{"id":4481,"date":"2018-06-18T15:48:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T15:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/06\/18\/presentism-truthmakers-and-ex-concrete-objects\/"},"modified":"2018-06-18T15:48:27","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T15:48:27","slug":"presentism-truthmakers-and-ex-concrete-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/06\/18\/presentism-truthmakers-and-ex-concrete-objects\/","title":{"rendered":"Presentism, Truthmakers, and Ex-Concrete Objects: Some Questions for Francesco Orilia"},"content":{"rendered":"

 Here is an interesting little antilogism<\/a> to break our heads against:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A. Presentism<\/em>: Only what exists at present, exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

B. Datum<\/em>: There are past-tensed truths.<\/span><\/p>\n

C. Truthmaker Principle<\/em>: If p is a contingent truth, then there is a truthmaker T such that (i) T makes true p, and (ii) T exists when p is true.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Each of these propositions is plausible, but they cannot all be true.  Any two of  the propositions, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, it is true, and true now, that Kerouac wrote On the Road<\/em>. This truth is both past-tensed and contingent.  So, by (C),  this truth has a truthmaker that now exists. A plausible truthmaker such as the fact of Kerouac's having written On the Road<\/em>  will have to have Kerouac himself as a constituent. But Kerouac does not now exist, and if presentism is true, he does not exist at all.  Assuming that a truthmaking fact or state of affairs cannot exist unless all its constituents exist, it follows that there is no present truthmaker of the past-tensed truth in question.  So if (C) is true, then (A) is false: it cannot be the case that only what exists now, exists.  I will assume for the space of this entry that (B) cannot be reasonably denied.<\/span><\/p>\n

So one way to solve the antilogism is by rejecting presentism. Presentists will be loathe to do this, of course, and will try to find surrogate items to serve as constituents of present truthmakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Different sorts of surrogate items have been proposed. I will consider the surrogate or proxy favored by Francesco Orilia in his rich and penetrating "Moderate Presentism," Philosophical Studies<\/em>, March 2016. (He would not call it a surrogate or a proxy, but that is what I think it is.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Orilia's favored surrogates are ex-concrete objects<\/em>. Consider the sentence<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) Garibaldi was awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a.m.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This sentence is past-tensed, and if true, then contingently true. So, if true, it needs a truthmaker. We are told that the truthmaker of (1) is the present event  or state of affairs — Orilia uses these terms interchangeably, see p. 598, n. 1) – – consisting of Garibaldi's exemplifying of the time-indexed past-tense property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m.  But of course Orilia does not mean that concrete Garibaldi himself presently exemplifies the property in question; he means that the ex-concrete object Garibaldi presently exemplifies it.  After all, concrete Garibaldi is long gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is an ex-concrete object?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The emperor Trajan is a merely past object (particular). On typical (as opposed to moderate) presentism, his being past implies that he does not exist at all. For Orilia, however, "merely past objects have not really ceased to exist, but have rather become ex-concrete<\/em>." (593) The idea seems to be that they continue to exist, but with an altered categorial status. Merely past objects were concrete  but are now ex-concrete, where this means that they are "neither abstract nor concrete." (593, quotation from T. Williamson.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So when Trajan became wholly past, he yet continued to exist as an ex-concrete object. Hence Trajan still exists — as an ex-concrete object.  And the same goes for Garibaldi. Since the statesman still exists as ex-concrete he is available now to exemplify such properties as the property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a.m. His exemplification of this property constitutes a present event or state of affairs that can serve as the truthmaker for (1).<\/span><\/p>\n

Can an item change its categorial status?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Orilia is well aware that there is something dubious about the supposition that an item can change or lose its categorial status. For it seems as clear as anything that categorial features are essentially<\/em> had by the items that have them. Numbers, sets, and (Fregean) propositions are candidate abstracta. There is little or no sense to the notion that the number 9, say, could become concrete or ex-abstract. For the number 9, if abstract, is abstract in every possible world, assuming, plausibly, that numbers are necessary beings. Similarly, it is difficult to understand how a  statue, say, if destroyed could could continue to exist as an ex-concrete object. It is not even clear what this means.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pushing further<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Orilia tells us that "backward singular terms should be taken at face value as referring to the very same objects<\/em> they used to refer [to] when they were not, so to speak, backward." (593, emphasis added.)   So uses of 'Garibaldi' now refer to the very same object that uses of the name refereed to when Garibaldi was alive. But now<\/em> the referent is an ex-concrete object whereas then<\/em> it was a concrete object. So I ask: how can concrete Garibaldi be the same as ex-concrete Garibaldi when they differ property-wise? I now invoke the contrapositive of the Indiscernibility of Identicals. <\/span><\/p>\n

