New Papers on the Present

Focus on Presentism
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-3-88405-103-0
Verlag: Philosophia Verlag

Buch, Englisch, 340 Seiten, PB, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 220 mm, Gewicht: 435 g

Reihe: Basic Philosophical Concepts

Presentism is the view that only the present exists. Eternalism, by contrast, is the view that present, past and future objects and times exist. Philosophers have been divided for centuries regarding whether reality is an ever changing present consisting of objects and events coming into and out of existence, or whether reality is composed of all that did, does, and will exist. On the one hand, presentism and the associated dynamical view of time look closer to common sense and to the way we ordinarily think and talk about past and future objects; on the other hand, there are aspects of common sense talk that are more easily accommodated by eternalism, and, arguably, eternalism is a better ?t with contemporary science. In the last two decades in analytic philosophy both positions have been defended and the literature ?ourishes with arguments for and against each of them, along with a huge family of alternative proposals.

This proliferation of views and the many attendant discussions provides evidence for the importance of the issue in the contemporary philosophy of time. The present volume targets anyone who is interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, from those who are new to the philosophy of time to those whose studies are more advanced. It provides updated and re?ned research perspectives on topics such as the status of the present, the groundedness of truth, cross-temporality, the passage of time, and the methodological assumptions behind the debate between presentists and eternalists.
The book is to be read as a coherent whole and not as a series of disparate papers on a similar theme; it settles the terms and me-thelology oh the debate, weighs the costs and bene?ts of each posi-tion and considers the plausibility of alternative solutions. The papers offered are novel, and add to the literature on the philoso-phy of time, while at the same time they are written so as to focus on the core issues at play in the debate and not to get bound up in small technical side issues. This is why they are of general interest both to specialists in the philosophy of time and to those who are approaching these issues for the ?rst time. Bibliographies will be found at the end of each paper, and we hope they will constitute a helpful research tool for the reader.

Zielgruppe

The volume targets anyone who is interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, from those who are new to the philosophy of time to those whose studies are more advanced.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ciuni, Roberto

Miller, Kristie

Torrengo, Giuliano

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Preface vii

Part 1. The debate

Characterizing Presentism by Neil McKinnon 13
Characterizing Eternalism by Samuel Baron & Kristie Miller 31
The Triviality of Presentism by Ulrich Meyer 67

Part 2. Presentism: Problems and Defenses

The Fate of Presentism in Modern Physics by Christian Wüthrich 91

Presentism and Relativity: No Con?ict by E.J. Lowe 133

Presentism and Grounding Past Truths by Matthew Davidson 153
Grounding Past Truths: Overcoming the Challenge by Brian Kierland 173
Presentism and Cross-Temporal Relations by Roberto Ciuni & Giuliano Torrengo 211
Presentism, Primitivism and Cross-Temporal Relations: Lessons from Holistic Ersatzism and Dynamic Semantics by Berit Brogaard 253

Part 3. Alternatives to Presentism

A Heterodox Presentism: Kit Fine’s theory by Jonathan Tallant 281
A Real Present without Presentism by Yuval Dolev 307
Abstracts 331
Contributors Biographies 337

Leseproben

Preface

Presentism is the view that only the present exists. Eternalism, by contrast, is the view that present, past and future objects and times exist. Philosophers have been divided for centuries regarding whether reality is an ever changing present consisting of objects and events coming into and out of existence, or whether reality is composed of all that did, does, and will exist. On the one hand, presentism and the associated dynamical view of time look closer to common sense and to the way we ordinarily think and talk about past and future objects; on the other hand, there are aspects of common sense talk that are more easily accommodated by eternal-ism, and, arguably, eternalism is a better ?t with contemporary science. In the last two decades in analytic philosophy both posi-tions have been defended and the literature ?ourishes with argu-ments for and against each of them, along with a huge family of alternative proposals.

This proliferation of views and the many attendant discussions provides evidence for the importance of the issue in the contempo-rary philosophy of time. The present volume targets anyone who is interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, from those who are new to the philosophy of time to those whose studies are more advanced. It provides updated and re?ned research per-spectives on topics such as the status of the present, the grounded-ness of truth, cross-temporality, the passage of time, and the meth-odological assumptions behind the debate between presentists and eternalists.

