How to Be a Presentist.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Balaguer, Mark.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2026.

Summary:

In the last 100 years, since Einstein published his special theory of relativity, the standard view among physicists and philosophers has been as follows: (a) physical reality is a 4-dimensional spatiotemporal manifold in which time is the fourth dimension, (b) past and future objects like dinosaurs and Martian outposts exist in the same way that present objects like tables and rocks do, and (c) temporally distant regions of the 4-dimensional manifold (e.g., the Jurassic Period) are exactly analogous to spatially distant regions (e.g., the Outer Solar System). This book pushes back against this orthodox view and defends the commonsense view that (i) physical reality is a 3-dimensional spatial manifold, and (ii) past and future objects like dinosaurs and Martian outposts don't exist at all. In doing so, Mark Balaguer defends presentism--the view that only present objects exist and that there are no past or future objects.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

1.1. OPENING REMARKS

1.2. PRESENTISM AND ETERNALISM

1.3. GROWING BLOCK THEORY

1.4. THE A-THEORY, ENDURANTISM, AND NON-REDUCTIONISM ABOUT TENSE

1.4.1. The A-Theory, the B-theory, and the Moving Spotlight

1.4.2. Non-Reductionism About Tense

1.4.3. Endurantism

1.5. ONTOLOGICAL PARSIMONY AS THE ONLY MOTIVATION FOR DEFENDING PRESENTISM

1.6. A LIST OF OBJECTIONS TO PRESENTISM

1.7. A SYNOPSIS OF THIS BOOK

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapters 6-8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

