{"id":8896,"date":"2013-03-27T15:37:54","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T15:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/03\/27\/times-as-maximal-propositions\/"},"modified":"2013-03-27T15:37:54","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T15:37:54","slug":"times-as-maximal-propositions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/03\/27\/times-as-maximal-propositions\/","title":{"rendered":"Times as Maximal Propositions"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Here are three temporal platitudes: The wholly past is no longer present; the wholly future is not yet present; the present alone is present.  Here are three closely related controversial metaphysical theses: the wholly past, being no longer is not; the wholly future, being not yet,  is not; the present alone is.  The second trio is one version of presentism.  I grant that presentism is appealing, though it would be a mistake to take it to be common sense or immediate fallout from common sense.  The platitudes are Moorean; deny them on pain of being an idiot.  Not so with the heavy-duty metaphysical theses about time and existence advanced by the presentist.  We can reasonably ask what they mean and whether they are true.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Now even presentists will admit that the past is not a mere nothing.  Last Sunday's hike has some sort of reality that cries out for accommodation.  After all it is now true<\/em> that I hiked eight hours on Sunday. Even if there are no truth-makers, there still must be something that the true past-tensed sentence is about.  Here<\/a> I distinguish between two principles, Truth-Maker and Veritas Sequitur Esse<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. We should also keep in mind that past times and events do not have the status of the merely possible. When Sunday's hike was over it did not change its modal status from actual to merely possible.  It remained an actual event, albeit a past actual event.  Soren Kierkegaard WAS  engaged to Regine Olsen, but he was never married to her.  Intuitively, the engagement belongs to the sphere of the actual whereas the marriage belongs to the sphere of the merely possible, not that it is possible now.  Neither event is a mere nothing.  Furthermore, the engagement has, intuitively,  'more reality' than the marriage.  What was is more real than what might have been.  Historians attempt to determine what the actual facts were.  They are constrained by the reality of the past, whence it follows that past has some sort of reality.  Historians are neither fiction writers nor students of mere possibilia.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. I take it to be a Moorean datum that past events and times are not nothing and also not merely possible. Hence a theory of time that cannot accommodate these data is worthless.  How can the presentist accommodate them?  He has to do it in a manner consistent with his claim that past and future  items do not exist at all, that only temporally present items exist.  <\/span><\/p>\n

5.  One approach is the 'ersatzer' approach: one looks for substitutes for nonpresent times.  Let's consider the view that times are maximal propositions.  A proposition is maximal just in case it entails every proposition with which it is broadly logically consistent.  Accordingly, past and future times are contingently false maximal propositions.   But then the present time is the sole true maximal proposition, and temporal presentness is identical to truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

This scheme seems to allow us to uphold the Moorean data mentioned in #s 2-4 while holding a version of presentism.  If each time is a proposition, and propositions exist omnitemporally, then all times are always available to be referred to.  Sunday's hike is a wholly past event.  Hence, on presentism, it does not exist at all.  But the maximal propositions that were true during the hike all exist and exist now.  It is just that they are now false.  Sunday's hike is not nothing because those maximal propositions are not nothing and each entails *BV hikes,* a proposition that is not nothing.  Sunday's hike is not merely possible because those maximal propositions, though now false, were true.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we have done is to substitute for nonexistent past events and times, existent and present but false propositions.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.  One problem I have with this approach is as follows.  If nonpresent times are false maximal propositions, then the present time is the sole true maximal proposition.  If the present time is the sole true  maximal proposition, then presentness is truth.  The concrete universe cannot, however, be said to be true.  It follows that the concrete universe  cannot be said to be temporally present.  But surely this is false: it anythiingis temporally present the concrete universe is.  For the presentist, whatever exists, exists at present.  The concrete universe exists, ergo, it is present.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a second argument.  If a contingent, singular, affirmative proposition is true, then it is made true by an existing non-proposition.  If the present time is the sole maximal true proposition, then it has a truth-maker.  That truth-maker is the concrete universe in its present state.  So the concrete universe must have the property of being temporally present to serve as the truth-maker of the present time.  For only the present universe could make true the  maximal proposition  that alone is presently true.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ersatzer approach puts Descartes before the whores<\/span> the cart before the horse:  it is the presentness of the concrete universe that explains the present truth of the maximal proposition with which the present time has been identified, and not the other way around.  Temporal presentness cannot be truth.  It cannot be 'kicked upstairs' to the level of abstracta.<\/span><\/p>\n

7.  In sum, the presentist must somehow account for the reality of the past since the past is not nothing and not something merely possible.  But the above ersatzer approach fails.  So what makes it true now that I hiked eight hours on Sunday?  If I understood Rhoda's suggestion it is that God's veridical memory of my hiking on Sunday is the truth-maker of 'I hiked last Sunday.'  We will have to consider Rhoda's suggestion in a separate post.  Deus ex machina<\/em>? <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Defining Presentism<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Abstracta: Omnitemporal or Timeless? An Argument from McCann<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Common Ground Between Presentist and Anti-Presentist?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Still Puzzling Over Presentism<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Presentism and Existence Simpliciter: Questions for Rhoda<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Can a Thing Exist Without Existing Now?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Presentism Between Scylla and Charybdis<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Presentism and Actualism, Tenseless Existence and Amodal Existence<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Five Time-Related Senses of 'Is'<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Here are three temporal platitudes: The wholly past is no longer present; the wholly future is not yet present; the present alone is present.  Here are three closely related controversial metaphysical theses: the wholly past, being no longer is not; the wholly future, being not yet,  is not; the present alone is.  The second trio … Continue reading “Times as Maximal Propositions”<\/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":[541,204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-propositions","category-time-and-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896","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=8896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}