Once More on Becoming Past and Becoming Nothing

I maintain that in the following conditional, the consequent (2) does not follow from the antecedent (1).

(*) If (1) X ceases to be temporally present by becoming wholly past, then (2) X ceases to exist.

The Londoner replies

You claim that the truth of the antecedent (1) is consistent with the falsity of the consequent (2), i.e. consistent with X not having ceased to exist. But that claim implies that both “X still exists” and “X has ceased to exist” could be false.

I don’t follow.

Consider a spatial analog. I am in a meeting with some people. I then leave the room.  In so doing I cease to be spatially present to those people and the space they occupy.  But no one will conclude that I have ceased to exist by leaving the room.

Why not?  Well, where a thing is has no bearing on whether it is.  If you can grasp that, then it ought to be at least conceivable that when a thing is has no bearing on whether it is.  And if that is conceivable, then you ought to be able to grasp that (2) does not follow from (1).  An item can become wholly past without prejudice to its existence.

Now obviously 'existence' here refers to tense-free existence. That the Londoner is not grasping this is shown by his use of 'still exists.'  The claim is not the logically contradictory one that an item that has become wholly past still exists. For if a thing still exists, then it exists (present tense).  The claim is that it is conceivable that what has become wholly past has not been annihilated: it has not become nothing.  For (2) to follow from (1), presentism would have to be brought in as an auxiliary premise. But on presentism, that which has become wholly past has become nothing at all.

Does when a thing is determine whether it is?  This is not obvious.  For it could be — it is epistemically possible — that when a thing is has no bearing on whether it is. Two views. On one view, temporal location determines whether or not a thing is or exists.  Presentism is one type of this view.  On presentism, all and only that which is located in or at the temporal present exists.  This implies that items not so located — those that are wholly past or wholly future — do not exist.

On the second view, temporal location does not determine whether or not a thing is or exists.  'Eternalism' as it is known in the trade — the term is a bit of misnomer but let that pass — is a type of this view.  On eternalism, past, present, and future times and the items at those times (e.g. events) all exist equally, i.e., in the same sense of 'exists.' 

Now it should be perfectly obvious that this sense must be tense-neutral, or tense-free, or tenseless.  And I have no desire to paper over the considerable problems that arise when we try to specify exactly what this tense-neutral use of 'exists' comes to. But that is not our present topic.

Presentism growing block static block

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Lesser-Known Dylan Songs

Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the eye, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young must give way to knocking on heaven's door. The Bard's been at it a long, long time, and his body of work is as vast and as variegated as America herself. We old fans from way back who were with him from the beginning are still finding gems unheard as we ourselves enter the twilight where it's not dark yet, but getting there. But it is a beautiful fade-out from a world that cannot last.

Why Bob Dylan Matters

Remember Me. With beautiful shots of Suze Rotolo.  See Suze Rotolo and the Songs She Inspired. 

Farewell. 

High Water. (For Charley Patton)

High water risin', risin' night and day
All the gold and silver are being stolen away
Big Joe Turner lookin' East and West
From the dark room of his mind
He made it to Kansas City Twelfth Street and Vine
Nothing standing there
High water everywhere

High water risin', the shacks are slidin' down
Folks lose their possessions and folks are leaving town
Bertha Mason shook, it broke it
Then she hung it on a wall
Says, "You're dancin' with whom they tell you to Or you don't dance at all"

It's tough out there High water everywhere
 I got a cravin' love for blazing speed got a hopped up Mustang Ford
Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard
 I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind
 I'm no pig without a wig I hope you treat me kind
Things are breakin' up out there
High water everywhere.

High water risin', six inches 'bove my head
Coffins droppin' in the street Like balloons made out of lead
 Water pourin' into Vicksburg, don't know what I'm going to do
"Don't reach out for me," she said "Can't you see I'm drownin' too?"
It's rough out there.

High water everywhere
 Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
"You can't open your mind, boys To every conceivable point of view"
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five
Judge says to the High Sheriff "I want him dead or alive
Either one, I don't care."

High Water everywhere
 Well, the cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies
 I'm preachin' the word of God I'm puttin' out your eyes
 I asked Fat Nancy for something to eat, she said, "Take it off the shelf
As great as you are a man,
You'll never be greater than yourself"
I told her I didn't really care.

