Time and Change – Page 9 – Maverick Philosopher

Defining Presentism

I concede to London Ed that it is not clear what exactly the thesis of presentism is. There is no point in considering objections to it until we are sure what the thesis comes to. The rough idea is of course easy to convey: only temporally present items exist. This is more plausible under restriction to items 'in time' where the eternal God and abstracta such as Fregean propositions are not 'in time.' The rough idea, then, is that only present contingent concreta exist. This implies that a wholly past contingent concretum such as Socrates does not exist.

But how are we to take 'exist' in the last two sentences? As present-tensed? Then both sentences are trivially true. Surely no philosopher who calls himself a presentist intends

Tautological Presentism: Only present contingent concreta exist at present.

And of course he doesn't intend

Timeless Presentism: Only present contingent concreta exist timelessly.

For that implies that if x is a timeless contingent concretum, then x is temporally present.

But the clear-headed presentist must also, in his formulation of his thesis, avoid giving aid and
comfort to the absurdity that could be called 'solipsism of the present moment.' (I borrow the phrase from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Simon and Schuster 1948, p. 181.) To wit,

SPM Presentism: Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter; nothing existed and nothing will exist.

The idea behind (SPM) is decidedly counterintuitive if not insane. To illustrate, consider James Dean who died on September 30th, 1955. It is a Moorean fact that Dean existed but no longer exists. (Alter the example to Dean's car if you hold to the immortality of the soul.) It is a Moorean fact that there actually was this actor, that he was not a mere possibility or a fictional being or nothing at all. But this plain fact is incompatible with SPM-Presentism.

Another possibility is

Disjunctive Presentism: Only present contingent concreta existed or exist or will exist.

Disjunctive Presentism seems objectionable because, e.g., Scollay Square existed, but does not now.

What about

Tenseless Presentism: Only present contingent concreta tenselessly exist.

Now the problem is to explain that 'tenselessly exist' means if it does not mean 'timelessly exist' or 'did exist, does exist, or will exist.'

Ned Markosian defines presentism as the view that, "necessarily, it is always true that only present objects exist." (here, fn 1) This is not helpful since we are not told how to read 'exist.' The Triviality Objection threatens to kick in. And how are we to understand, "it is always true"? If this involves quantifying over times, then anti-presentism is let in through the back door. If there is a manifold of equally real/existent times, then presentism cannot be true of these times.

Time and Tense: Remarks on the B-Theory

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.

On the B-Theory of time, real or objective time is exhausted by what J. M. E. McTaggart called the B-series, the series of times, events, and individuals ordered by the B-relations (earlier than, later than, simultaneous with). If the B-theory is correct, then our ordinary sense that events approach us from the future, arrive at the present, and then recede into the past is at best a mind-dependent phenomenon. For on the B-theory, there are no such irreducible monadic A-properties as futurity, presentness and pastness. There is just a manifold of tenselessly existing events ordered by the B-relations. Time does not pass or flow, let alone fly. There is no temporal becoming. My birth is not sinking into the past, becoming ever more past, nor is my death approaching from the future, getting closer and closer. Tempus fugit does not express a truth about reality. At best, it picks out a truth about our experience of reality.

If there is no temporal becoming in reality, then change is not a becoming different or a passing away or a coming into being. When a tomato ripens, it doee not become ripe: it simply is unripe at certain times and is ripe at certain later times. And when it cease to exist, it doesn't pass away: it simply is at certain times and is not at certain later times.

Employing a political metaphor, one could say that a B-theorist is an egalitarian about times and the events at times: they are all equal in point of reality. Accordingly, my blogging now is no more real (but also no less real) than Socrates' drinking the hemlock millenia ago. Nor is it more real than my death which, needless to say, lies in the future. Each time is present at itself, but no time is present, period. And each time (and the events at it) exists relative to itself, but no time exists absolutely.

This is not to say that the B-theorist does not have uses for 'past,' 'present,' and 'future.' He can speak with the vulgar while thinking with the learned. Thus a B-theorist can hold that an utterance at time t of 'E is past' expresses the fact that E is earlier than t. An old objection is that this does not capture the meaning of 'E is past.' For the fact that E is earlier than t, if true, is always true; while 'E is past' is true only after E. This difference in truth conditions shows a difference in meaning. The B-theorist can respond by saying that his concern is not with semantics but with ontology. His concern is with the reality, or rather the lack of reality, of tense, and not with the meanings of tensed sentences or sentences featuring A-expressions. The B-theorist can say that, regardless of meaning, what makes it true that E is past at t is that E is earlier than t, and that, in mind-independent reality, nothing else is needed to make 'E is past' uttered at t true.

Compare 'BV is hungry' and 'I am hungry' said by BV. The one is true if and only if the other is. But the two sentences differ in meaning. The first, if true, is true no matter who says it; but the second is true only if asserted by someone who is hungry. Despite the difference in meaning, what makes it true that I am hungry (assertively uttered by BV) is that BV is hungry. In sum, the B-theorist need not be committed to the insupportable contention that A-statements are translatable salva significatione into B-statements.

The B-theorist, then, denies that the present moment enjoys any temporal or existential privilege. Every
time is temporally present to itself such that no time is temporally present simpliciter. This temporal egalitarianism entails a decoupling of existence and temporal presentness. There just is no irreducible monadic property of temporal presentness; hence existence cannot be identified with it. To exist is to exist tenselessly. The B-theory excludes presentism according to which there is a genuine, irreducible, property of temporal presentness and existence is either identical or logically equivalent to this property. Presentism implies that only the temporally present is real or existent. If to exist is to exist now, then the past and future do not exist, not jusdt now (which is trivial) but at all.