1.8. THE VERSION OF PRESENTISM DEVELOPED IN THIS BOOK AND METAPHYSICAL LEANNESS

1.9. WHAT I SAY HERE ISN'T REALLY TRUE

PART I METAPHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES

2 Against Trivialism

2.1. OPENING REMARKS

2.2. TRIVIALISM DEFINED

2.3. THE ARGUMENT AGAINST TRIVIALISM (IN OUTLINE)

2.4. PREMISE [2a]

2.5. PREMISE [2b]

3 Against Necessitarianism

3.1. OPENING REMARKS

3.2. PRELIMINARIES

3.2.1. Necessitarianism and Contingentism Defined

3.2.2. Conceivability, Non-Contradictoriness, and Possibility

3.2.3. Necessitarianism About Ontological Questions

3.3. THE ARGUMENT AGAINST NECESSITARIANISM (IN OUTLINE)

3.4. THE ARGUMENT FOR [3c]

3.5. CONDITIONAL NECESSITARIANISM

3.6. METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY

3.7. CONCLUSION

4 Anti-Metaphysicalism

4.1. OPENING REMARKS

4.2. SCIENTISM, NON-FACTUALISM, AND ANTI-METAPHYSICALISM

4.2.1. Scientism-or-Bust Defined

4.2.2. How Non-Factualism Could Be True

4.2.3. Anti-Metaphysicalism

4.3. THE ARGUMENT FOR SCIENTISM-OR-BUST (IN OUTLINE)

4.4. THE ARGUMENT FOR [AM4]: FROM CONTINGENTISM TO SCIENTISM

4.5. SCIENTISM VS. NON-FACTUALISM

PART II IN DEFENSE OF PRESENTISM

5 FAPP-ist Error Theory

5.1. OPENING REMARKS.

5.2. ONTOLOGICAL-COMMITMENT ARGUMENTS AND THE TWO POSSIBLE RESPONSES TO THEM

5.2.1. Ontological-Commitment Arguments Against Presentism

5.2.2. Two Possible Responses

5.2.3. An Aside on Why These Sentences Really Do Involve Ontological Commitments

5.3. ONTOLOGICAL-COMMITMENT ARGUMENTS AREN'T EVEN OF THE RIGHT KIND

5.4. ERROR THEORY ABOUT [W]‌

5.4.1. Error Theory About [W]‌ Defined

5.4.2. The Objective-Fact Objection to Error Theory About [W]‌

5.4.3. FAPP-truth

5.4.4. FAPP-ism About [W]‌

5.4.5. Distinguishing FAPP-ist Error Theory from Two Other Views

5.4.6. The Argument for FAPP-ism About [W]‌

5.4.7. Error Theory About [W]‌ as a Plausible View

5.5. GENERALIZING

5.5.1. The Same Goes for Other Sentences About the Past and Future

5.5.2. Two Attractive Features of the Generality of My Argument

5.6. THE SINGULAR-PROPOSITION ARGUMENT AND THE STATUE-LUMP ARGUMENT

5.6.1. The Singular-Proposition Argument

5.6.2. The Statue-Lump Argument

6 Truthmaking I: Backing Presentists into a Nothingist Corner

6.1. OPENING REMARKS

6.2. THE TRUTHMAKING ARGUMENT AGAINST PRESENTISM

6.3. FOUR POSSIBLE RESPONSES

6.4. AGAINST GLOBAL ERROR THEORY

6.5. AGAINST FIND-THE-TRUTHMAKER VIEWS

6.6. AGAINST NON-QUINEAN VIEWS

6.7. NOTHINGISM STANDS ALONE

7 Truthmaking II: Nothingism to the Rescue

7.1. OPENING REMARKS

7.2. HOW NOTHINGIST VIEWS COULD BE TRUE (AND HOW THE UNRESTRICTED TRUTHMAKING PRINCIPLE COULD BE FALSE)

7.3. SIX QUICK POINTS TO NOTE ABOUT THE NOTHINGIST STRATEGY

7.3.1. Which Kinds of Sentences Should We Be Nothingists About? (and Partial Nothingist Views of Other Kinds of Sentences)

7.3.2. What Nothingist-Style Presentists Actually Need to Argue For

7.3.3. Bruteness

7.3.4. Grounding

7.3.5. Because

7.3.6. How Nothingist Views Differ from Fundamental Tensed-Fact Views.

7.4. NOTHINGISM ABOUT 'WAS'-SENTENCES

7.4.1. The Presentoids

7.4.2. Is [Was-Dino] Really Not About Reality?

7.4.3. The Mere Possibility of Presentish

7.4.4. The Main Argument

7.4.5. Eternalish

7.4.6. The 'WAS'-Sentences of Real-Life Presentists

7.4.7. Five Conclusions

7.4.8. Generalizing to Other 'WAS'-Sentences

7.5. THE PAST-TENSE SENTENCES OF ORDINARY ENGLISH

7.6. OBJECTIONS AND RESPONSES

7.6.1. What We Can and Can't Stipulate

7.6.2. Supervenience and Epistemology

7.6.3. Can We Understand Presentish?

7.6.4. Does My Argument Overgeneralize?

7.6.5. Which Intuitions are Reliable and Which Aren't

7.6.6. Pluralism About Truth

7.7. THE COUNTERFACTUALS OF CHAPTER 5

8 Truthmaking III: What Makes the Counterfactuals of Chapter 5 True?

8.1. OPENING REMARKS

8.2. IF PRESENTISTS ENDORSE A POSSIBLE-WORLDS VIEW OF COUNTERFACTUALS

8.3. IF PRESENTISTS ENDORSE A NOTHINGIST VIEW OF (CERTAIN KINDS OF) COUNTERFACTUALS

8.3.1. Counterfactual Nothingism

8.3.2. CN-Presentism

8.4. IF PRESENTISTS ENDORSE SOME OTHER VIEW OF COUNTERFACTUALS

9 How to Make Presentism Consistent with Special Relativity

9.1. OPENING REMARKS

9.2. THE ARGUMENT FROM SPECIAL RELATIVITY

9.3. CAN PRESENTISTS DENY THE RELATIVITY OF SIMULTANEITY?

9.4. RELATIVIZED PRESENTISM

9.4.1. An Intuitive Picture of the Relativized Presentist Worldview

9.4.2. Defining R-Presentism and the Relativity of Existence

9.4.3. Absolute, Frame-Independent Existence

9.4.4. A Second Sense in Which R-Presentism Involves a Relativity of Existence?

9.5. DISTINGUISHING R-PRESENTISM FROM A NEARBY VIEW

9.6. OBJECTIONS AND RESPONSES

9.7. THE PURPOSE OF THIS CHAPTER

10 Time Travel and Change

10.1. TIME TRAVEL

10.2. CHANGE

10.2.1. The Temporary-Intrinsic Argument Against Presentism.

10.2.2. The Accounting-for-Change Argument Against Presentism

PART III METAPHYSICALLY MINIMAL PRESENTISM

11 Metaphysically Minimal Presentism: Or: Presentism Without Time, Without Temporal Passage, and Without the A-Theory

11.1. OPENING REMARKS

11.2. TIMELESS PRESENTISM, A-TRUTHS, AND FAPP-IST ERROR THEORY

11.3. NON-FACTUALISM?

11.4. AGAINST ERSATZ VIEWS OF TIMEFUL THINGS

11.5. WHY PRESENTISTS SHOULD NOT ENDORSE THE EXISTENCE OF CONCRETE TIMEFUL THINGS

11.5.1. The First Argument-Avoiding Metaphysical Extravagance

11.5.2. A Carnapian Response

11.5.3. The Second Argument-Avoiding Objections to Presentism

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780197845745

OCLC:

1583402059