High water everywhere
I'm getting' up in the morning I believe I'll dust my broom
 Keeping away from the women
I'm givin' 'em lots of room
 Thunder rolling over Clarksdale, everything is looking blue
 I just can't be happy, love
 Unless you're happy too
 It's bad out there
High water everywhere.

All I Really Want to Do. 

Eternal Circle

Only a Hobo

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Bob Dylan's Dream

David French, Donald Trump, Christianity, and Politics

David French maintains that Christians cannot, if they are to remain true to Christian teachings, support Donald Trump:

The proper way for Christians to engage in politics is a rich subject . . . but there are some rather simple foundational principles that apply before the questions get complex. For example, all but a tiny few believers would agree that a Christian should not violate the Ten Commandments or any other clear, biblical command while pursuing or exercising political power.

But of course we see such behavior all the time from hardcore Christian Trump supporters. They’ll echo Trump’s lies. They’ll defend Trump’s lies. They’ll adopt many of his same rhetorical tactics, including engaging in mocking and insulting behavior as a matter of course.

Farther down:

I fully recognize what I’m saying. I fully recognize that refusing to hire a hater and refusing to hire a liar carries costs. If we see politics through worldly eyes, it makes no sense at all. Why would you adopt moral standards that put you at a disadvantage in an existential political struggle? If we don’t stand by Trump we will lose, and losing is unacceptable. (Emphasis added.)

French has just touched upon the deepest issue in this debate.  He is right that it makes no sense for conservative Christians not to support Trump if politics is seen through worldly eyes. The question, however, is whether one can avoid doing so. Can one see politics and pursue it through unworldly eyes?  Can one participate in politics at any level, and especially at the higher levels, while adhering strictly and unwaveringly to Christian principles and precepts and while practicing Christian virtues?  Can one combine contemptus mundi with political action?

I don't believe that this is possible.

Christian precepts such as "Turn the other cheek" and "Welcome the stranger" make sense and are salutary only within communities of the like-minded and morally decent; they make no sense and are positively harmful in the public sphere, and, a fortiori, in the international sphere.  The monastery is not the wide world.  What is conducive unto salvation in the former will get you killed in the latter.  And we know what totalitarians, whether Communists or Islamists, do when they get power: they destroy the churches, synagogues, monasteries, ashrams, and zendos. And with them are destroyed the means of transmitting the dharma, the kerygma, the law and the prophets.  

An important but troubling thought is conveyed in a recent NYT op-ed (emphasis added):

Machiavelli teaches that in a world where so many are not good, you must learn to be able to not be good. The virtues taught in our secular and religious schools are incompatible with the virtues one must practice to safeguard those same institutions. The power of the lion and the cleverness of the fox: These are the qualities a leader must harness to preserve the republic.

The problem referenced in the bolded sentence is very serious but may have no solution.  That's the aporetician in me speaking. 

The problem as I see it is that (i) the pacific virtues the practice of which makes life worth living within families, between friends, and in such institutions of civil society as churches and fraternal organizations  are essentially private and cannot be extended outward as if we are all brothers and sisters belonging to a global community.  Talk of  global community is blather.  The institutions of civil society can survive and flourish only if protected by warriors and statesmen whose virtues are of the manly and martial, not of the womanish and pacific, sort. And yet (ii) if no  extension beyond the private of the pacific virtues is possible. then humanity would seem to be doomed  in an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.  Besides, it is unsatisfactory that there be two moralities, one private, the other public.

I say that we need to face the problem honestly.

Consider the Christian virtues preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  They include humility, meekness, love of righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, love of peace and of reconciliation.  Everyone who must live uncloistered in the world understands that these pacific and essentially womanish virtues have but limited application there.  Indeed, their practice can get you killed. (I am not using 'womanish' as a derogatory qualifier.)