Please note that the B-theory is incompatible not only with presentism, but with any theory that is committed to irreducible A-properties. Thus the B-theory rules out 'pastism,' the crazy theory that only the past exists and 'futurism,' the crazy view that only the future exists. It also rules out the sane view that only the past and the present exist, and the sane view that the past, present, and future exist.

Why be a B-theorist? McTaggart has a famous argument according to which the monadic A-properties lead to contradiction. We should examine that argument in a separate post.

Which is the Hardest of the Philosophical Subdisciplines?

Without a doubt, the philosophy of time. The philosophy of mind is a piece of cake by comparison. According to a story, possibly apocryphal, Peter van Inwagen was once asked why he didn't publish on time. "Too hard," was his reply. If it is too hard for van Inwagen, it is hard. According to Hugh McCann, "Few subjects in philosophy are as difficult, as exasperating even, as the subject of time, for few elements in our experience are so inherently enigmatic." (Creation and the Sovereignty of God, p. 68)

This puts me in mind of perhaps the stupidest commercial of the '80s: "Man invented time. Seiko perfected it." Stupid but stimulating: how many fallacies can you spot?

Can a Thing Exist Without Existing Now?

Clearly, a thing can exist without existing here. The Washington Monument exists but not in my backyard. Accordingly, 'x exists here' can be split up as follows:

1. x exists here iff (i) x exists & (ii) x is in the vicinity of the speaker.

It seems pretty obvious that existence and the indexical property of hereness are different properties if you want to call them properties.

A much more difficult question is whether a thing can exist without existing now. Is it true that:

2. x exists now iff (i) x exists & (ii) x is temporally present?

Clearly, we can prise apart the existence of a (spatially located) thing and its hereness. Anyone who maintained that to exist = to be here we would deem either crazy or not conversant with the English language, a sort of 'local yokel' in excelsis. But can we prise apart the existence of a thing and its temporal presentness? Is there a real distinction between the existence of a thing and its temporal presentness?

A. A negative answer will be returned by the presentist who maintains that only the temporally present exists. He will maintain that what no longer exists and what does not yet exist does not now exist, and therefore does not exist at all.

Note that it ought to be is perfectly obvious to anyone who understands English that what no longer exists and what does not yet exist does not now exist. What is not at all obvious is the part after 'therefore' in the sentence before last. It is not at all obvious that an individual or event or time that is wholly past or wholly future does not exist at all.

B. An affirmative answer will be returned by all those who reject presentism. Some will reject presentism on the ground that abstracta exist, but are not in time at all, and so cannot be said to exist now. A presentist can accommodate this point by restricting his thesis:

Restricted Presentism: Necessarily, only temporally present concreta exist.

Nevertheless, the anti-presentist will insist that there are past and perhaps also future concreta that exist but do not exist now. Scollay Square, for example, no longer exists. But that it not to say that it is now nothing. After all, we still refer to it and say true things about it. It is true, for example, that my father visited Scollay Square while on shore leave during WW II on a break from service on destroyer escorts in the North Atlantic. So it is true that a a sailor who no longer exists visited a place that no longer exists and was involved in events that no longer exist. It also true that Scollay Square had been demolished by the time I arrived in Boston in 1973. I can now argue as follows:

1. Various predicates (e.g., is remembered by some Bostonians) are true of Scollay Square.
2. Scollay Square does not exist now.
3. If x does not exist, then no predicate is true of x.
Therefore
4. Scollay Square exists. (From 1 and 3)
Therefore
5. Scollay Square exists but is not temporally present. (From 2 and 4)
Therefore
6. Restricted Presentism is false.

I think there are three ways to attack this argument: (a) reject one or more of the premises; (b) find fault with the reasoning; (c) complain that it is not clear what Restricted Presentism amounts to.

Have at it, boys.

Caesar Is No More: The Aporetics of Reference to the Past

Here is London Ed's most recent version of his argument in his own words except for one word I added in brackets:

1. There is no such thing as Caesar any more.

2. The predicate 'there is no such thing as — any more' is satisfied by
Caesar.

3. If a relation obtains [between] x and y, then there is such a thing as y.

4. (From 2) the relation 'is satisfied by' obtains between the predicate '–
is not a thing any more' and Caesar.

5. (3, 4) There is such a thing as Caesar.

6. (1, 5) contradiction.

Premiss (1) is Moorean. There is no longer any such thing or person as Caesar. (Or if you dispute that for reason of immortality of Caesar, choose some mortal or perishable object). (2) is a theoretical. (3) is a logical truth, and the rest is also logic. You must choose between (1) and (2), i.e. choose between
a Moorean truth, and a dubious theoretical assumption.

(1) is indeed 'Moorean,' i.e., beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. (2) is indeed theoretical inasmuch as it involves an optional albeit plausible parsing in the Fregean manner of the Moorean sentence.

Ed tells us that (3) is a logical truth. I deny that it is. A logical truth is a proposition true in virtue of its logical form alone. 'Every cat is a cat' is an example of a logical truth as are 'No cat is a non-cat' and 'Either Max is a cat or Max is not a cat.' One can test for logical truth by negating the proposition to be tested. If the result is a logical contradiction, then the proposition is a logical truth. For example, if we negate 'Every cat is a cat' we get 'Some cat is not a cat.' The latter sentence is a logical contradiction, so the former sentence is a logical truth. The latter is a logical contradiction because its logical form — Some F is not an F — has only false substitution-instances.