If x, y differ property-wise, then they differ numerically; concrete Garibaldi and ex-concrete Garibaldi differ property-wise in that the former but not the latter is concrete; ergo, they cannot be numerically the same (one and the same).  If so, then the temporally forward and backward uses of singular terms such as "Garibaldi' cannot refer to the same object, contra what Orilia says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Orilia will readily grant me that an haecceity of a wholly past concrete object, assuming there are haecceities,  is a presently existing surrogate of the individual. My question to him is: why is this not also the case for ex-concrete objects? Of course, they are not haecceities. But they too 'go proxy' in the present for past objects such as Garibaldi and Leopardi, and they too are  distinct from full-fledged concrete objects.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems to me that Orilia's position embodies a certain tension.  His moderate presentism denies that there are past events or states of affairs, in line with standard or typical presentism, but allows that there are past objects (589).  But these past objects are ex-concrete. The latter, then, are not past objects strictly speaking (as they would be on a B-theory) but proxies for past objects. So there may be some waffling here. Connected with this is the fact that it is not clear how concrete Garibaldi, say, relates to ex-concrete Garibaldi. We are told in effect that they are the same, but they cannot be the same. Their relation wants clarification.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are ex-concrete objects subject to the 'aboutness worry'?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If I am sad that my classmate Janet Johnston has died and is no longer with us, presumably it is the loss of Janet herself that saddens me. There is no comfort in the thought that ex-concrete Janet is still 'with us,' any more than there would be at the thought that her haecceity, now unexemplified, is still 'with us.'<\/span><\/p>\n

Truthmaking troubles<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday I drank some Campari. What makes this past-tensed, contingent truth true?  Note the difference between:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

2) BV's having yesterday drunk Campari (A case of a present object's past exemplification of an untensed property) <\/span><\/p>\n

and<\/span><\/p>\n

3) BV's being such that he drank Campari yesterday (A case of a present object's present exemplification of a past-tensed property.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(2) is a past event or state of affairs, while (3) is a present event or state of affairs. Since Orilia's moderate presentism rejects past (and future) events, he must take (3) to be the truthmaker of the truth that yesterday I drank some Campari. But it seems to me that the truthmaker of 'Yesterday I drank some Campari' is not (3), but (2).  This sentence is true because yesterday I exemplified the untensed property of drinking Campari, not because today I exemplify the past-tensed property of having drunk Campari yesterday. Why? Well, I can have the past-tensed property today only because I had the untensed property yesterday.  The latter is parasitic upon the former. <\/span><\/p>\n

The same problem arises for Orilia's sentence (1). We are told that the truthmaker of (1) is the present event  or state of affairs consisting of Garibaldi's exemplifying of the time-indexed past-tense property of having been awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m. Ex-concrete Garibaldi cannot now have the time-indexed past tense property unless concrete Garibaldi had the untensed property of being awake on October 26, 1860 at 8:30 a. m. Or so it seems to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

To conclude, I am not convinced that Orilia (the man in the middle, below) has provided us with truthmakers for past-tensed truths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image credit: Francesca Muccini, 5 June 2018, Recanati, Italy.  The philosopher to the left of Francesco is Mark Anderson, Francesca's husband.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_0883<\/a>
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 Here is an interesting little antilogism to break our heads against: A. Presentism: Only what exists at present, exists. B. Datum: There are past-tensed truths. C. Truthmaker Principle: If p is a contingent truth, then there is a truthmaker T such that (i) T makes true p, and (ii) T exists when p is true. … Continue reading “Presentism, Truthmakers, and Ex-Concrete Objects: Some Questions for Francesco Orilia”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,204,228],"tags":[643,612,642],"class_list":["post-4481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aporetics","category-time-and-change","category-truth","tag-ex-concrete-objects","tag-presentism","tag-truthmakers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481","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=4481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}