Philosophy of Time Society Forum

New bibliography

Check out the new on line bibliography for the philosophy of mind and consciousness studies at http://consc.net/mindpapers. There are two subsections listing lots of papers from philosophy and beyond on "temporal consciousness" and "time and consciousness."

This philosophy of mind site raises the question, perhaps we should put together our own group bibliography on time studies...

Truthmaker is a Goner

I've been reading Trenton Merricks' new book Truth and Ontology, and he spends the first few chapters beating up on Truthmaker.  I now think that Truthmaker is a goner.

"Truthmaker says that for every true claim there is something or other that - just by existing - makes that claim true" (p. 1).  If Truthmaker is true, then presentists who believe that propositions like D: that there were dinosaurs are true are in trouble because it seems that nothing presently exists to make (D) true.  Similar things could be said for propositions about brute dispositions, modal properties, subjunctive conditionals (including counterfactuals of freedom), and so on.  The principle motivation behind Truthmaker, Merricks points out, is to "catch the cheaters" - cheaters like presentists.

A big objection to Truthmaker is that negative existentials like H: that Hobbits don't exist don't need truthmakers but are true.  (H) is obviously true.  So Truthmaker is false.

Merricks devotes chapter 3 to dealing with ways that the Truthmaker theorist might try to account for the truths of negative existentials.  Perhaps the universe has the property of being such that there are no hobbits, and this property is the truthmaker for (H).  But then cheaters can make the same move.  They can say that the proposition (D) is made true by the universe's having the property of being such that there were dinosaurs.

Or perhaps (H) is made true by the totality of all existing objects in the universe.  But all this could exist and (H) could be false.  (It's possible that all existing objects in the universe exist and Hobbits exist as well.)

Perhaps (H) is made true by the totality of all existing objects in the universe and the universe's having the property being such that there is nothing else.  But then, as mentioned above, there doesn't seem to be a principled reason to disallow properties like being such that there were dinosaurs.

Merricks' response to that last objection is what did it for me.  Truthmaker theorists should move on to defending other principles like "truth supervenes on being" or they should formulate new principles.  But maybe my conclusion is to quick.  Is there any hope for Truthmaker?

Constituents of Times

Some people define a time as a maximally consistent set of propositions.  It seems to me that this is false because a set has its members essentially, but what is true at a time is only contingently true at that time.  (So that Bill walks to the store is the true at t, but it could have been false at t.)

But a bunch of smart people think of times as sets of propositions.  Consider:

Thomas Crisp:

"x is a time =df. For some class C of propositions such that C is maximal and consistent, x=[Ay(y is a member of C -> y is true]." ("Presentism and the Grounding Objection", Nous 41:1, 2007, p. 99)

(The "A" should stand for the universal quantifier.  In the article, Crisp cites Chisholm, Edward Zalta, Arthur Prior, Kit Fine, and Matthew Davidson as holding similar views.  Crisp's view strikes me as bizarre, since the only time that exists is the present time since that's the only one that's true.  But I bet I'm missing something really obvious.)

Ned Markosian

"There is the abstract present time, which is a maximal, consistent proposition.  There are many things that are similar to the abstract present time in being maximal, consistent propositions that either will be true, are true, or have been true.  Each one is a time.  The abstract present time is the only one of all of these abstract times that happens to be true now." ("A Defense of Presentism", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 1, 2003, p. 76)

Robin Le Poidevin

"An instant, that is, is equated with all the propositions which would ordinarily be described as being (contingently) true at that instant.  The content of the propositions concerns the states of affairs taking place at that instant..." (Change, Cause, and Contradiction, 1991, p. 37)

(Here, Le Poidevin is referring to Prior's views, though he thinks that all presentists are committed to this definition.)

Craig Bourne

"I propose we construct times using maximally consistent sets of u-propositions, which intuitively we can see as those u-propositions that are true at that time." (A Future for Presentism, 2006, p. 53-54)

(By "u-proposition", Bourne is referring to a proposition without a past or future tense operator on it.)

The point that what is true at a time is contingent was pointed out by W.L. Craig in his critique of Le Poidevin's critique of presentism (A Tensed Theory of Time, p. 213), and Craig cites van Inwagen as noting this in his article "Indexicality and Actuality", 1980, footnote 3).

I think that Craig and Van Inwagen are right.  But doesn't this then make Crisp, Markosian, and Bourne's view of times implausible?

Are presentism/eternalism, etc. metaphysical or empirical claims?

Some claim that presentism is falsified by special relativity. Does that make presentism a contingent truth? If the speed of light were infinite, would that change matters for presentism? Do eternalism or the growing block theory, if true, have the status of metaphysical truth?

Eastern APA Meeting Papers

The paper Adrian Bardon will be presenting at the Eastern APA PTS meeting, "Kant and the Conventionality of Simultaneity," is available at the following link: bardon_simultaneity.doc