Negating (3) yields 'A relation obtains between x and y, but there is no such thing as y.' But this is not a logical contradiction in the strict and narrow sense defined above. Suppose I am thinking about the Boston Common which, unbeknownst to me, ceases to exist while I am thinking about it. I stand in the 'thinking about' relation to the Common during the whole period of my thinking despite the fact that at the end of the period there is no such thing as the Boston Common. There are philosophers who hold that the intentional relation is a genuine relation and not merely relation-like as Brentano thought, and that in some cases it relates an existing thinker to a nonexisting object.

Now there are good reasons to reject this view as false, but surely it is not false as a matter of formal logic. If it is false, it is false as a matter of metaphysics. A philosopher such as Reinhardt Grossmann who holds that the intentional relation is a genuine relation that sometimes relates an existent thinker to a nonexistent object is not contradicting himself.

Since (3) is not a logical truth, one way to solve Ed's problem is by rejecting (3) and holding that there are genuine relations that relate the existent to the nonexistent. One could hold that the relation of satisfaction is such a genuine relation: it relates the existing predicate to the nonexistent emperor: Caesar satisfies the predicate despite his nonexistence.

Note that I am not advocating this solution to the puzzle; I am dismissing Ed's dismissal of this putative solution. I am rejecting Ed's claim that one is forced to choose between (1) and (2). One can avoid the contradiction by denying (3), and one is not barred from doing so by logic alone.

Ed claims that (1) and (5) are logical contradictories. But they are not. Just look carefully at both propositions and you will see. Ed thinks they are contradictories because he assumes that 'There is no such thing as y any more' is logically equivalent to 'There is no such thing as y.' But to make that assumption is to to assume the substantive metaphysical thesis known in the trade as

Presentism: Necessarily, only temporally present concrete objects exist.

Given Presentism, (1) and (5) are indeed contradictory. This is why I said earlier that Ed's argument cannot get off the ground without Presentism. For suppose we reject Presentism in favor of the plausible view that both past and present concreta exist, i.e., are within the range of our unrestricted quantifiers. Then Ed's puzzle dissolves. For then there is such a thing as Caesar, it is just that he is past. The relation of satisfaction connects a present item with a past item both of which exist. Or, since Ed is allergic to 'exist': both of which are such that there such things as them.

So a second way to solves Ed's puzzle is by rejecting the Presentism that he presupposes.

So I count at least three ways of solving Ed's puzzle: reject (2), reject (3), reject the tacit assumption of Presentism which is needed for (1) and (5) to be contradictory.

My inclination is to say that the puzzle is genuine, but insoluble. And this because the putative solutions sire puzzles as bad as the one we started with. Of course, I haven't proven this. But this is what my metaphilosophy tells me must be the case.

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?

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.

More here.

You Are Going to Die.

Substance and Accident: The Aporetics of Inherence

1.If substance S exists and accident A exists, it does not follow that A inheres in S. An accident cannot exist without existing in some substance or other, but if A exists it does not follow that A exists in S. If redness is an accident, it cannot exist except in some substance; but if all we know is that redness exists and that Tom exists, we cannot validly infer that Tom is red, i.e., that redness inheres in Tom.

2. So if A inheres in S, this inherence is something in addition to the existence of S and the existence of A. There is more to Tom's being red than Tom and redness. We must distinguish three items: S, A, and the tie of inherence. S and A are real (mind-independent) items. Presumably the tie of inherence is as well. Presumably we don't want to say that A inheres in S in virtue of a mental synthesis on our part.

3. My question: what is inherence? What is the nature of this tie? That the accident of a substance is tied to it, and indeed necessarily tied to it, is clear. The nature, not the existence, of the tie is what is in question.

4. Inherence is not an external relation on pain of Bradley's regress.

5. Inherence is not identity. This was argued earlier.

6. A is not a part of S. This too was argued earlier.

7. Is S a part of A? For Brentano, an accident is a whole a proper part of which is the substance itself — but there is no other proper part in addition to the substance! Every part of the accident is either the substance or a part of the substance. This I find bizarre. Suppose a chocolate bar is both brown and sticky. What distinguishes the brownness accident from the stickiness accident if both have as sole proper part the chocolate bar? (For a very clear exposition of Brentano's theory, see R. Chisholm, "Brentano's Theory of Substance and Accident" in his Brentano and Meinong Studies.)

8. I made a similar suggestion, namely, that S is a part of A, except that I assayed accidents as akin to facts. This has its own difficulties.

9. Here is Dr. Novak's scholastic suggestion:

I take the connexion between S and A to be that of a receptive potency and its corresponding act. S contains an intrinsic relation of "informability" to all its possible accidents, and A contains an intrinsic relation of informing toward S. Together these two constitute an accidental whole of which they are not just parts but complementary intrinsic causes: S is its material cause and A its formal cause. They are unified in jointly intrinsically co-causing the one accidental composite.

This implies that we must distinguish among three items: the substance (Peter, say), his accidents (being hot, being sunburned, being angry, being seated etc.) and various accidental wholes each composed of the substance and one accident.

So it seems that Novak is committed to accidental compounds such as [Socrates + seatedness] where Socrates is the material cause of the compound and seatedness the formal cause. Moreover, the substance has the potentiality to be informed in various ways, and each accident actualizes one such potentiality.

