Why is Presentism Intuitive?

Metaphysica 24 (2):181-201 (2023)
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Abstract

Presentism is, roughly, the ontological view that only the present exists. Among the philosophers engaged in the metaphysics of time there is wide agreement that presentism is intuitive (or commonsensical) and that its intuitiveness counts as evidence in its favour. My contribution has two purposes: first, defending the view that presentism is intuitive from some recent criticisms; second, putting forth a genealogical (or debunking) argument aimed at depriving presentism’s intuitiveness of the evidential value commonly granted to it.

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Ernesto Graziani
Università di Macerata

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References found in this work

Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.
Four Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time.Theodore Sider - 2004 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):642-647.
Truth and ontology.Trenton Merricks - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Time, Tense, and Causation.Michael Tooley - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Debunking arguments.Daniel Z. Korman - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (12):e12638.

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