{"id":4454,"date":"2018-07-03T13:39:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T13:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/07\/03\/puzzling-over-presentism\/"},"modified":"2018-07-03T13:39:12","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T13:39:12","slug":"puzzling-over-presentism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/07\/03\/puzzling-over-presentism\/","title":{"rendered":"Puzzling Over Presentism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presentism in the philosophy of time is the thesis that only the (temporally) present exists. This is not the tautology that only present items (times, individuals, events . . .) exist at present; it is the substantive metaphysical thesis that only present items exist simpliciter<\/em>. So if something no longer exists, it does not exist at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Scollay<\/a>But what could this mean? It is counterintuitive and, contrary to what prominent presentists claim, not commonsensical. After all, the past is not nothing. It was and it actually<\/em> was.  When Boston's Scollay Square<\/a> ceased to exist, it did not quit the actual world and become a merely possible object. It became a past<\/em> actual object. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are those who remember Scollay Square. Some of their memories are veridical and some are not. How is this possible if there is nothing that they are remembering?  What makes the veridical memories veridical? I will assume that we do not want to say that the past exists only in the flickering memories of mortals.  However things stand with the future, the reality of the past is near-datanic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historians of Boston study Scollay Square making use of various physical remnants, documents such as newspaper stories, photographs and whatnot.  Are these historians writing fiction or speculating about possibilities? No, they are faithfully trying to record reality, past reality. So again, what no longer exists cannot be nothing.  What is no longer temporally present retains some sort of ontological status.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Scollay<\/a>These datanic points do not of course refute the presentist, but they present (pun intended!) a serious challenge to him, namely the challenge of accounting for them while holding fast to the thesis that only what presently exists exists simpliciter<\/em>.  Past-tensed contingent truths about Scollay Square — 'During the War Scollay Square was where sailors on shore leave in Boston went for girls and tattoos' — presumably need truthmakers; on presentism these will have to exist at present. What sort of item presently existing could do the job? Several suggestions have been made, none of them satisfactory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a related datum, a given, a Moorean deliverance that I think most would be loath to deny:<\/span><\/p>\n

DATUM: if it is true that a<\/em> was F, or that a<\/em> F'ed, then it was true that a<\/em> is F, or that a<\/em> Fs.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, if it is<\/em> true that John F. Kennedy was<\/em> in Dallas on 22 November 1963, then it was<\/em> true on that date that he is<\/em> in Dallas on that date.  For a second example, if it is<\/em> true that Socrates drank<\/em> hemlock, then it was<\/em> true that Socrates drinks<\/em> hemlock.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems to follow that the present<\/em> present cannot be the only present: there had to have been past presents, past times that were once present. For example there was the present when JFK was assassinated. That is a past present. Only what was once present could now be past. Suppose you deny this. Then are you saying that there are past items that were never present.  But that cannot be right. For the past is the present that has passed away. <\/span><\/p>\n

So what is the presentist maintaining? He cannot be maintaining<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P-Taut<\/strong>: Only present items presently exist<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

for this is not a substantive metaphysical claim contradicted by the eternalist's equally substantive denial, but a mere tautology. Nor can he be telling us that<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P-Solip<\/strong>: Only presently present items exist simpliciter<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

for this is solipsism of the present moment, a lunatic thesis. It amounts to the claim that all that ever existed, exists, and will exist exists now, where 'now' is a rigid designator of the present moment.  If our presentist pals cannot be saying that only what exists at the present present exists simpliciter<\/em>, then they they must be telling us that only what exists at a given present (whether past, present, or future) exists.  Thus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P-Cont<\/strong>: At every time t, only what is present at t, exists simpliciter<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But this seems contradictory: it implies that at each time there are no non-present times and that at each time there are non-present times. For if one quantifies over all times, then one quantifies over present and non-present times in which case there are all these times including non-present times. But the bit following the quantifier in (P-Cont) takes this back by stating that only what is present at a given time exists simpliciter<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is obvious that (P-Taut)  and (P-Solip) are nonstarters.  So we were driven to (P-Cont).  But it is contradictory. The presentist wants to limit the ontological inventory, the catalog of what exists, to temporally present items.  To avoid both tautology and the solipsism of the present moment, however, he is forced to admit that what exists cannot be limited to the present. For he is forced to admit that there are times that are not present.<\/span><\/p>\n

My interim conclusion is that presentism makes no clear sense.  This does not support eternalism, however, for it has its own problems. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presentism in the philosophy of time is the thesis that only the (temporally) present exists. This is not the tautology that only present items (times, individuals, events . . .) exist at present; it is the substantive metaphysical thesis that only present items exist simpliciter. So if something no longer exists, it does not exist … Continue reading “Puzzling Over Presentism”<\/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-4454","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\/4454","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=4454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}