Recall that what we are trying to understand is accidental change. And recall that I agree with Novak that we cannot achieve a satisfactory analysis in terms of just a concrete particular, universals, and an exemplification relation. If Peter changes in respect of F-ness, and F-ness is a universal, then of course there are two times t and t* such that Peter exemplifies F-ness at t but does not exemplify F-ness at t*. But this is not sufficient for real accidental change in or at Peter. For the change is not relational but intrinsic to Peter. So, whether or not we need universals, we need a category of entities to help us explain real change. As Novak appreciates, these items must be particulars, not universals.

What we have been arguing about is the exact nature of these particulars. I suggested earlier that they are property-exemplifications. Novak on the basis of the above quotation seems to be suggesting that they are accidental compounds.

Suppose Socrates goes from seated to standing to seated again. In this case of accidental change we have one substance, three accidents, and three accidental compounds for a total of seven entities. Why three accidents instead of two? Because the second seatedness is numerically different from the first. (Recall Locke's principle that nothing has two beginnings of existence.) And because the second accident is numerically distinct from the first, the first and the third accidental compound are numerically distinct.

When Socrates stands up, [Socrates + seatedness] passes out of being and [Socrates + standingness] comes into being and stays in being until Socrates sits down again. So these accidental compounds are rather ephemeral objects, unlike Socrates.

Perhaps they help us understand change. But they raise their own questions. Socrates and seated-Socrates are not identical. Presumably they are accidentally the same. Is accidental sameness the same as contingent identity? What are the logical properties of accidental sameness? Is an Ockham's Razor type objection appropriately brought against the positing of accidental compounds?

Constituent Ontology and the Problem of Change: Can Relational Ontology Do Better?

Constituent ontologists would seem to have a serious problem accounting for accidental change. Suppose an avocado goes from unripe to ripe over a two day period. That counts as an accidental change: one and the same substance (the avocado) alters in respect of the accidental property of being unripe. It has become different qualitatively while remaining the same numerically.

This is a problem for constituent ontologists if C-ontologists are committed to what Michael J. Loux calls "Constituent Essentialism." ("What is Constituent Ontology?" Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, Ontos Verlag 2012, Novak et al. eds., p. 52) Undoubtedly, many of them are, if not all. Constituent Essentialism is the C-ontological analog of mereological essentialism. We can put it like this:

Constituent Essentialism: A thing has each of its ontological parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose an ontological part without ceasing to be same
thing.

Mereological Essentialism: A thing has each of its commonsense parts necessarily.
This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose a commonsense part without ceasing
to be the same thing.

To illustrate, suppose an ordinary particular (OP) such as our avocado is a bundle of compresent universals. The universals are the ontological parts of the OP as a whole. The first of the two principles entails that ordinary particulars cannot change. For accidental (alterational as opposed to existential) change is change in respect of properties under preservation of numerical diachronic identity. But preservation of identity is not possible on Constituent Essentialism. The simple bundle-of-universals theory is incompatible with the fact of change. But of course there are other types of C-ontology.

I agree with Loux that Constituent Essentialism is a "framework principle" (p. 52) of C-ontology. It cannot be abandoned without abandoning C-ontology. If an item (of whatever category) has ontological parts at all, then it is difficult to see how it could fail to have each and all of these parts essentially. And of course the fact of accidental change and what it entails, namely, persistence of the same thing over time, cannot be denied. So the 'argument from change' does seem to score against primitive versions of the bundle-of-universals theory.

I don't want to discuss whether more sophisticated C-ontological theories such as Hector Castaneda's Guise Theory escape this objection. I want to consider whether relational ontology does any better. I take relational ontology to imply that no item of any category has ontological parts. Thus R-ontology implies that no type of particular has ontological parts. A particular is just an unrepeatable. My cat Max is a particular and so are each of his material parts, and their material parts. If Max's blackness is an accident of him as substance, then this accident is a particular. The Armstrongian state of affairs of Max's being black is a particular. Mathematical sets are particulars. Particulars need not be concrete. Sets are abstract particulars in one sense of 'abstract.' Tropes are abstract particulars in another sense of 'abstract.' If an entity is not a particular, an unrepeatable, then it is a universal, a repeatable.

My question is whether we can explain real (as opposed to 'Cambridge') accidental change without positing particulars having ontological constituents. I will argue that we cannot, and that therefore R-ontology is untenable.

Lukas Novak presents an argument to the conclusion that the fact of accidental change requires the positing of particulars that have ontological constituents. Here is my take on Novak's argument:

Peter goes from being ignorant of the theorem of Pythagoras to being knowledgeable about it. This is an accidental change: one and the same concrete particular, Peter, has different properties at different times. Now a necessary condition of accidental change is that one and the same item have different properties at different times. But is it a sufficient condition? Suppose Peter is F at time t and not F at time t* (t* later than t). Suppose that F-ness is a universal but not a constituent of Peter and that Peter is F by exemplifying F-ness. Universals so construed are transcendent in the sense that they are not denizens of the world of space and time. They belong in a realm apart and are related, if they are related, to spatiotemporal particulars by the external relation of exemplification.

