{"id":3873,"date":"2019-04-03T15:40:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T15:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/04\/03\/presentism-a-bit-of-discussion-with-dale-tuggy\/"},"modified":"2019-04-03T15:40:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T15:40:14","slug":"presentism-a-bit-of-discussion-with-dale-tuggy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/04\/03\/presentism-a-bit-of-discussion-with-dale-tuggy\/","title":{"rendered":"Presentism: A Bit of Discussion with Dale Tuggy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tuggy<\/a>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<\/em>.  Although the sentence is about a wholly past event, the sentence is now<\/em> true. Using tensed language, we speak truly when we say that it IS true that Kennedy WAS assassinated.  What I have just set forth is a Chisholmian pre-analytic datum or a Moorean fact, a given that cannot be reasonably controverted.<\/span><\/p>\n

I then brought up the need for truth-makers for at least some truths.  (I am not a truth-maker maximalist.) Consider ' I am seated' said by BV now as he sits in front of his computer. The sentence is (or expresses) a contingent truth.  Now would it be at all plausible to say that this sentence is just true<\/em>?  Define a brute truth<\/em> as a contingent truth that is just true<\/em>, i.e., true, but not in virtue of anything external to the truth. The question is then: Is it plausible that 'I am seated' or the proposition it expresses be a brute truth?<\/span><\/p>\n

I say that that is implausible in the extreme. There has to be something external  to the truth-bearer that plays a role in its being true and this something cannot be anyone's say-so. At a bare minimum, the subject term 'I' must refer to something extra-linguistic, and we know what that has to be: the 200 lb animal that wears my clothes.  So at a bare minimum, the sentence, to be true, must be about something, something that exists, and indeed exists extra-mentally and extra-linguistically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without bringing in truth-making facts or states of affairs, I have said enough to refute the notion that 'I am seated' could be a brute truth.  So far so good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now if 'I am seated' needs a truth-maker (in a very broad sense of the term), then presumably 'Kennedy was assassinated' does as well.  It can no more be  a brute truth than 'I am seated' could be a brute truth. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dale balked at this, claiming that the Kennedy sentence is a brute truth. It is easy to see his reason for saying it. The reason is presentism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roughly, presentism is the view that only temporally present items (times, events, individuals, property-instantiations, etc.) exist, full stop.  Whatever exists, exists now, where the first occurrence of 'exists' cannot be present-tensed — that way lies tautology and triviality — but must be in some sense be tenseless. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is not at all clear that presentism can be given a formulation that is at once both precise and coherent. What I have just said is very rough and I have papered over some nasty difficulties. But I think I have conveyed what the presentist is trying to say.  He is out to restrict the totality of what (tenselessly) exists to what presently exists.  An 'eternalist' — the going term but a howling misnomer — by contrast resists the restriction, holding as he does that the totality of what (tenselessly) exists includes past, present, and future items.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Now if presentism is true, then JFK does not exist at all. It is not just that he does not exist now — that's trivial — but that he does not exist period. Well then, how can 'Kennedy was assassinated' be true?  There is nothing in existence to serve as truth-maker.  Neither Kennedy nor the event of  his being assassinated exist.  There is nothing for that sentence to be about. For on presentism, what no longer exists, does not exist at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth-maker principle and presentism come into conflict.  Tuggy's 'solution' is to deny that past-tensed truths need truth-makers and hold that they are brute truths. The problem may be cast in the mold of an aporetic tetrad:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) There are contingent past-tensed truths.<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Past-tensed truths are true at present.<\/span><\/p>\n

3) Truth-Maker Principle: contingent affirmative truths need existing truth-makers.<\/span><\/p>\n

4) Presentism: Only present items exist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The limbs of the tetrad are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent.  It's a nasty problem. Which proposition will you deny?<\/span><\/p>\n

Some will deny (1) by holding that all past-tensed truths are either false or without truth-value. Good luck with that!<\/span><\/p>\n

Some will deny (2). Also a non-starter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some will deny or revise (3) by maintaining that past-tensed truths are brute truths. This is Tuggy's line.  Very hard to swallow!<\/span><\/p>\n

Some will deny (4).  This might be the best solution, but it too has its drawbacks which I can't go into now.<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be that the problem is insoluble in the sense that, no matter which solution you offer, that solution will give rise to puzzles as bad or worse than the original puzzle.  I am tempted to say something along these lines.  But then I am aporetically inclined.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for now my purpose is merely to induce in Tuggy some skepticism about presentism.   One ought to be skeptical of it since it conflicts with the truth-maker principle which in my minimalist formulation is exceedingly plausible, more plausible, I would say, than presentism, about which there are serious doubts that it is susceptible of a coherent formulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

And please note that if one rejects presentism one is not thereby forced to embrace eternalism. While they cannot both be true, they can both be false.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Presentism: A Bit of Discussion with Dale Tuggy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existence","category-time-and-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}