Si vis pacem . . .You may love peace, but unless you are prepared to make war upon your enemies and show them no mercy, you may not be long for this world.  Turning the other cheek makes sense within a loving family, but no sense in the wider world.  (Would the Pope turn the other cheek if the Vatican came under attack by Muslim terrorists or would he call upon the armed might of the Italian state?)  My point is perfectly obvious in the case of states: they are in the state (condition) of nature with respect to each other. Each state secures by blood and iron a civilized space within which art and music and science and scholarship can flourish and wherein, ideally, blood does not flow; but these states and their civilizations battle each other in the state (condition) of nature red in tooth and claw.  Talk of world government or United Nations is globalist blather that hides the will to power of those who would seize control of the world government. United under which umbrella of values and principles and presuppositions?

What values do we share with the Muslim world? Do they accept the Enlightenment values enshrined in our founding documents? Obviously not.  Christianity has civilized us to some extent. Has Islam civilized them? Their penology is barbaric as is their attitude toward other cultures and religions. 

The Allies would not have been long for this world had they not been merciless in their treatment of the Axis Powers.  

Israel would have ceased to exist long ago had Israelis not been ruthless in their dealing with Muslim terrorists bent on her destruction.

This is also true of individuals once they move beyond their families and friends and genuine communities and sally forth into the wider world. 

The problem is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245):

     The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all
     earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular
     — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been
     frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended
     protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of
     the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the
     wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned
     against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who
     for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good
     for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for
     others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth
     interests of the community.) [Arendt cites the Nicomachean Ethics,
     Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension  between man qua philosopher/Christian and man qua citizen.  As a philosopher raised in Christianity, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic "Better to suffer wrong than to do it" and the Christian  "Resist not the evildoer." But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare.

This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to  influence public opinion, people like Catholic bishops many of whom are woefully ignorant of the simple points Arendt makes in the passage quoted. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his  perishable body, is not applicable to me as citizen. As a citizen, I   cannot "welcome the stranger" who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I cannot aid and abet his law breaking. I must be concerned with public order.  This order is among  the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger's law breaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as the New Testament enjoins us to do.

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops  and others who confuse private and public morality. 

David French is such a one.

Becoming Past and Becoming Nothing

Londoner in Lockdown writes,

I am still puzzling about the connection between your

(1) X ceases to be temporally present by becoming wholly past.

and

(2) X ceases to exist.

I think I understand (2). It means that there was once such a thing as X, but there is no longer such a thing as X.

But what does (1) mean? Does it mean what (2) means? In that case, (2) indeed follows from (1).

But you can't have intended that. So what do you mean by (1)?

Perhaps a spatial analog of (1) will help convey what I mean:

1*) X ceases to be spatially present by becoming wholly elsewhere.

Now (1*) is not idiomatic English, but the thought is clear.  And the thought is trivially true. Suppose the boundaries of the spatially present are given by the dimensions of my lot.  So when I say 'here' I refer to the area of my lot together with all its sub-areas. Suppose a  cat that is wholly within the boundaries of my lot trespasses onto your adjacent lot thereby becoming wholly elsewhere. Max was wholly here in my yard, but now he is wholly there in yours.  Spatial translations such as this one typically occur without prejudice to the existence of the moving item. Thus the cat does not cease to exist by moving from my property onto your property.  (Nor does the cat suffer any diminution of its degree of existence, if there are degrees of existence, or any change in its mode of existence, if there are modes of existence.)

In short, Max the cat exists just as robustly  in your yard as in mine.  Spatial translation is existence-neutral.  No one is a spatial presentist. No one holds that all and only what exists here, exists. 

Surely it is conceivable — whether or not it is true — that becoming wholly past is existence-neutral. It is conceivable that something that becomes wholly past not be affected in its existence by its becoming wholly past.  On this understanding of (1), (1) does not straightaway — i.e., immediately, without auxiliary premises — entail (2).  (1) and the negation of (2) are logically consistent.

Now if you insist that (1) entails (2), then I will point out that this is so only if you assume that all and only the temporally present exists.

Do my sparring partners now see that there is a genuine question here?  The question is whether it makes sense to maintain that, among the items that exist in time, some are non-present.  I say that it does make sense, whether or not in the end it is true; consequently, tenseless theories of time cannot be simply dismissed out of hand.  A corollary of this is that presentism is not obviously true, or even more outrageously,  a matter of common sense as some have the chutzpah to say. 