It follows on these assumptions that if Peter undergoes real accidental change that Peter goes from exemplifying the transcendent universal F-ness at t to not exemplifying it at t*. That is: he stands in the exemplification relation to F-ness at t, but ceases so to stand to t*. But there has to be more to the change than this. For, as Novak points out, the change is in Peter. It is intrinsic to him and cannot consist merely in a change in a relation to a universal in a realm apart. After all, transcendent universals do not undergo real change. Any change in such a universal is 'merely Cambridge' as we say in the trade. In other words, the change in F-ness when it 'goes' from being exemplified by Peter to not being exemplified by Peter is not a real change in the universal but a merely relational change. The real change in this situation must therefore be in or at Peter. For a real, not merely Cambridge, change has taken place.

Thus it seems to Novak and to me that, even if there are transcendent universals and ordinary concrete particulars, we need another category of entity to account for accidental change, a category that that I will call that of property-exemplifications. (We could also call them accidents. But we must not, pace Novak, call them tropes.) Thus Peter's being cold at t is a property-exemplification and so is Peter's not being cold at t*. Peter's change in respect of temperature involves Peter as the diachronically persisting substratum of the change, the universal coldness, and two property-exemplifications, Peter's being cold at t and Peter's being not cold at t*.

These property-exemplifications, however, are particulars, not universals even though each has a universal as a constituent. This is a special case of what Armstrong calls the Victory of Particularity: the result of a particular exemplifying a universal is a particular. Moreover, these items have natures or essences: it is essential to Peter's being cold that it have coldness as a constituent. (Thus Constituent Essentialism holds for these items. ) Hence property- exemplifications are particulars, but not bare particulars. They are not bare because they have natures or essences. Further, these property-exemplifications are abstract particulars in that they do not exhaust the whole concrete reality of Peter at a time. Thus Peter is not merely cold at a time, but has other properties besides.

It seems that the argument shows that there have to be these abstract particulars — we could call them accidents instead of property-exemplifications — if we are to account for real accidental change. But these partculars have constituents. Peter's coldness, for example, has Peter and coldness as constituents. It is a complex, not a simple. (If it were a simple, there would be nothing about it to tie it necessarily to Peter. Tropes are simples, so accidents are not tropes.) So it seems to me that what Novak has provided us with is an argument for C-ontology, for the view that the members of at least one category of entity have ontological constituents.

Loux's argument notwithstanding, a version of C-ontology seems to be required if we are to make sense of accidental change.

But how are accidents such as Peter's coldness connected or tied — to avoid the word 'related' — to a substance such as Peter?

First of all, an accident A of a substance S does not stand in an external relation to S — otherwise a Bradleyan regress arises. (Exercise for the reader: prove it.)

Second, A is not identical to S. Peter's coldness is not identical to Peter. For there is more to Peter than his being cold. So what we need is a tie or connection that is less intimate than identity but more intimate than an external relation. The part-whole tie seems to fit the bill. A proper part of a whole is not identical to the whole, but it is not externally related to it either inasmuch as wholes depend for their identity and existence on their parts.

Can we say that Peter's accidents are ontological parts of Peter? No. This would put the cart before the horse. Peter's coldness is identity- and existence-dependent on Peter. Peter is ontologically prior to his accidents. No whole, however, is ontologically prior to its parts: wholes are identity and existence-dependent on their parts. So the accidents of a substance are not ontological parts of it. But they have ontological parts. Strangely enough, if A is an accident of substance S, then S is an ontological part of A. Substances are ontological parts of their accidents! Brentano came to a view like this.

More on Brentano later. For now, my thesis is just that the fact of real accidental change requires the positing of particulars that have ontological constituents and that, in consequence, R-ontology is to be rejected. Constituent ontology vindicatus est.

Presentism Between Scylla and Charybdis

What better topic of meditation for New Year's Morn than the 'passage' of time. May the Reaper grant us all another year! "I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think." (Nietzsche)

…………..

If presentism is to be a defensible thesis, a 'presentable' one if you will, then it must avoid both the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of absurdity. Having survived these hazards, it must not perish of unclarity or inexpressibility.

Consider

1. Only what exists exists.

If 'exists' is used in the same way in both occurrences, then (1) is a miserable tautology and not possibly a bone of contention as between presentists and anti-presentists. Note that (1) is a tautology whether 'exists' is present-tensed in both occurrences or temporally unqualified (untensed) in both. To have a substantive thesis, the presentist must distinguish the present-tensed use of 'exist' from some other use and say something along the lines of

P. Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter.

This implies that what no longer exists does not exist simpliciter, and that what will exist does not exist simpliciter. It is trivial to say that what no longer exists does not presently exist, but this is not what the presentist is saying: he is is saying that what no longer exists does not exist period (full stop, simpliciter, at all, sans phrase, absolutely, pure and simple, etc.)

But the presentist must also, in his formulation of his thesis, avoid giving aid and comfort to the absurdity that could be called 'solipsism of the present moment.' (I borrow the phrase from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Simon and Schuster 1948, p. 181.) To wit,

SPM. Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter; nothing existed and nothing will exist.

The idea behind (SPM) is decidedly counterintuitive but cannot be ruled out by logic alone. To illustrate, consider James Dean who died on September 30th, 1955. Presentist and anti-presentist agree that Dean existed and no longer exists. (Alter the example to Dean's car if you hold to the immortality of the soul.) That is, both presentist and anti-presentist maintain that there actually was this actor, that he was not a mere possibility or a fictional being. The presentist, however, thinks that Dean does not exist at all (does not exist simpliciter) while the anti-presentist maintains that Dean does exist simpliciter, but in the past. In contrast to both,the present-moment solipsist holds that Dean never existed and for this reason does not exist at all. Thus there are three positions on past individuals. The presentist says that they do not exist at all or simpliciter. The anti-presentist says that they do exist simpliciter. The PM-solispist says that they never existed.

