Presentism and representation : Saying it without words

Journal article

Baron, Sam, Miller, Kristie and Tallant, Jonathan. (2023). Presentism and representation : Saying it without words. Synthese. 201(2), p. Article 36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03987-2
AuthorsBaron, Sam, Miller, Kristie and Tallant, Jonathan
Abstract

The Triviality Argument against presentism maintains that we should reject presentism because there is no way to define the view that is not either trivially true or obviously false. We suggest that this style of argument over-emphasises purely linguistic means of representing a philosophical thesis. We argue that there is no reason to suppose that all philosophical theses must be linguistically representable, and thus that the failure to linguistically represent presentism is no big deal. It certainly shouldn’t lead us to reject the view. We offer a more general moral for philosophy, and that is to look beyond purely linguistic methods of representing philosophical views and embrace a wider range of representational media.

Keywordspresentism; triviality argument; representation
Year2023
JournalSynthese
Journal citation201 (2), p. Article 36
PublisherSpringer
ISSN0039-7857
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03987-2
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85146539963
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Page range1-33
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File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online20 Jan 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted20 Nov 2022
Deposited20 Dec 2023
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