A bump on the road to presentism

Journal article

Baron, Sam. (2015). A bump on the road to presentism. American Philosophical Quarterly. 52(4), pp. 345 - 356.
AuthorsBaron, Sam
Abstract

Presentism faces a familiar objection from truthmaker theory. How can propositions about the past be made true if past entities do not exist? In answering this question, there are, broadly, two roads open to the presentist. The easy road to presentism proceeds by capitulating to the demands imposed by truthmaker theory and finding truthmakers for claims about the past. This road typically involves the invocation of controversial metaphysical posits that must then be defended. The hard road to presentism resists the demands of truthmaker theory by denying that all truths must be truth-made. The road is hard as it requires providing a principled restriction on the scope of truthmaker theory. In this paper, I argue that the hard road collapses back into the easy road; there is no hard road to presentism.

Year2015
JournalAmerican Philosophical Quarterly
Journal citation52 (4), pp. 345 - 356
PublisherUniversity of Illinois Press
ISSN0003-0481
Scopus EID2-s2.0-84939630031
Web address (URL)https://www.jstor.org/stable/24475425
Page range345 - 356
Research GroupDianoia Institute of Philosophy
Publisher's version
File Access Level
Controlled
Place of publicationUnited States of America
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