Clearly, the presentist must navigate between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of present-moment solipsism. So what is the presentist saying? He seems to be operating with a metaphysical picture according to which there is a Dynamic Now which is the source and locus of a ceaseless annihilation and creation: some things are ever passing out of being and other things are ever coming into being. He is not saying that all that is in being is all there ever was in being or all there ever will be in being. That is the lunatic thesis of the present-moment solipsist.

The presentist can be characterized as an annihilationist-creationist in the following sense. He is annihilationist about the past, creationist about the future. He maintains that an item that becomes past does not lose merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but loses both presentness and existence. And an item that becomes present does not gain merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but gains both presentness and existence. Becoming past is a passing away, an annihilation, and becoming present is a coming into being, a creation out of nothing.

To many, the presentist picture seem intuitively correct, though I would not go so far as Alan Rhoda who, quoting John Bigelow, maintains that presentism is "arguably the commonsense position." I would suggest that common sense, assuming we can agree on some non-tendentious characterization of same, takes no position on arcane metaphysical disputes such as this one. (This is a fascinating metaphilosophical topic that cannot be addressed now. How does the man on the street think about time? Answer: he doesn't think about it, although he is quite adept at telling time, getting to work on time and using correctly the tenses of his mother tongue.)

So far, so good. But there is still, to me at least, something deeply puzzling about the presentist thesis. Consider the following two tensed sentences about the actor James Dean. 'Dean does not exist.' 'Dean did exist.' Both tensed sentences are unproblematically true, assuming that death is annihilation. (We can avoid this assumption by changing the example to Dean's silver Porsche.) Because both sentences are plainly true, recording as they do Moorean facts, they are plainly logically consistent.

The presentist, however, maintains that what did exist, but no longer exists, does not exist at all. That is the annihilationist half of his characteristic thesis. It is not obviously true in the way the data sentences are obviously true. Indeed, it is not clear, to me at least, what exactly the presentist thesis MEANS. (Evaluation of a proposition as either true or false presupposes a grasp of its sense or meaning.) When the presentist says, in the present using a present-tensed sentence, that

1. Dean does not presently exist at all

he does not intend this to hold only at the present moment, else (1) would collapse into the trivially true present-tensed 'Dean does not exist.' He intends something more, namely:

2. Dean does not presently exist at any time, past, present, or future.

Now what bothers me is the apparent present reference in (2) to past and future times. How can a present-tensed sentence be used to refer to the past? That's one problem. A second is that (2) implies

3. It is presently the case that there are past times at which Dean does not exist.

But (3) is inconsistent with the presentist thesis according to which (abstract objects aside) only the present time and items at the present time exist.

My underlying question is whether presentism has the resources to express its own thesis. Does it make it between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of PM-solipsism only to founder on the reef of inexpressibility?

I have long held that time is the hardest of all philosophical nuts to crack. I fear it is above my pay grade, and yours too.

Happy New Year!

Constituent Ontology and the Problem of Change

In an earlier entry I sketched the difference between constituent ontology (C-ontology) and relational ontology (R-ontology) and outlined an argument against R-ontology. I concluded that post with the claim that C-ontology also faces serious objections. One of them could be called the 'argument from change.'

The Argument from Change

Suppose avocado A, which was unripe a week ago is ripe today. This is an example of alterational (as opposed to existential) change. The avocado has become different. But it has also remained the same. It is different in respect of ripeness but it is one and the same avocado that was unripe and is now ripe.

Alterational change is neither destruction nor duplication. The ripening of an avocado does not cause it to cease to exist. The ripening of an avocado is not the ceasing to exist of one particular (the unripe avocado) followed by the coming into existence of a numerically distinct avocado (the ripe one).

It is also clear that one cannot speak of change if there are two avocados, A and B, indiscernible except in respect of ripeness/unripeness, such that A is unripe at time t while B is ripe at time t* (t*> t). If my avocado is unripe at t while yours is ripe at t*, that circumstance does not constitute a change. Alteration requires that one and the same thing have incompatible properties at different times. This is necessary for alteration; whether it is sufficient is a further question.

That there is alterational change is a datum. That it requires that one and the same thing persist over an interval of time during which it has incompatible properties follows from elementary 'exegesis' or 'unpacking' of the datum.

The question before us is whether any C-ontology can do justice to the datum and its exegesis.

All C-ontologists are committed to what Michael J. Loux calls "Constituent Essentialism." ("What is Constituent Ontology?" Novak et al. eds., p. 52) It is the C-ontological analog of mereological essentialism. We can put it like this:

Constituent Essentialism: A thing has each of its ontological parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose an ontological part without ceasing to be same thing.

Mereological Essentialism: A thing has each of its commonsense parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose a commonsense part without ceasing to be the same thing.

To illustrate, suppose an ordinary particular (OP) is a bundle of compresent universals. The universals are the ontological parts of the OP as a whole. The first of the two principles entails that ordinary particulars cannot change. For (alterational) change is change in respect of properties under preservation of numerical diachronic identity. But preservation of identity is not possible on Constituent Essentialism. The simple bundle-of-universals theory appears incompatible with the fact of change.

I agree with Loux that Constituent Essentialism is a "framework principle" (p. 52) of C-ontology. It cannot be abandoned without abandoning C-ontology. And of course the fact of change and what it entails (persistence of the same thing over time) cannot be denied. So the 'argument from change' does seem to score against primitive versions of the bundle-of-universals theory.