The Irrationality of Playing the Lottery

I have posted several times over the years on the irrationality of playing the lottery and on the immorality of state sponsorship and promotion (via deceptive advertising) of lotteries.  The following e-mail, however, raises an interesting question that gives me pause:

As I was reading this story of an impoverished young rancher who won $88 million net with a Powerball ticket, I was wondering whether you'd allow that a case could be made for the rationality of his gamble. The young man and his whole family were in desperate financial circumstances with no way to cover back taxes, livestock loans, etc. They faced foreclosures, eviction, etc. The young man bought one ticket. He was not a chronic heavy lotto-gambler. The one ticket did not make his situation worse. Arguably, the lottery gamble was his only hope of salvaging his situation. If you have only ONE way to save yourself, the odds don't really matter.

Actually, according to the account linked to above, the cowboy bought $15 worth of tickets.  So he bought more than one ticket.  But no matter.  Let us assume that this $15 was the only money he ever spent on the lottery.  And let's also assume that the cowpoke was at the end of his rope — pun intended — facing foreclosure and imminent residency on Skid Row.  We may also safely assume that the young man will never again play the lottery.  (For he seems resolved not to fritter away his winnings  on loose women and fast cars.) The question is whether it was rational for him in his precise circumstances to spend $15 on lottery tickets.
 
Now one question to ask is whether the rationality of a decision can be judged ex post facto.  I would say not.  A rational agent agent is one who chooses means that he has good reason to believe are conducive to the ends he has in view.  A rational decision is one made calmly and deliberately and with 'due diligence' on the basis of the best information the agent has available to him within the limited time he has at his disposal for acquiring information.  A rational decision cannot be rendered irrational by a bad outcome, and an irrational decision cannot be rendered rational by a good outcome.
 
So I am inclined to say that our cowboy made an irrational decison when he decide to spend $15 on a chance to win millions.  The fact that, against all odds, he won is irrelevant to the rationality of his decision. The decision was irrational because the chances of winning anything significant were astronomically small, whereas the value of  $15 to someone who is down to his last $15 is substantial. 
 
But I can understand how intuitions might differ.  Suppose we alter the example by supposing that the man will die and knows that he will die if he does not win today's lottery.  Suppose he has exactly $15 to spend and he spends it on lottery tickets.  He now has nothing to lose by spending the money.  It is perhaps arguable that, in these precise circumstances, it is prudentially if not theoretically rational for the cowpoke to blow his last $15 on lotto tickets.
 
Just what is rationality anyway?

‘Clearly’

It is better to be clear than to write 'Clearly, ____________.'

Similarly with 'surely,' 'plainly,' 'obviously,' 'undoubtedly,' and others.

What should we call such words?  Asseveratives?  Assuratives? 

I know a guy who, if you preface a remark with 'surely,' you receive in response, "Don't call me 'Shirley.'"

A Time Puzzle for a Couple of Londinistas in Lockdown

I don't expect ever to change the minds of Messrs. Brightly and Buckner on any of the philosophical questions we discuss, but it may be possible to isolate the sources of disagreement. That would count as progress of a sort.

Suppose that

1) X ceases to be temporally present by becoming wholly past.

Does it follow that

2) X ceases to exist?

YES: For an item in time to exist is for it to be temporally present. So when an item in time become wholly past it literally passes away and ceases to exist.

NO: What ceases to exist becomes nothing. Boston's Scollay Square, which is wholly past, is not nothing.  One can refer to it; there are true statements about it; some have veridical memories of it; there are videos of interviews of people who frequented it; it is an object of ongoing historical research. To dilate a bit on the fifth point:

One cannot learn more and more about what is no longer (temporally) present if it is nothing at all. Only what exists can be studied and its properties ascertained.  But we do learn more and more about Scollay Square. So it must be some definite item.  But, pace Meinong, there are no nonexistent items. Therefore, Scollay Square exists non-presently.  Therefore, what ceases to be present, does not cease to exist. It exists despite being past. It exists tenselessly at times earlier than the present time.  The mere passage of time did not annihilate Scollay Square.

I incline toward the negative answer. But it rests on certain assumptions. Suppose we list them.

A1. There are no modes of existence. In formal mode, 'exist(s)' is univocal in sense across all contexts.  So we cannot say that what ceases to be present exists, but  in the mode of pastness.

