more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It is the existence of past objects that explains why the past is fixed, and why there are truths about the past, and it is the non-existence of future objects that explains why the future is malleable.
Gist of Idea
The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects
Source
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.3)
Book Ref
Baron,S/Miller,K: 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Time' [Polity 2019], p.15
A Reaction
The authors label this view 'EntityNowandThenism', and it comes in a section on the 'Temporal Ontology'.
| 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] |