Can the Objection Be Met?

The foregoing objection can perhaps be met met by sophisticating the bundle theory and adopting a bundle-bundle theory. Call this BBT. Accordingly, a thing that persists over time such as an avocado is a diachronic bundle of synchronic or momentary bundles. The theory has two stages.

First, there is the construction of momentary bundles from universals. Thus my avocado at a time is a bundle of universals. Then there is the construction of a diachronic bundle from these synchronic bundles. The momentary bundles have universals as constituents while the diachronic bundles do not have universals as constituents, but individuals. This is because a bundle of universals at a time is an individual. At both stages the bundling is contingent: the properties are contingently bundled to form momentary bundles and these resulting bundles are contingently bundled to form the persisting thing.

Accordingly, the unripe avocado is numerically the same as the ripe avocado in virtue of the fact that the earlier momentary bundles which have unripeness as a constituent are ontological parts
of the same diachronic whole as the later momentary bundles which have ripeness as a constituent.

A sophisticated bundle theory does not, therefore, claim that a persisting thing is a bundle of properties; the claim is that a persisting thing is a bundle of individuals which are themselves bundles of properties. This disposes of the objection from change at least as formulated above.

There are of course a number of other objections that need to be considered — in separate posts. But on the problem of change C-ontology looks to be in better shape than Loux makes it out to be.

I should add that I am not defending the bundle-bundle theory. In my Existence book I take a different C-ontological tack.

Death and Time

Death is as certain as the passage of time — and as real. But how real is that?

Differences Between Wishing and Hoping

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly
If our lives could be like that.

Bob Dylan's Dream

Wishing and hoping are both intentional attitudes: they take an object. One cannot just wish, or just hope, in the way one can just feel miserable or elated. If I wish, I wish for something. The same holds for hoping. How then do the two attitudes differ? They differ in terms of time, modality, and justification.

1. The object of hope lies in the future, of necessity. One cannot hope for what was or what is. In his dream, Dylan wished to be together again with his long lost friends. But he didn't hope to be together with them again. Coherent: 'I wish I had never been born.' Incoherent: 'I hope I had never been born.' Coherent: 'I wish I was with her right now.' Incoherent: 'I hope I was with her right now.'

Although hope is always and of necessity future-directed, wishing is not temporally restricted. 'I wish I were 30 again.' 'I wish I were in Hawaii now.' 'I wish to live to be a hundred.' I cannot hope to be 30 again or hope to be in Hawaii now. But I can both wish and hope to live to be a hundred.

Can I hope to be young again? That's ambiguous. I could hope for a medical breakthrough that would rejuvenate a person in the sense of making him physiologically young and I could hope to undergo such a rejuvenation. But I cannot hope to be calendrically young again.

2. One can hope only for what one considers to be possible. (What one considers to be possible may or may be possible.) But one can wish for both what one considers to be the possible and what one consider to be impossible. I can hope for a stay of execution, but not that I should continue to exist as a live animal after being hanged. ('Hanged' not 'hung'!) I can hope to survive my bodily death, but only if I consider it possible that I survive my bodily death. But I can wish for what I know to be impossible such as being young again, being able to run a 2:30 marathon, visiting Mars next year.

3. There is no sense in demanding of one who wishes to be cured of cancer that he supply his grounds or justification for so wishing. "Are you justified in wishing to be cancer-free?" But if he hopes to beat his cancer, then one can appropriately request the grounds of the hope.

If I both wish and hope for something I consider possible that lies in the future, then the difference between wishing and hoping rests on the fact that one can appropriately request grounds for hoping but not grounds for wishing.

I'll end with my favorite counterfactual conditional: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'

Seize the Day

Horace advises that we seize the day. "Life ebbs as I speak: so seize each day, and grant the next no credit." The trouble with this advice is that what we are told to grab is so deficient in entity as to be barely seizable. The admonition comes almost to this: seize the unseizable, fix the flux, stay the surge, catch the wind.

I do indeed try to seize the day, and its offerings, day by day, moment by moment. Walking along the trail I stab my staff into the ground saying "This is it, this is your life, right here, right now, and it is good." Living in tune with this mantram, without wanting to be elsewhere or elsewhen, is obviously better than standing on tiptoes trying to make out the future or looking through memory's rear-view mirror.

There is no full living without presence to the present, without mindfulness to the moment. But mindfulness is ultimately no solution since what one is minding is ultimately empty.

The passing moment is more real than the past and the future, but it is precisely passing and so, ultimately, unreal. The problem is not that our time is short, but that we are in time at all. The alternative, however, is present to us only as this blank sense of time's deficiency.

So, with unseeing eyes, we stand on tiptoes after all.

Time, Truth, and Truth-Making: An Antilogism Revisited and Transmogrified

Earlier, I presented the following, which looks to be an antilogism. An antilogism, by definition, is an inconsistent triad. This post considers whether the triad really is logically inconsistent, and so really is an antilogism.

1. Temporally Unrestricted Excluded Middle: The principle that every declarative sentence is either true, or if not true, then false applies unrestrictedly to all declarative sentences, whatever their tense.
2. Presentism: Only what exists at present exists.
3. Temporally Unrestricted Truth-Maker Principle: Every contingent truth has a truth-maker.

Edward objects: "First, I don't see why the three statements are logically inconsistent. Why can't the truthmaker for a future tense statement exist now, in the present?"