The book is divided into three parts. The ?rst, containing three papers, focuses on the characterization of the central tenets of pre-sentism (by Neil McKinnon) and eternalism (by Samuel Baron and Kristie Miller), and on the ‘sceptical stance’ (by Ulrich Meyer), a view to the effect that there is no substantial difference between presentism and eternalism.

The second and main section of the book contains three pairs of papers that bring the main problems with presentism to the fore and outlines its defence strategy. Each pair of papers in this section can be read as a discussion between presentists and eternalists, wherein each directly responds to the arguments and objections offered by the other. This is a discussion that is sometimes absent in the literature, or which is at best carried out in a fragmented way.

The ?rst two papers of the section deal with the problem of the compatibility of Special Relativity Theory (SRT) and presentism. SRT is often considered to be a theory that contradicts the main tenet of presentism, thereby rendering presentism at odds with one of our most solid scienti?c theories. Christian Wüthrich’s paper presents arguments for the incompatibility of the two theories (SRT and presentism) within a new framework that includes a dis-cussion of further complications arising from the theory of Qauan-tum Mechanics. Jonathan Lowe’s paper, by contrast, develops new general arguments against the incompatibility thesis and replies to Wüthrich’s paper.

The second pair of papers focuses on the problem that presen-tists face, in providing grounds for past tensed truths. In the ?rst (by Matthew Davidson), new arguments are provided to defend the idea that the presentist cannot adequately explain how what is now true about the past is grounded, since for the presentist the past is completely devoid of ontological ground. The second paper (by Brian Kierland) takes up the challenge of developing a presentist explanation of past truths, beginning by outlining some existing views in the literature before advancing an original proposal.

Traditionally, presentism is also said to have a problem with cross-temporal relations, that is, those relations that (as least ac-cording to the presentist) hold at one time even though one of their relata does not exist it that time. Causal relations are the most prominent and troublesome of such relations. Roberto Ciuni and Giuliano Torrengo’s paper questions the soundness of the common strategies deployed by all tee main pre-sentist accounts of cross-temporal relations. While Berit Brogaard’s paper questions wheth-er the arguments from cross-temporal relations really do land any blows against presentism. She then replies to the criticisms pre-sented in the precedent paper.

The third and last section consists of two papers that present non-standard alternatives to presentism and eternalism, that is, theories that try to overcome the methodology and general assump-tions that gave rise to the presentism/eternalism debate. Jonathan Tallant’s paper discusses and criticizes the “heterodox” presentist theory presented by Kit Fine, a theory that aims to avoid the main problems of “standard” presentism whilst retaining the attractive features of the view. According to Tallant, however, Fine’s theory fails to allow us to have the best of both worlds, and he suggests that those attracted to presentism should instead look to a better formulation of a “traditional” version of presentism. The last paper presents some developments to the conceptual approach proposed by Yuval Dolev, which aims to overcome the metaphysical debate between presentism and eternalism, without falling into some scep-tical position. Dolev argues that the eternalists are right in criticiz-ing the presentist conception of present, but they are mistaken in concluding that tenses are metaphorical. Rather, the ontological import of the debate should be downplayed to a phenomenological reading, in order to reach a new understanding of what makes the present metaphysically special.

The book is to be read as a coherent whole and not as a series of disparate papers on a similar theme; it settles the terms and me-thelology oh the debate, weighs the costs and bene?ts of each posi-tion and considers the plausibility of alternative solutions. The papers offered are novel, and add to the literature on the philoso-phy of time, while at the same time they are written so as to focus on the core issues at play in the debate and not to get bound up in small technical side issues. This is why they are of general interest both to specialists in the philosophy of time and to those who are approaching these issues for the ?rst time. Bibliographies will be found at the end of each paper, and we hope they will constitute a helpful research tool for the reader.

Before closing the preface, we wish to thank the authors for taking part in this intellectually stimulating enterprise, and Julian Pfei?e and Guido Governatori for their decisive contributions to the editing and formatting of the volume.

Roberto Ciuni
Kristie Miller
Giuliano Torrengo