more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false.
Gist of Idea
If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers
Source
Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First')
Book Ref
Le Poidevin,Robin: 'Travels in Four Dimensions' [OUP 2003], p.138
A Reaction
He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past.
| 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] |