A2. There are no degrees of existence.  So we cannot say that what ceases to be present exists, but to a lesser degree than what presently exists.

A3. There are no Meinong-type nonexistent items. So we cannot say that what ceases to be present becomes nothing: it is a definite item but a nonexisting one.

I suspect that my London sparring partners will accept all three assumptions.

Perhaps the Londoners will reject both answers and with them, the question. Maybe one or both of them will give this little speech:

Look, you are just making trouble for yourself. You speak English and you understand how its tenses work. Why not just use them?  Scollay Square no longer exists. You know what that means. It means that it existed but does not exist now. Just leave it at that. If you stick to ordinary language you will avoid entangling yourself in pseudo-problems.

Good Societies and Good Lives: On State-Run Lotteries

Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. Here I discuss just one such feature, state-sponsored lotteries.

Tenselessness as Disjunctive Omnitemporality?

There is presentism about existence and presentism about what exists. We have been discussing the latter.

The presentist about what exists seems forced to agree with the eternalist that existence by its very nature is tenseless and not tense-dependent. It seems that he must so agree if his thesis is not to be a tautology. For if the presentist holds that all and only what exists now exists now, then he asserts a merely logical truth, one to which the eternalist will readily assent. So he has to say that all and only what exists simpliciter exists now.

To exist simpliciter is to exist actually, not merely possibly, in a non-tense-dependent way, that is, to exist tenselessly. But what is it for a temporal item to exist tenselessly? It cannot be to exist timelessly for the simple reason that temporal items, items in time, are not timeless items, items outside of time. 

(That the number 9, a timeless item, tenselessly exists and tenselessly instantiates such properties as being odd, is not particularly problematic, if you grant that numbers are denizens of the Platonic menagerie. And the same goes for the property of being odd.)

A natural suggestion is to say that a temporal item exists tenselessly just in case it either existed, or exists now, or will exist. But on this disjunctively omnitemporal analysis of tenselessness, presentism about what exists comes out false! Our presentist is then saying that all and only what existed, or exists now, or will exist, exists now. But this is false because, for example, Kepler existed but does not exist now.

I have made two main points.

First, the very formulation of a non-tautological version of presentism about what exists requires that the second occurrence of  'exists' in the formula 'Only what exists now exists' be read tenselessly.

Second, tenselessness cannot be understood as disjunctive omnitemporality.

So what is it for a temporal item to exist tenselessly?  If no good answer can be given, then we won't know what we are affirming when we affirm either presentism or one of its competitors.

I hope the reader appreciates that I am not attacking presentism in defense of one its competitors.   I am not a partisan in the 'time wars.' I stand above the fray like a good aporetician in keeping with the Maverick method. My aim is to lend credence (though not to prove) that, while the underlying problems are genuine, and important, they are insoluble. None of the extant theories, and indeed no possible theory our minds can construct, is a solution.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Marie/Maria/Mary

Beautiful names celebrated in song.

Elvis Presley, Marie's the Name of His Latest Flame

George Harrison and friends, Absolutely Sweet Marie.  By the way, this self-certified Dylanologist can attest that in the first line it is 'railroad GAUGE,' not 'railroad gate.'  'Gauge' is a measure of the width of the track; that's what our boy can't jump.  This one goes out to Marie Benson, from the summer of '65. Where are you tonight, sweet Marie?  

Bachelors, Marie

R. B. Greaves, Take a Letter, Maria

Placido Domingo, Ave Maria (Schubert)

Jimi Hendrix, The Wind Cries 'Mary'

Association, Along Comes Mary.  Back in '66 I didn't appreciate how good the lyrics are. 

And finally Mary takes Marty Robbins back after his tryst with the Devil Woman.

Do Past-Tensed Truths Need Truthmakers?

Cyrus wrote in an earlier thread,

In the linked article, you write:

That (some) truths refer us to the world as to that which makes them true is so obvious and commonsensical and indeed 'Australian' that one ought to hesitate to reject the idea because of the undeniable puzzles that it engenders. Motion is puzzling too but presumably not to be denied on the ground of its being puzzling.

