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Full Idea
Whilst not logically inconsistent, it would be bad if it could now be true that ten years ago there was a sea battle, but that five years ago it wasn't true that five years before that there was a sea battle.
Gist of Idea
We don't want present truthmakers for the past, if they are about to cease to exist!
Source
Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 4)
Book Ref
'Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Vol.6', ed/tr. Zimmerman,D/Bennett,K [OUP 2011], p.76
A Reaction
Nicely makes the point that you can't let the past rely on truthmakers in the present, if those truthmakers are about to go out of existence. So you need a sustained truthmaker, without giving up presentism. Enter 'temporally distributed properties'?
Related Idea
Idea 18926 One temporal distibution property grounds our present and past truths [Cameron]
| 18923 | The present property 'having been F' says nothing about a thing's intrinsic nature [Cameron] |
| 18924 | Being polka-dotted is a 'spatial distribution' property [Cameron] |
| 18930 | Change is instantiation of a non-uniform distributional property, like 'being red-then-orange' [Cameron] |
| 18927 | Surely if things extend over time, then time itself must be extended? [Cameron] |
| 18926 | One temporal distibution property grounds our present and past truths [Cameron] |
| 18929 | We don't want present truthmakers for the past, if they are about to cease to exist! [Cameron] |
| 18928 | If maximalism is necessary, then that nothing exists has a truthmaker, which it can't have [Cameron] |
| 18931 | Determinate truths don't need extra truthmakers, just truthmakers that are themselves determinate [Cameron] |
| 18932 | The facts about the existence of truthmakers can't have a further explanation [Cameron] |