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Single Idea 14724

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism ]

Full Idea

The presentist must deny the truth of everyday claims that concern multiple times taken together.

Gist of Idea

Presentists must deny truths about multiple times

Source

Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.2)

Book Ref

Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.25


A Reaction

This rests on the extent to which every truth has an ontological commitment. You can deny the literal existence of multiple times without denying such truths.


The 30 ideas with the same theme [only the present moment exists]:

The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine]
If Presentism is correct, we cannot even say that the present changes [Dummett]
If things don't persist through time, then change makes no sense [Le Poidevin]
I am a presentist, and all language and common sense supports my view [Bigelow]
Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider]
For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider]
'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland]
Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM]
Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks]
Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks]
Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks]
How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
A fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity could make presentism possible [Ladyman/Ross]
Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian]
Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian]
Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian]
Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian]
Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian]
Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian]
Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian]
Presentists lack the materials for a realist view of change [Price,H]
Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter]
Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
How do presentists explain relations between things existing at different times? [Baron/Miller]
Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson]