Full Idea
The property 'being such as to have been a child' is suspicious because it points beyond its instances in the sense that a thing's presently having that property tells us nothing about the present intrinsic nature of the thing.
Gist of Idea
The present property 'having been F' says nothing about a thing's intrinsic nature
Source
Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 2)
Book Reference
'Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Vol.6', ed/tr. Zimmerman,D/Bennett,K [OUP 2011], p.59
A Reaction
This is his objection to what he calls the 'Lucretian' strategy, which tries to make history into a property of present reality. That is implausible, I think, because there is no test for the property, apart from knowledge of the past. Reality is tensed?