Objection sustained. The triad as it stands is not logically inconsistent.

'Miss Creant will die by lethal injection in five minutes.' Let this be our example. It is a future-tensed contingent declarative. By (1) it is either true or, if not true, then false. By (3), our sample sentence has a truth-maker, an existing truth-maker obviously, if it is true. By (2), the truth-maker exists only at present. Edward is right: there is no inconsistency unless we add something like:

4. If a sentence predicts a contingent event which lies wholly in the future, and the sentence is true, then the truth-maker of the sentence, if it has one, cannot exist at any time prior to the time of the event.

(4) is extremely plausible. Suppose it is true now that Miss Creant will die in five minutes. The only item that could make this true is the event of her dying. But this event does not now exist and cannot exist at any time prior to her dying.

So our antilogism, under Edwardian pummeling, transmogrifies into an aporetic tetrad which, he will agree, is logically inconsistent.

The solution, for Edward, is obvious: Deny the Temporally Unrestricted Truth-Maker Principle as stated in (3). Of course, that is a solution. But can Edward show that it must be preferred to the other three solutions? After all, one could deny Presentism, and many distinguished philosophers do. I would hazard the observation that the majority of the heavy-hitters in the 20th century Anglosphere were B-theorists, and thus deniers of Presentism. Or one could deny Unrestricted LEM, or even (4).

Although I said that (4) is extremely plausible, one could conceivably deny it by maintaining that the truth-makers of future-tensed sentences are tendencies in the present. For example, I say to wifey, "Watch it! The pot is going to boil over!" Assuming that that's a true prediction, one might claim that it is the present tendencies of the agitated pasta-rich water that is the truth-maker.

Please note also that I too could solve the tetrad by denying Unrestricted T-maker. Not by rejecting T-makers tout court in the Edwardian manner, but by restricting T-makers to contingent past- and present-tensed declaratives. I hope Edward appreciates that the above problem does not give aid and comfort to his wholesale rejection of T-makers.

One can always solve an aporetic polyad by denying one of its limbs. Sure. But then you face other daunting tasks. One is to show in a compelling way that your preferred solution should be preferred by all competent practitioners. You have to show that your solution is THE solution and not merely a solution relative to your background assumptions and cognitive values. A school-immanent solution is no final and absolute solution. Another task is to show that your solution can be embedded in a theory that does not itself give rise to insoluble problems.

Excluded Middle and Future-Tensed Sentences: An Aporetic Triad

Do you remember the prediction, made in 1999, that the DOW would reach 36,000 in a few years? Since that didn't happen, I am inclined to say that Glassman and Hasset's prediction was wrong and was wrong at the time the prediction was made. I take that to mean that the content of their prediction was false at the time the prediction was made. Subsequent events merely made it evident that the content of the prediction was false; said events did not first bring it about that the content of the prediction have a truth-value.

And so I am not inclined to say that the content of their irrationally exuberant prediction was neither true nor false at the time of the prediction. It had a truth-value at the time of the prediction; it was simply not evident at that time what that truth-value was. By 'the content of the prediction' I mean the proposition expressed by 'The DOW will reach 36,000 in a few years.'

I am also inclined to say that the contents of some predictions are true at the time the predictions are made, and thus true in advance of the events predicted. I am not inclined to say that these predictions were neither true nor false at the time they were made. Suppose I predict some event E and E comes to pass. You might say to me, "You were right to predict the occurrence of E." You would not say to me, "Although the content of your prediction was neither true nor false at the time of your prediction, said content has now acquired the truth-value, true."

It is worth noting that the expression 'come true' is ambiguous. It could mean 'come to be known to be true' or it could mean 'come to have the truth-value, true.' I am inclined to read it the first way. Accordingly, when a prediction 'comes true,' what that means is that the prediction which all along was true, and thus true in advance of the contingent event predicted, is now known to be true.

So far, then, I am inclined to say that the Law of Excluded Middle applies to future-tensed sentences. If we assume Bivalence (that there are exactly two truth-values), then the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM)can be formulated as follows. For any proposition p, either p is true or p is false. Now consider a future-tensed sentence that refers to some event that is neither impossible nor necessary. An example is the DOW sentence above or 'Tom will get tenure in 2014.' Someone who assertively utters a sentence such as this makes a prediction. What I am currently puzzling over is whether any predictions, at the time that they are made, have a truth-value, i.e., (assuming Bivalence), are either true or false.

Why should I be puzzling over this? Well, despite the strong linguistic inclinations recorded above, there is something strange in regarding a contingent proposition about a future event as either true or false in advance of the event's occurrence or nonoccurrence. How could a contingent proposition be true before the event occurs that alone could make it true?

Our problem can be set forth as an antilogism or aporetic triad:

1. U-LEM: LEM applies unrestrictedly to all declarative sentences, whatever their tense.
2. Presentism: Only what exists at present exists.
3. Truth-Maker Principle: Every contingent truth has a truth-maker.

Each limb of the triad is plausible. But they can't all be true. The conjunction of any two entails the negation of the third. Corresponding to our (inconsistent) antilogism there are three (valid) syllogisms each of which is an argument to the negation of one of the limbs from the other two limbs.

If there is no compelling reason to adopt one ofthese syllogisms over the other two, then I would say that the problem is a genuine aporia, an insoluble problem.

People don't like to admit that there are insolubilia. That may merely reflect their dogmatism and overpowering need for doxastic security. Man is a proud critter loathe to confess the infirmity of reason.