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Full Idea
I am not sure what account presentists should give of an object's having existed.
Gist of Idea
How can a presentist explain an object's having existed?
Source
Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I)
Book Ref
Merricks,Trenton: 'Truth and Ontology' [OUP 2007], p.122
A Reaction
Personally I am pretty puzzled by the eternalist and growing-block accounts of an object having existed, so we are all up a gum tree here. The best bet is to pull truth and existence apart, but heaven knows what that implies. See Idea 14399.
Related Idea
Idea 14399 Presentism says only the present exists, so there is nothing for tensed truths to supervene on [Lewis]
| 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] |