back to ideas for this text


Single Idea 14026

[from 'Presentism' by Thomas M. Crisp, in 27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism ]

Full Idea

We can talk of 'moments of time' as abstract objects. This will be attractive to the presentist. As possible worlds give an economical theory of modal talk, so 'times' gives us a theory for temporal talk.

Gist of Idea

Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds

Source

Thomas M. Crisp (Presentism [2003], 3.4)

Book Reference

'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.240


A Reaction

Thus we can utilise 'times', while having no more commitment to them than to possible worlds. Nice. He cites Prior and Fine 1977 and Chisholm 1979.