more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Maybe putative non-present objects like Socrates have more in common with putative non-actual objects like Santa Claus than they have in common with objects located elsewhere in space, like Alpha Centauri.
Gist of Idea
Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects
Source
Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.7)
Book Ref
'Persistence: contemporary readings', ed/tr. Haslanger,S/|Kurtz,RM [MIT 2006], p.317
A Reaction
We can see Alpha Centauri, so we need an example beyond some 'event horizon'. He credits Arthur Prior with this line of thought. He seems to me to drift towards a Descriptive Theory of Reference (shock!). Does the nature of reference change with death?
| 17243 | Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories [Hobbes] |
| 8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
| 22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
| 14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |
| 13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
| 13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
| 22987 | The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller] |