it does not cease to be an object of reference or a subject of predicates. If this were not the case, then it would not be true to say of JFK that…
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Excluded Middle, Presentism, Truth-Maker: An Aporetic Triad
Suppose we acquiesce in the conflation of Excluded Middle and Bivalence. The conflation is not unreasonable. Now try this trio on for size: Excluded Middle: Every proposition is either true, or if not true, then false.Presentism: Only what exists at present, exists.Truth-Maker: Every contingent truth has a truth-maker. The limbs of the triad are individually…
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From the B-Theory of Time to Eternalism
What is time? Don't ask me, and I know. Ask me, and I don't know. (St. Augustine) This post sketches, without defending, one theory of time, the B-theory of time, and shows how it sires the position in temporal ontology called 'eternalism.' On the B-Theory of time, real or objective time is exhausted by what…
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Presentism Misunderstood
One misunderstanding floated in the Facebook Medieval Logic forum is that presentism in the current analytic philosophy of time is the thesis that 'exists' and 'is present' are synonyms. Not at all. It is obvious that 'exists' and 'is present' do not have the same meaning or sense. If I say that God exists, I…
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Presentism and Bodily Resurrection
Are presentism and bodily resurrection logically compatible? Edward Buckner wonders about this. He got me wondering about it. So let me take a stab at sorting it out. The Resurrection of the Body I will assume the traditional doctrine of the resurrection according to which (i) resurrection is resurrection of the (human) body, and (ii)…