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Single Idea 18927

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals ]

Full Idea

If there are temporally extended entities - and there are - then there must be extended regions of time for those entities to extend in. Hence presentism is false.

Gist of Idea

Surely if things extend over time, then time itself must be extended?

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.72


A Reaction

[Cameron is playing devil's advocate] Something has to be weird here, and I take it to be the fact that the past no longer exists, and yet it is fixed and supports truths. Get over it. My childhood has gone. Totally. Irrevocably.


The 31 ideas from Ross P. Cameron

Essentialists say intrinsic properties arise from what the thing is, irrespective of surroundings [Cameron]
An object's intrinsic properties are had in virtue of how it is, independently [Cameron]
Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron]
Truthmaker requires a commitment to tropes or states of affairs, for contingent truths [Cameron]
Give up objects necessitating truths, and say their natures cause the truths? [Cameron]
S4 says there must be some necessary truths (the actual ones, of which there is at least one) [Cameron]
Blackburn fails to show that the necessary cannot be grounded in the contingent [Cameron]
The 'moving spotlight' theory makes one time privileged, while all times are on a par ontologically [Cameron]
For realists it is analytic that truths are grounded in the world [Cameron]
What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron]
Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron]
Orthodox Truthmaker applies to all propositions, and necessitates their truth [Cameron]
God fixes all the truths of the world by fixing what exists [Cameron]
Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron]
Maybe truthmaking and correspondence stand together, and are interdefinable [Cameron]
I support the correspondence theory because I believe in truthmakers [Cameron]
Without truthmakers, negative truths must be ungrounded [Cameron]
We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron]
Realism says a discourse is true or false, and some of it is true [Cameron]
Realism says truths rest on mind-independent reality; truthmaking theories are about which features [Cameron]
Moral realism doesn't seem to entail the existence of any things [Cameron]
Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron]
The present property 'having been F' says nothing about a thing's intrinsic nature [Cameron]
Being polka-dotted is a 'spatial distribution' property [Cameron]
Change is instantiation of a non-uniform distributional property, like 'being red-then-orange' [Cameron]
Surely if things extend over time, then time itself must be extended? [Cameron]
One temporal distibution property grounds our present and past truths [Cameron]
We don't want present truthmakers for the past, if they are about to cease to exist! [Cameron]
If maximalism is necessary, then that nothing exists has a truthmaker, which it can't have [Cameron]
The facts about the existence of truthmakers can't have a further explanation [Cameron]
Determinate truths don't need extra truthmakers, just truthmakers that are themselves determinate [Cameron]