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Full Idea
One of the limitations of the A-series is that temporal passage then presupposes the existence of properties of being present, being past and being future.
Gist of Idea
The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties
Source
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.1)
Book Ref
Baron,S/Miller,K: 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Time' [Polity 2019], p.39
A Reaction
Metaphysicians happily talk about 'properties' all the time, and most of them never grasp how ambiguous and obscure that concept is. The idea that my recent scratching of my chin first acquired the 'present' property and then lost it is incoherent.
Related Idea
Idea 22997 The present moment is a matter of existence, not of acquiring a property [Baron/Miller]
| 22961 | The present moment is obviously a necessary feature of time [Aristotle] |
| 3915 | The Hopi have no concept of time as something flowing from past to future [Whorf] |
| 22899 | 'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN] |
| 14614 | The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart] |
| 15187 | It is claimed that the tense view entails the unreality of both future and past [Le Poidevin] |
| 15192 | We share a common now, but not a common here [Le Poidevin] |
| 15205 | Tensed theorists typically try to reduce the tenseless to the tensed [Le Poidevin] |
| 16266 | There is one ordered B series, but an infinitude of A series, depending on when the present is [Maudlin] |
| 14608 | A-theorists, unlike B-theorists, believe some sort of objective distinction between past, present and future [Zimmerman,DW] |
| 14006 | Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne] |
| 22897 | The A-series says a past event is becoming more past, but how can it do that? [Bardon] |
| 22996 | The A-series has to treat being past, present or future as properties [Baron/Miller] |