But I question whether the scope of the “some” (that is, the scope of the obviousness and commonsensicality) extends to past tensed truths. I don't find it obvious that past tensed truths have truthmakers. Presumably presentists who reject it also don't find it obvious. (Some find it obvious that the past doesn't exist.) I guess what I'm asking is: Is there an objective way to measure obviousness? If there isn't, how much should we really be relying on it in our arguments?

That's a good comment and a good challenge. As Hilary Putnam once said, "It ain't obvious what's obvious."  So I don't think there is any objective way to measure obviousness, or, to use a better term, objective self-evidence. Nevertheless, I will die in the ditch for the first of my italicized sentences above. Surely there is at least one truth that cannot just be true, but needs a truth-ground that exists and indeed exists extramentally and extralinguistically. For example, 'BV is seated.'  That cannot just be true. It cannot be a brute truth. I have gone over this so many times I'm sick of it.  So let's move on.

Cyrus supra is not questioning whether there are truthmakers, nor is he raising the question as to the nature of truthmakers, i.e., the question of the category of entity to which they belong (Armstrongian states of affairs? tropes? etc.); he is raising the question whether past-tensed truths need truthmakers. I grant that the answer is not obvious.

One thing we should be clear about is that presentists needn't deny that past-tensed truths need or have truthmakers.  For they could hold, as some have held, that these truthmakers exist at present.  On presentism, whatever exists in time exists at the present time.  This is not the tautology that whatever exists (present tense) exists (present tense). This trivial truth is contested by no one. What the presentist is maintaining is that only what exists (present tense) exists tenselessly.  Presentism about what exists  in time is a restrictionist thesis: it restricts what tenselessly exists in time to what presently exists, i.e. what exists at present, or now.  (Note the ambiguity of 'presently' in ordinary English: if I say that I will visit you presently, that means in ordinary contexts that I will visit you soon, but not now.)

So we can divide presentists who accept truthmakers in general into two groups. Group One is composed of those who hold both that some past-tensed and some present-tensed truths have truthmakers, and Group Two is composed of those who accept that there are past-tensed truths but hold that they are all brute truths.

This is the view that I will try to argue against.  But first we need to lay another assumption on the table

I assume that there are past-tensed truths. For example, I assume that it is true, and indeed true now, that JFK was assassinated and that Socrates taught Plato.  (But don't get hung up on these examples: I could use different ones.) One might deny these (datanic) points in two ways. One could assert that all past-tensed truth-bearers are false. Or one could assert that no past-tensed truth-bearer is either true or false. For now we set these (lunatic) views aside.

The assumption, then, is that there are past-tensed truths.  The question is whether any of them need truthmakers given that present-tensed truths need truthmakers.

It is contingently true that I am alive. This is not a brute truth. Its truth requires, at a minimum, the existence of the living animal that wears my clothes. It is also true that after I am dead it will be true that I was alive today. If the first truth is not brute, how could the second truth be brute? The first truth is about me. It says that BV is alive. The second truth is also about me. It says that it will be the case that BV was alive. Now a proposition cannot be about a thing unless the thing exists. So in both cases the thing, me, exists. So both truths are grounded by my existence. If <I  am alive> asserted by me today has an ontological ground, and it clearly does, then <BV was alive> asserted after I am dead by a descendant also has an ontological ground. The two propositions differ merely in tense. Does that difference make a difference with respect to truth-making? It is not clear that it does. It is plausible to hold, with T. Merricks, that if presentism is true, then all truths about wholly past items are brute truths. Should we affirm the antecedent and infer the consequent by modus ponens? Or should we deny the consequent and deny the antecedent by modus tollens? It is not clear. The arguments appear to be equally good and cancel out. This is so given that the truth-makers of past-tensed truths about wholly past items cannot be located in the present. Perhaps some can be so located, but not all.

My interim conclusion is that presentism  is open to serious objection.  The fact that 'eternalism' is also is no good reason to accept presentism.

Praeparatio Mortis

Living long is a kind of low-grade preparation for death: the longer one lives, the more obvious the vanity of life becomes. An old soul can discern it at a young age, but even he will see it more clearly as his body ages. Paradoxically, vanity will be better appreciated if one in younger days fancies life full and rich and equal to its promises. For then the disillusionment  will be all the greater.  Or as one of my aphorisms has it:

Live life to the full to perceive that it is empty.